On this day 101 years ago – Sept.
19, 1913—an unknown amateur golfer made an 18-foot putt that transformed the
sport.
My motivation for writing the
children’s book
FRANCIS AND EDDIE (Why Not Books, 2013) didn’t necessarily come
from the fact that I think it ranks as perhaps the greatest underdog feat in
championship sports—the tale of Francis Ouimet beating the best golfers in the
world to win the U.S. Open. It wasn’t even because it struck me as the ultimate
local-boy-makes-good story—a kid who literally lived across the street from the
golf course in Brookline, Massachusetts, right near the 17
th hole.
He taught himself to play be sneaking onto the course in the dark and the rain,
taught himself so well that he qualified to compete in the national
championship, then sank an ultra-clutch putt on
that very 17th green to shock the world and catapult
golf onto the front pages for the first time.
No, that’s not why either. It’s
because of Eddie Lowery.
Ouimet’s prospects were so dim
that his regular caddie opted instead to carry the bag of a French pro,
figuring he could share in some prize money. During a practice round, a boy named
Jack Lowery had been an able replacement, but only minutes before Francis’s
scheduled tee time for his Tuesday qualifying round, Jack was nowhere to be
found. That’s when a tiny fellow, just four feet tall, came running up to the
practice green and offered five words that would launch an iconic partnership:
“I could caddie for you.”
Eddie Lowery was Jack’s little
brother. He was skipping school. He was ten years old. “My bag’s as big as you
are,” said Ouimet, but it could be that the golfer saw a bit of himself in the
boy, an underestimated kid reaching for respectability. Or, perhaps he figured
he had nothing to lose. “All right then, Eddie, let’s go,” he said. “Just
please call me Francis.” And that is how, over the next several days, a child
stood at the center of this extraordinary athletic saga.
There have been a great many
precocious athletes. Joe Nuxhall pitched in the major leagues, for the 1944
Cincinnati Reds, at age 15. In 1976, 14-year-old Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci
became an international sensation. In
August 2013, when she was still nearly two months short of her 11th
birthday, California native Lucy Li became the youngest person ever to quality
and compete in the USGA Women’s Amateur golf championship.
But that’s not what I’m celebrating
here.
There have been a good many times,
too, when kids have influenced play on the courts or fields. At the 2011 French
Open, for instance, a ball boy mistakenly ran onto the court during a point,
thinking the point was already over. At the same time, Victor Troicki was
completing an overhead smash against Andy Murray, but the point had to be
replayed. And Murray won it. But Troicki still won the game. So nothing really
changed.
Sometimes, however, the unexpected
appearance of a kid—as a replacement, a fan, an inspiration—has made all the
difference, occasionally even a historic difference. So here is a six-pack of
small wonders, starting with the earliest (and youngest):
1. Anonymous gold medalist (rowing, 1900, age
7)
One of the stranger chapters in
Olympic history occurred during the infancy of the modern Games at the 1900
Summer Olympics in Paris. It happened during a rowing event called coxed pairs,
which features boats with two rowers and one coxswain (the lightweight person
who sits in the boat and directs the rowers). Before the finals of the event,
the team from Holland decided that the coxswain they normally used was too
heavy. So legend has it that the decision-makers opted to replace him with a
young French boy that they plucked from the crowd. Naturally, it wouldn’t even
be close to allowable these days. The boy, whose name has been lost to history,
may have been as young as seven years old. But he and his new teammates won the
gold medal.
2. Eddie Lowery (golf, 1913, age 10)
At the 1913 U.S. Open, they made for an odd-looking pair, Francis Ouimet and
Eddie Lowery. The golfer was lanky and loose-limbed; the caddie was small even
for his age, ruddy-cheeked, with a hint of mischief in eyes peeking out from
beneath a white bucket hat. By the end of the tournament, they would be dressed
almost exactly alike, walking side by side, each bolstering the other. Francis
made Eddie feel important, and Eddie made Francis feel at ease amid the
maelstrom of world-class competition, even when they later spotted a gaggle of
dignitaries surrounding a particularly corpulent fellow in the gallery. All of
the anxiety that accompanies swinging a golf club in front of former President
William Howard Taft is diminished when your caddie asks, “Who’s the big fat
guy? He looks kinda familiar, doesn’t he?”
As Mark Frost, author of
TheGreatest Game Ever Played, put it, “It was almost as if somebody rubbed a
lamp and said, ‘Give me someone who will give Francis confidence.’ And the
perfect person shows up. He just happens to be half of Francis’s size.” Early
in their first round together, Francis turned to Eddie and said, “I think you
and I are going to be good friends.” Their friendship endured for more than
half a century.
3. Johnny Sylvester (baseball, 1926, age 11)
During the 1926 World Series, 11-year-old John Dale Sylvester asked Babe
Ruth to autograph a baseball. Sylvester, a fine ballplayer himself and a
diehard Yankees fan asked the favor of his idol from his hospital bed (a horse
had kicked him in the head, leading to life-threatening brain inflammation). On
a ball signed by every Yankee, Ruth wrote, with somewhat befuddling grammar, “I’ll
knock a homer for Wednesday’s game.”
He didn’t. He hit three in Game 4, an unprecedented feat. Was Ruth
motivated by the promise? Who knows? The Yanks actually wound up losing the
series, the last out coming when Ruth was thrown out attempting to steal second
base.
As for Sylvester (who lived to the age of 74 and became a business
executive), he found himself with some pretty sweet possessions, including an
autographed football from Red Grange and a tennis racket from Bill Tilden (sad
irony: Tilden was later revealed to be a pedophile). All three collectibles
went up for auction in on February 6, 2014, which would have been—no
coincidence—Babe Ruth’s 119th birthday.
4. Joe Relford (baseball, 1952, age 12)
It used to be that when a baseball
team was losing badly, frustrated fans would get a kick out of yelling, “Put in
the batboy!” But on July 19, 1952, Charlie Ridgeway, the manager of the Class D
Georgia State League’s Fitzgerald Pioneers, actually did it. With his team down
13-0, batboy Joe Relford stepped up to the plate as a pinch-hitter. He grounded
sharply to third to end the inning, but he followed that with an excellent defensive
play in centerfield. After the game, fans ran onto the field to congratulate
him, stuffing his pockets with money. Sadly, however, both the umpire and the
batboy lost their jobs that day, and the manager was fined and suspended—not
because Relford was 12, but because he was the first African-American player in
the league.
5. Jeffrey Maier (baseball, 1996, age 12)
Game 1 of the American League
Championship Series—October 9, 1996, Yankee Stadium. Bottom of the eighth
inning, and the Baltimore Orioles led 4-3. Young New York shortstop Derek Jeter
stepped to the plate and clubbed a long fly ball to deep right field. Baltimore
right fielder Tony Tarasco camped under it, ready to catch the near-miss.
Except that’s when 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier reached over the outfield fence
and plucked the ball into the bleachers. “And what happens here?” shouted
announcer Bob Costas. “The contention by Tarasco is that the ball is
descending, and the fan touches it. He’s right! He’s right!”
Replays confirmed that the ball likely
would have been caught by Tarasco, but umpire Richie Garcia ruled it a
game-tying home run. Maier was lifted on to the shoulders of fans in right
field. “Certainly, he’s affected the course of the game,” said Costas, to which
color commentator Bob Uecker added, “And maybe the Series!” Indeed, the Yankees
won the game in extra innings and went on to win the World Series, the first of
four New York titles in five years. Maier went on to play college baseball,
becoming the all-time hits leader for the University of Connecticut. But when
he was 12, one headline read: THE KID CATCHES ON AS NEW YANKEE HERO.
6. Nick Gilbert (basketball, 2011, age 13)
Nick Gilbert suffers from
neurofibromatosis, a nerve order that causes tumors to sprout on a whim. But
his father, Dan, is the owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, and he—along
with most of the fans in Cleveland—think Nick is one of the luckiest kids on
the planet. Or at least a good luck charm. In 2011 the 13-year-old stood there,
his eyes wide through his thick lenses, and represented the Cavs at the NBA
draft lottery. Cleveland had a 2.8 percent chance of drawing the top pick. Yet
that’s exactly what happened. Two years later, with Nick again serving as the
face of the franchise, they had a 15.6 percent chance of repeating the feat.
Once again, as Nick’s serious look contradicted the vibe of his maroon bowtie,
Cleveland again drew the top pick. Did Nick actually actively do anything to
make this so? Well, no. But as one sports columnist put it, “Certainly, there’s no skill involved when it
comes to hunching over a team-addled podium while waiting for your name to be
called. With Nick Gilbert, it’s about presence.”
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