Chapter 5

We had the Devil Rays in for a three-game series, the second game of which was scheduled for that night. The Orioles' hitting coach, B. J. Surhoff, sat down beside me in the dugout before the game and opened up a bottle of berry-flavored water. "Would you do me a favor?" he said.

"Sure. What you need?"

"It's Tough Shit," Surhoff said. "He won't listen to me about his hitting."

Surhoff was referring to our kid left fielder, T. S. Williams, a second-year player with good skills and a good heart. Everybody called the kid "Tough Shit" because of those initials he tried to get us all to use, in lieu of his name.

The kid's parents, evidently in a fit of admiration for the great Red Sox slugger, had given in to their natural advantage of having the last name "Williams" and had named their beloved first-born son "Theodore Samuel Williams" -- exactly the name earlier assigned to the Splendid Splinter himself.

I imagined that, if the kid's Daddy had ever thought, even for a minute, that his son would someday actually make it to the Bigs, he'd have exercised better judgment and just named the kid "John," or some such. "Roger Williams," maybe; or even "Sherwin." Hell, even "Cindy Williams" would have worked better. Anything but "Ted." But here the kid was, Ted Williams, all over again, and trying to live it down.

For the same kind of reasons a fledgling minister wouldn't want to have the name "Jesus Christ" as his personal moniker, our little reincarnation of the Greatest Hitter of Them All had encountered some early pain and suffering, owing to his given name. The kid had enough sense never to refer to himself as "Ted" Williams, and instead had tried to get everyone to call him "T.S."

Well, that wasn't so unusual. There had been K.C. Jones, the Celtics basketball great. In baseball, we had C. C. Sabathia, and J. D. Drew, and even our own batting coach, the aforementioned B. J. Surhoff. Lots of jocks used initials in lieu of first names.

But some wag got to calling our "T.S. Williams" by the much-more-fun name of "Tough Shit," and, naturally enough, that had rapidly become his nickname-for-life.

Probably not exactly what old Dad had in mind.

Anyway, I asked Surhoff what the problem was with the kid's hitting. I knew Tough Shit was hanging in there at around .282, and that he'd finished the previous year at .277. Not at all shabby.

"I'd like you to watch his swing," Surhoff said. "The little fucker is a natural. He's got a gorgeous cut at the ball, and good plate discipline, and he ought to be showing some real power. But he hit eight homers last year. Eight homers, as our every-day left fielder!"

"He hit almost .280, though, didn't he?"

"Yeah. His average was fine, but the kid's a banjo hitter, and he's got that sweet stroke, and he's just wasting it! He's denying it, and just poking at the ball. He thinks he's Arkansas' answer to Ichiro Suzuki, or the second coming of Josh Brennan. God, Zeke, let Josh hit singles for us! Tough Shit should be good for 30, 35 homers, with that stroke."

"He's not that big," I pointed out. I figured Williams to be maybe 5-9, 180, soaking wet.

"Ernie Banks was, like 180 pounds, too," Surhoff said. Banks was maybe a little taller, I think, than the kid is, but still. Ernie hit 47 homers one year. He hit forty-some another year, too. Hit over 500 homers, and he was just as thin and rangy as anything."

"But, c'mon, B.J.! The Ernie Bankses don't come along every day," I said. "Kinda early to think of Tough Shit as another Ernie Banks."

"Just do me a favor, and watch him. Watch him close, when he's up there," Surhoff urged. "Watch him for a few days, and then tell me what you think. Me, I think this guy needs to learn to be a power hitter, I don't care how small he is."

"I'll watch him," I said.

"And if you decide to talk to him about it," Surhoff said, "don't tell him it came from me. I am just the old-fart hitting coach. My playing career? To him, it's just some lines he'll never look up, in the Baseball Encyclopedia. He won't listen to me, because his precious old man told him he was a singles hitter."

"You seem pretty sure I'm going to agree with you about this," I said.

Surhoff just smiled. "The way you hit the ball? Hell, yes, I'm sure. You just watch him."

Well, I did watch the kid, for that whole series, and Surhoff was dead-on. But it wasn't Ernie Banks the kid reminded me of, it was the old Astros star, Jimmy Wynn. I'd seen films of Wynn's amazing whipping action at the plate, and the way he had powered the ball in that big old park he'd played in down in Houston, back in the early 1970s. Jim Wynn was still the stuff of legend, down Houston way. The sportswriters used to call him "The Toy Cannon."

I looked up his record. Wynn had been 5-9, 170. Smaller and lighter, even, than our own Tough Shit Williams. Wynn had never hit as many homers as Ernie Banks, but he'd hit more than thirty -- in three different seasons -- and he'd hit them in big ballparks, and in a relatively dead-ball era, dominated by pitching. If he were around today, he'd have been good for forty, easy.