Page 27 of Double Play

“I would.” A tingling anticipation filled her. “I guess it’s anotherdatethen.”

“Two dates in one day. I like the pace we’re setting here.” He winked at her. “Okay, where are we headed for datenumberone?”

“Thehospital.”

She tookhim right to the Children’s Wing, to a teenage support group she’d visited over the past few days. Having spent so much time in hospitals as a kid, she made it a point to volunteer as an adult. Dwight hesitated when she ushered him into the solarium, which was filled with kids lounging on couches and foldingchairs.

“They don’t want me,” he whispered. “I just face-planted onnationalTV.”

“They do want you,” she told him firmly. To prove it, she introduced him to the facilitator of the group, Michelle, a wonderful social worker she’d gotten to know. An older black woman, Michelle gave him a hug then pulled him to the center oftheroom.

“Kids, this is Dwight Conner. Remember how we were talking about himyesterday?”

The teenagers nodded and mumbled a chorus of “yeses.”

“Who wants to tell him what we were saying? What we wanted to saytohim?”

A girl with a shaved head spoke. “That it’s okay to sucksometimes.”

Michelle laughed. “That pretty much says it.Whatelse?”

“Don’t let it keep you down,” a boy in a wheelchair added. “It’s gonnagetyou down. But it don’t have tokeepyoudown.”

“Right. Bad things happen, we all know that. What matters is what you do next.” She turned to Dwight, whose jaw was flexing with some kind of emotion. “They watched your interview after the last game,” she explained. “They thought it was very classy. They were inspired by you. Well done,child.”

Dwight’s mouth twisted in a kind of wince. Maybe he didn’t want to be known for his failure. But that was the whole point—he didn’t have to see it asfailure.

“Anything you want to say to these kids?” Michellepromptedhim.

“Sure.” His throat worked for a moment, and Maggie fought the urge to take his hand. Dwight was the most outwardly expressive man she’d ever known. Watching him struggle to speak through his obvious emotion made her heartswell.

“Here’s the thing about baseball,” he finally said. “The best player in the game fails over half the time. Strikes out, flies out, ends up on their ass in the dirt, what have you.” That reference to one of his disasters made the kids laugh. “It’s a humbling thing, because it sucks to strike out. But you figure, every single baseball player, even the greats, the legends, they all have one thing in common. They failed more than half the time. So what does thattellyou?”

The kids were listening with full attention, even those with earbuds dangling around theirnecks.

“It means that Dwight Conner is more than a record bad start. Dwight Conner is more than that one time a fly ball bounced off my head.” He pointed to the boy in the wheelchair. “You are more than your wheelchair, even though that’s one of the slickest I’ve seen.Youare more than your cast. All of you are more than this time in your life that you’re going through right now. Not to say it doesn’t matter. It still matters.Becausewhy?”

The kids were now sitting straight upright, totally energized by his passionate presentation. Chills went up and down Maggie’s arms as shelistened.

“Because we’re going to take these bad times and they’re going to make us stronger and wiser. Because we, all of us here, know something important. Something not everyone gets. Anyone want to finish that thoughtforme?”

The boy in the wheelchair raised his hand. “We know how tobesad?”

“My man.” Dwight stepped forward to give him a high-five. “Life is easy when everything’s going your way, right? When it isn’t, when you strike out or you’re stuck in the hospital, that’s when it’s hard. That’s when you dig deep and get strong and when you come out the other side, you might find that things look a little different. That it’s not always about winning or losing, but how you hold yourheadup.”

He shifted his tone to his more familiar joking one, the one everyone associated with Dwight Conner. “And you know how I holdmyhead up—right where a ball can bounceoffit.”

The spellbound kids burst into laughter. The atmosphere in the room was electric, as if those kids were ready to get up and dance, illnesses be damned. Dwight crouched down to talk more with thewheelchairboy.

Tingling from head to toe, Maggie wiped a tear from her eye. Michelle gave her a friendly one-armedhug.

“He is something else, that one,” the social worker said. “He comes in here a lot, and the kids get so inspired. Sometimes I think he missed hiscalling.”

Maggie wondered the same, but she would never say such a thing out loud. Especially because she still hadn’t run Dwight through her program again. All the data from San Diego would affect the new outcome, but she really wasn’t sure how. And she didn’t want to know, because then that information would be hanging over every exchange she had withDwight.

They didn’t leave until Dwight had talked to each teenager one on one and signed whatever they wanted signed. After they left the hospital, as the overheated outside air enveloped them, Dwight asked quietly, “How didyouknow?”

“Knowwhat?”

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