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branch of my education revolved around a baseball diamond or a basketball court. I celebrated when the Big Red Machine won their first pennant, listened to the Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier fight on the radio, and mourned the 1970 plane crash that killed seventy-five people from the Marshall University football team. That crash happened less than twenty-five miles from my house, and it was the most tragic event that happened close to us.
    When I was in seventh grade, I made what seemed to be a monumental decision in my burgeoning athletic career. I stopped playing basketball. The coach was stunned. “Cyrus, you could be the best player on the team,” he said. “Are you sure?”
    I was. I didn’t tell the coach this, but I felt bad when my mom and dad were trapped on the same bleachers, under the same roof, during my basketball games. Other sports were played outside and in spaces that allowed more distance, especially for my mom.
    “Sir, I think I should just focus on baseball and football,” I said.
    “Is that what you really want?” he asked.
    “I think it’s for the best,” I said with the utmost sincerity, trying to show that I had given this a lot of thought.
    Sports kept me confident and focused. Robbie Tooley and I tore up the football field. But baseball was my favorite because it brought out the warrior in me. Although I started out playing all positions, I had settled in at catcher by the time I was eleven.
    As soon as I strapped on my gear, I turned into a field general, a quarterback… and a scrappy one at that. My teammates called me Blood. I’d fight at the drop of a hat. If a batter struck out onthe third strike, I’d show him the ball, as if to say, “Here it is, here’s what you missed,” just to rile him up and get under his skin. Or if a runner slid into home plate with his cleats high, I made sure he got tagged first. As long as he was out, that’s all that mattered.
    I needed that toughness when Papaw Casto died suddenly after a massive heart attack. Not only did my heart overflow with sadness like I’d never known, but I was also passed over at about that same time for the baseball all-star team even though everyone knew I was the best catcher in the league. Crushed, I rode my bicycle to my papaw’s grave at the Flatwoods cemetery.
    I remembered my dad’s words—“Life ain’t fair.” But my papaw would have had something else to add. He was a baseball fan and had come to nearly every one of my games.
    “How could this have happened?” I said. “I miss you so much. I know if you were here you’d tell me something to make me smile.”
    I sat there for a long time, looking at the grass, slapping at insects buzzing past, and listening to the quiet. Before leaving the cemetery, I said a prayer.
    When I arrived home on my bike, the coach of the all-stars was there, talking with my mom and Cletis in the front yard. When he saw me, he stuck out his hand and said, “There’s my all-star catcher.”
    I stopped in my tracks. “What the—?”
    “We were looking at the team and realized you weren’t on it,” the coach said. “Everyone assumed you’d made it. We need you, son. You’re our catcher.”
    I broke out my supersize grin, looked over at my mom, then at Cletis, then at the coach, and finally up at the ceiling. “Thanks, Papaw,” I said silently.
    It wasn’t the last time I would think someone up high was keeping an eye on me.

CHAPTER 4

    Silence Speaks Louder than Words
    I WAS NEARLY A fourteen-year-old fugitive. A developer began building homes in the woods at the end of Long Street. I watched the bulldozers clear the trees and level the land. I was horrified and angered. That was sacred ground. I couldn’t fathom the loss of my sanctuary, the wooded retreat where I went to hide out and think. It was also where Indians had lived and hunted for hundreds of years before anyone thought of putting in dozens of one-story tract homes.
    Even if it was legal, it felt wrong, so