One Shot at Forever (38 page)

I am, to the everlasting consternation of my father, somewhat of a liberal. Not the flaming type, mind you, because it is rumored there are fire hoses reeled up somewhere to deal with this element
.

So it did the heart a good beat to witness L. C. Sweet, with a hairstyle more suitable to a party at Rennie Davis' pad, coach his Macon team to the thirty-second Illinois State High School baseball tournament title game
.

Check that. Sweet denies being a coach at all, in which case here are congratulations to the first career English teacher ever to accept the runner-up trophy
.

The Ironmen aren't really a baseball team. They're a Crusade. If your imagination will allow you to hear the farmer and the hardware dealer join in singing “Power To the People” in the top of the sixth, you get the idea
.

The day of blind obedience in athletics (COACH: “Walk through that wall.” PLAYER: “Yes, sir. You are my coach and that is a great idea and I will most certainly enjoy doing that.”) will not long be with us
.

The Macons of this world will see to that. The Macons of this world, my friends, operate on a theory that doesn't include walking though walls just to prove a point
.

Class 1A
: Even with the lower level of competition, it took forty years for the Macon/Meridian baseball team to win another sectional title. In 2011, the team beat Danville to become sectional champs.

the shelf where the Ironmen's second-place trophy
: The irony of this is that while the Ironmen's trophy is gone, the case it resided in still bears the inscription “Given by student council 1984 in memory of F. Dwight Glan.”

Sweet is not an easy man to find
: All scenes and conversations in Part III of the book come from direct quotes or personal observation. I chose not to write it in the first person but, for attribution purposes, readers can assume I am in every scene henceforth.

lost to MacArthur
: In losing that game, Sweet says, “Again they put the bunt down on us and we couldn't execute.”

“the world made sense”
: An aside on this: When Sweet's father passed away in the late '80s, his politics had changed so radically that he was a Democrat.

he seems perplexed
: When it came to the story of the team, Sweet felt like he had already “lived the movie.”

Mitch Arnold
: His band is called Wayland and Mitch's goal (which I love) is to “bring back the guitar solo to rock and roll.” Growing up, his dad talked about Sweet often. Mitch remembers hearing about the “hippie, free-thinking coach who was a big reason why they won.” Stu described Sweet's methodology as “order out of chaos.” “I know he passed a lot of ideas on to my dad,” Mitch says.

the old names come up
: One I don't mention is Jane Metzger. She graduated from Illinois State, married in 1974 to become Jane Nelson, and went on to get a degree in physical education, just as she planned, and later a master's in business. Now she is an executive assistant and assistant director of research at an investment management company in Chicago.

doing exactly what you'd imagine
: The award Trusner has been a finalist for is the Glenn Sharp Award, given to the Equipment Manager of the Year by the Athletic Equipment Manager's Association.

led SIU to a third-place finish
: In accounts of Shartzer at the time, he was described as a “walking commercial for Red Man Chewing Tobacco.” When interviewed by local papers, he often brought up the responsibility he felt to his hometown. “A lot of people in Macon have really supported me and I'm pleased that I can make them happy with my performance so far at SIU,” he said. “The first thing I feel when I go hitless in a game is that I've let down my team and those back home who are rooting for me to do so well.”

Shartzer headed to Rookie League Ball
: For the people of Macon, this represented the culmination of the dreams Shartzer spoke of so often when he was a boy. Shartzer, who had always been close with the Glans, received this letter at the time:

Dear Steve
,

Glad for you that you have obtained your childhood goal
—
so few of us can do that. Hope you can make good at it, and as the Indian proverb is, “May the wind be always at your back.”

Love and Best Wishes

Grand “mom” Glan

Along the way
: When his mom contracted cancer and it became clear she was dying, Steve brought her into his home. “It was very important that I took care of her like she took care of me,” he says. She died in his home, in his bed. When Bob Shartzer was also hit by cancer a few years later, Steve says he again refused to let his father be taken anywhere else.

while playing in the low minors
: Curiously, I could find no record of Wronk's minor league career in the various baseball databases. When I mentioned this to him, he replied in an email: “Don't feel bad about not finding my minor league career. Friend and family (my children) have looked me up and can't find me. Oh, well, I have my memories.”

Greg Walsh
: Greg told a story about how his older brother, Terry, was in Vietnam during the 1971 state tournament. Forty years later, when my
Sports Illustrated
article about the Ironmen came out, Terry called Greg. “What the fuck?” Terry said. “I thought you won.” Which is when Greg broke the news: “Terry, we just told you we won because you were in Vietnam.”

remains conflicted
: In 2010, when the
Sports Illustrated
story came out, the Ironmen players loved it. Shartzer, however, couldn't bring himself to read it. He got phone calls, received emails, and heard from his daughter. It took six months until he finally sat down and read it.

bought a beach house
in Alabama: Shartzer is still a teacher, now focusing on American history, from the Civil War to the modern era. In many regards, he is the sum of Burns and Sweet. He tries to make students think for themselves, to challenge them like Sweet did. But then a little Burns always comes out when kids complain about how and why they can't get something done. “I'm from a town of eighty people, what you gonna tell me you can't do?” Shartzer will say. “Piss in my ear and tell me it's rain—ain't gonna happen.” And if the kid's still apathetic, Shartzer lets loose. “Go ahead, be stupid the rest of your life,” he'll say. “But understand that somebody cared, somebody tried, and you're now making a choice.”

“let down all those people”
: Even his sister, Patty Shartzer, can't understand it. “I hope someday he realizes all the positive feelings people have about that ball club. He might have let himself down, but he didn't let me down, or Mom or Dad, or anybody I know.”

“the following Saturday afternoon”
: Shartzer was in fine form on this day. In returning to Macon, I think he was also perhaps trying to return to his former self. At the time, I was driving down from Chicago, with plans to meet the three of them at Sweet's place around 4:30
P.M
. or so. At 3:30, I received a text from Shartzer. It read “Are you going to forfeit this beer match? Sweet, Goose, and I are way ahead.”

It was an honor
: Another thing Shartzer said that struck me: “He loved us boys, godalmighty he loved us, and we loved him—and we still do.”

trophy on the top shelf
: When the trophy cases were emptied at Macon High, the trophy needed a home. The owner of the gas station agreed to display it.