What Love's Got To Do With It

Stand back now. Everything's assembled. The humility. The hunger. The perspective. The ability to stay relaxed when everyone else is in a knot. The arm that's been saved from throwing too many innings and too many curves—as so many of his peers have—ripe to soon begin throwing the slider. The body that's been melting off pounds ... 20, 30, 40 ... as he runs every day in private workouts and then again with the team, and growing two inches, to 6'2".

His third collegiate start, against powerhouse Wayne State, Coach Day notices a first-inning flutter from his radar gunner. "Coach," he reports, "we've got him throwing 92!"

Eureka! He's finally adjusting to his new body. Finding a repeatable delivery. Hitting the mitt as if he'll have to chase the ball if he doesn't. Allowing just five hits and losing 2--1 on two unearned runs.

Now comes the confidence. Ninety-three ... 94.... Now comes the glimmer in his eye, the bite in his curve. Now comes the shock at how suddenly everything starts happening, because no one has read the new assembly manual yet. No one knows about the torsion. Now comes the transfer to Nebraska and his stunning 2005 sophomore season when he takes the Huskers to the College World Series with a 10--2 record and a 2.81 ERA, the wildest ride the man on the scooter ever took. Ninety-five ... 96....

Now come the glowing scouting reports containing the beautiful paradox: The Big 12 Newcomer of the Year is the same guy volunteering to drag the L-screens and carry the ball buckets. Now comes the knee surgery, when the father becomes the boy's legs, awaking in the dead of night every few hours to get on crutches and change Joba's ice bags.

Now comes his first-round selection as a supplemental pick in the 2006 draft—41st overall, the second-highest a Native American has ever been chosen—and the $1.1 million signing bonus. Then the final touches to the mechanics, the control becoming laserlike. Ninety-seven ... 98....

Now the other major league teams come sniffing around, waiting for the Yanks to be the Yanks and to trade tomorrow for today. To trade another kid who might be good for another aging star who has to be good, with the paycheck and reputation he lugs into town. But their impatient, aging owner, George Steinbrenner, has relaxed his grip on the team, and their newly empowered, sager general manager, Brian Cashman, digs in when fans demand the instant fix, and the sniffers are all sent, Joba-less, away.

Now comes the biggest surprise of all this summer, the 21-year-old kid's four-level leap in one season, accomplished by few players in modern baseball: from Class A Tampa to Double A Trenton to Triple A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, where he astonishes with an 18-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, followed by the August call-up to the Yankees.

Now comes one more jump. For just these last two months of the season, the Yanks ask, can they switch him to the bullpen? Hell, yes. The kid's majored all his life in adapting.

Now comes that first step, that long step, from Cornhusker Highway into the house of gods: the Yankees clubhouse. He approaches Jason Giambi, whom he met when the first baseman had a rehab assignment in Trenton, and bear-hugs him. Then he starts picking Roger Clemens's brain with the deference of a freshman ... and busting on him as if they were high school teammates. Soon he's greeting Johnny Damon, "Hey, Beautiful!" because, well, that's who Damon is, and advising teammates as they enter the clubhouse door, "Team meeting at 5:45, boys!" as if he's the grizzled captain, and leaping and tapping the top of the door as he leaves like you do at home when you're 12 and first realize you can reach it. Going from 12 to 32 and back, justlikethat, which is what the Yanks find more remarkable than his fastball. Because they've seen plenty of kids come through who were older than their years and plenty who were younger, but never one who knew when to be each, and how to be both.