Chris Ballard - One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season

A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season

Chris Ballard

To Alexandra, Callie, and Eliza,

who make this all worthwhile

Chris Ballard finds the heart in the heartland, in this inspirational tale of a small-school ball club that reaches for glory.

Edward Achorn, author of Fifty-nine in 84

Part One
Welcome to Macon

Part Three
Ghosts

Out in the corn country of central Illinois the clouds stretch forever, thick and soft, as if painted onto the sky of an old-time movie set. Below them lies Route 51, two lanes thatll take you to Chicago in three hours or St. Louis in two if you really gun it. Years ago you had no choice but to drive through each of the rural outposts along the highway, but now the road has bypasses, so the towns wash past, invisible but for a water tower, maybe a church spire. Moweaqua. Radford. Dunkel. Theyre just names on turnoff signs.

Macon appears no different. It flashes by in less than a minute, marked only by an exit and a sign that reads A C ITY OF P ROGRESS B UILT ON P RIDE , E ST . 1869. A glance down the streets, beyond the town marker that reads P OPULATION 1,200, suggests progress has slowed of late. The Macon Motel, hard by the highway, is a run-down, one-story building with a plastic billboard that, in listing the amenities, reads only PHONE . A bit farther down the road, the battered faade of the Whits End, the towns only restaurant, is visible, promising C ARRY -O UT B EER .

Its worth pulling over here, though, just off the exit at Andrews Street. Head into the P&V Quickstop, the one next to the Dollar General store, and look past the tank-topped blonde at the cash register, the one with the sad eyes whos working her gum as if she needs it to last the whole afternoon. Keep going, above the dusty disposable cameras and the C OPENHAGEN sign, and youll see it, up on the highest shelf, scuffed and dulled, its miniature batter frozen in midswing.

The cashier doesnt even know the trophy is there, just shrugs and chews when its pointed out. Then again, shes never heard the story of the Macon High Ironmen of 1971, knows nothing about their unlikely coach and the most improbable, magical season in the history of Illinois high school baseball. Plenty of people around here dont.

After all, a lots changed in Macon since then. Many of the family farms have been bought up by big business. Commuters moved in from Decatur, twenty minutes to the north. Schools consolidated. When Macon High became Meridian High in 1994the same brick buildings just with new signs slapped on themthe basements and trophy cases were emptied of memorabilia.

Now the story of the Ironmen must live on in other ways. Through the white-haired man down at the Whits End, the one with stacks of old news clips. Through the stooped newspaper reporter up in Decatur. Through the third base coach in the dugout of the Atlanta Braves, the one who still listens to the teams old fight song on the drive to spring training every year. And most of all, through the quiet, hazel-eyed man, his hair now gray, his hips rickety, who sometimes stops by the P&V late at night to steal a glance up at the piece of his life that remains on that shelf.

Standing there, peering up, the man sometimes wonders how one long-forgotten season can hold so much power. How its memory can lift up some men but haunt others. How it can continue to change so many lives.

The grain elevator in downtown Macon,
the skyline of the town

Herb Slodounik, Decatur Herald

Bob Fallstrom had to read the sheet twice, and still he didnt believe it. Was this some sort of joke? The work of a smartass kid?

By 1971 Fallstrom had been at the Decatur Herald & Review for twenty-two years and had spent the bulk of that time covering small-town high school sports in central Illinois. Over the years hed seen plenty. Hed covered future major leaguers like Bill Madlock and farm boys whod never seen a curveball. Hed dealt with coaches who were autocrats, coaches who were assholes, coaches who didnt know their own players names, and, once, a married coach who skipped town on the day of a big game with the school nurse. But hed never seen anything like this.

In his hand, Fallstrom held a rumpled survey returned by L. C. Sweet, the baseball coach at Macon High, a tiny school twenty minutes south of Decatur that had enjoyed surprising success the previous season. For Fallstrom, who was both the sports editor and lead columnist at the Herald & Review, the survey was a way to avoid spending weeks calling the coaches at the fifty-odd schools his paper covered. The form included lines for batting order and schedule, the coachs lifetime record, and then, at the bottom, a few questions about team strengths and weaknesses. It was boilerplate stuff, and by now Fallstrom knew what to expect: coaches talking up their players and, when possible, inflating their own credentials. And who could blame them? Everyone wanted to look good in the Herald & Review, which was the only daily paper for dozens of small towns and held tremendous sway in central Illinois. As the saying went in the newsroom, If its in the Herald & Review sports section, it must be true.

This was different though. Fallstrom called over Joe Cook, his right-hand man in the sports department.

What do you make of this? Fallstrom said, handing over the sheet. Make sure to read the whole thing, down to the bottom.

Cook scanned the answers, then broke out laughing. There, at the end of the survey, under the heading of Team Weaknesses, Sweet had written the following word: Coaching.

Lynn Sweet never set out to be a baseball coach, and he certainly never dreamed hed live in a place like Macon. In fact, when he got the call from Macon principal Roger Britton in the fall of 1965 inviting him to interview for a job teaching English, the first thing Sweet did was ask where, exactly, the town was.

A week later, Sweet threw on a coat and tie, hopped into his brown 58, six-cylinder Ford Customline and hit the road, heading south from Chicago. As he drove, the city faded away, replaced by endless miles of denuded cornfields, the splintered stalks poking out of the hard earth like blond stubble. Every once in a while, Sweet breezed through a town, but mostly it was just him and that big blue sky. To pass the time he rolled down the windows, letting the cool air fly through his hair, and hummed a song about a Tambourine Man. He wasnt quite sure where he was going, but that was fine. He rarely was.