What Love's Got To Do With It

Patience. The boy's finally starting to grow. Five-ten ... 5'11".... Applaud him for wrestling his junior year. Watch his work habits start to catch up with his passion.

Nurture that passion. It's everything. All those fist thrusts and joy leaps and funky dugout dances Joba does. Let him sit on the bench and stare into forever after a grim game. Then motor up quietly and say, "All right, let's move on." Something's burning deep inside him—cup that flame! How many kids would etch in the dirt the number of a teammate who died of brain cancer back when they were 12, the way Joba does for Nate Raun? How many would ink that kid's name and a big crucifix on the bill of their ball caps, along with the initials of teammates' deceased parents and a friend of his father's, Wally Gant, who contributed money so the boy could afford to play ball, and a list of all his family members, and the words BELIEVE and HAVE FAITH?

Watch the flame begin to emerge and flicker his senior year, when he reaches six feet and his fastball hits 82 mph on the radar gun. Just enough to persuade his new coach at Northeast High, Bill Fagler, to remove his name from the mound embargo list, and watch him respond with a 3--2 record and a 3.35 ERA. Nice but nothing spectacular, nothing to make Mike Anderson—the coach of Joba's hometown idols, the Nebraska Cornhuskers—or any other Division I coach give him a call. Still too slow and chunky, he and his fastball both.

Finish the big lessons about the little things. Hand the boy a Weed Eater, a rake and a mop after he graduates high school. Give him a summer and autumn of grooming ball fields and swabbing ballpark toilets for the Lincoln Parks and Rec Department, and chipping in to pay the family's bills, when he still can't locate the pathway to his dream.

Patience. This is a torsion spring-loaded device, still being wound. Even now, when the boy's manicuring ball fields instead of tearing 'em up, keep telling him, "You're one of the best, son. You're going to do it when you're ready. You have the talent and the love—you've just got to believe it." Even when the son's saying, "Dad, be real! You're going to say that, you're my dad. That's your job."

Even when he shows up a semester late, in 2004, at Division II Nebraska-Kearney after its new coach, Damon Day—desperate for pitchers—sees a 272-pound kid throwing 84 mph at a baseball camp and offers him a scholarship ... and Joba disintegrates, surrendering four walks in a third of an inning in his first start, and 11 runs in an inning and a third in his second one. Because....

"If you just believe in something enough," the man on the motor scooter keeps telling him, "if you endure the trials and tribulations and learn from them, nothing is insurmountable. Nothing."

And how can that boy tell that man it's not true?

V

OPERATION