there when I got back. I was afraid to go to school, and afraid to walk into the house after I got out.
Even at nine, I was a bundle of nerves. The constant apprehension about Mom was only the beginning. I worried about everything. I worried about school and about my playmates liking me and about what we were going to have for dinner and about how my dad would be feeling when I got home. Each June I worried about getting promoted and each September I worried about my new teacher.
The older I got, the more I worried. When I was in the sixth grade, I made the Sacred Heart baseball team. I was the youngest boy on the club, but I was the best fielder in school, and Bobby Ray, the coach, put me in center field. I couldn’t wait to play every day, and if something came up to prevent our practicing or having a game, I was bitterly disappointed. One day, we couldn’t practice because we didn’t have a ball.
“We won’t let this happen again,” said Bobby. “From now on, each boy will contribute a dime and that will give us enough to buy a ball.”
The kids went home for money, and we chipped in enough for a ball. But after that, I took it upon myself to make sure we had one. I was the one who always collected the money and bought the ball because I was afraid nobody else would do it, and then we wouldn’t be able to play. I was always worried about not being able to have a game. If the weather was threatening when I got up in the morning, I fretted all through school, worrying about rain. If a sudden storm came up while we were playing, I huddled in a corner and prayed that it would stop.
I got to be a long-distance worrier as well as a short-term worrier. I worried just as much about what might happen in ten years as I did about what might happen in two hours. Outside of the everlasting worry about my mom, my biggest concern was whether or not I’d ever be big enough or good enough to play major-league baseball. My father had put the idea in my head, but it became the one burning ambition of my life. I was just as anxious to make it as he was to see me do it.
His praise meant more than anything else to me. The first time he ever saw me play in a game, I rushed over to him after it was over and said, a little breathlessly, “Dad, did I do all right?”
“I think you did fine, son,” he answered in his gruff voice. “You made mistakes, but you’ll always make mistakes. Even big leaguers do that. Nobody ever plays the game perfectly.”
That was enough for me. My dad was satisfied that I had done all right. As we walked home together, I was proud and happy. His standards were strict, and I had measured up to them. Nothing was more important to me than that.
B ACK WHEN I WAS about seven, the milkman on our route had said to me one morning, “How would you like to give me a hand delivering milk? I’ll pay you thirty cents a day. All you have to do is work an hour and a half every morning before school.”
I asked my father that evening if it would be all right.
“We get along,” he said. “You don’t have to work. You’re too young. Besides, I want you free to play baseball.”
“Please, Dad,” I said. “It will only be in the morning. I’ll give you the money and you can save it for me.”
“Well—all right. I’ll put it aside for your school clothes.”
That was my first job. I got up at six-fifteen in the morning and met the milkman in front of the house half an hour later. I worked until quarter past eight, delivering milk in the neighborhood, then went to school. The thirty cents I got every day looked like a lot of money to me. I gave it to my dad at night, and he put it away for me.
Later in the year, I had a chance to get a Saturday job delivering groceries for a market down the street. When I asked my dad about it, he said, “You can take it, but be sure to tell them you can work all day only during the winter. Come spring, you’re going to play baseball in the afternoon.”
“Can I