Fade to white...

As he trots past the pitcher’s mound toward the dugout, he stops to pick up a stray baseball. Just as he does, a teammate in the batting cage beckons him to throw him a pitch before players leave the field.

He reluctantly steps to the rubber, tossing the ball in the air once, his mind drifting back to his days years ago as a flamethrowing southpaw, before the shooting that not only ended his career as a pitcher and completely as a player, but almost took his life.

He kicks high, then fires a pitch. Before he knows it, the ball is on... then past... the overmatched batter, whose head turns to see the ball, which was thrown with such velocity it breaks through most of the threads at the back of the batting cage, hanging there, still rocking from pure force of which it was thrown.

For a moment, everyone in the entire ballpark is stunned into a freeze-frame, not sure how to gauge what they had just witnessed. One by one, each and every set of eyes in the stadium then turns from the baseball lodged in the back of the cage to the pitcher, who shakes his head, grabs his side and strides off the mound toward the dugout.

“Did you see that?!” the coach in the dugout says to the manager.

Roy Hobbs, The Natural, had just provided one of those moments only the true greats can stage.

Fade to black...



Fade to white...

The pitch speeds toward the plate, but it’s coming in too high. No way that’s going to be hit. Heck, it might hit the backstop on the fly.

Suddenly, the kid in the box takes his bat from here to there in the blink of an eye. The bat makes contact with the baseball, which rockets into the summer air, clearing the 200-foot fence in left-center by a good 30 feet.

The pitch was a foot above the batter’s head.

“Are you kidding me?” manager Jason Cicon said. “How do you teach that?”

“You don’t,” the guy standing next to him said through a laugh and a shake of his head in response to the query. “You can’t teach that. You wouldn’t teach that because you can’t.

“But you wouldn’t dare change it, either.”

The guy who said that was Scott Barber, the greatest high school baseball hitter Ashtabula County has ever produced. He of the .699 batting average in 1985 for coach Rick Havens’ Falcons.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Fade to black...



Jeremiah Knight hit three home runs in four at-bats in a tournament game on June 13. In his other at-bat, he struggled.

He hit a double.

He has clubbed five homers during competition this spring and summer, four more in practice.

He’s batting better than .800 this season, so he’s slumping.

Last season, he hit better than .900.

He stands 4-foot-11.

He weighs 80 pounds, though that appears to be a bit generous.

He’s hobbling around on a gimpy right ankle.

Oh, by the way, he’s 10 years old.



Family ties

Jeremiah comes by his athletic talent honestly. His dad, the late John Knight, who died at age 46 on May 6, is regarded by most who saw him in any athletic endeavor during his days as a kid in Jefferson as the best they’d ever seen at that age. His mom, Dana, was a standout distance runner during her high school days.

His older brother, Johnny, who just turned 15 last Tuesday, was clocked at throwing 69 mph from 40 feet at the state Little League tournament two years ago in Boardman, crashing a grand slam in the same game.

But Jeremiah is different... in a good way.

Just ask his mother.

“Jeremiah was born to do these kinds of things,” she said. “His first step was running.

“At age 2, he was collecting the bats and helmets in the dugout.

“At age 3, he was swinging bats, hitting balls and throwing pitches.

“And at age 4, he was waking up, putting his uniform on and going out and organizing games in the back yard with all the other kids in the neighborhood, even the older ones.”

Not only is he a prodigy in baseball, but pretty much in everything he picks up.

“He has the best combination of power and speed at that age I’ve ever seen,” Barber said. “Jeremiah has abilities that can’t be taught. You have them, or you don’t... and 99 percent of us don’t.

“He does.”

That was clearly evident last fall. During the midget football season, Jeremiah ran for 24 touchdowns in leading the Jefferson Falcons White to the Super Bowl title.

“I love baseball, but I love football even more,” he said. “I just like it. I know my dad was a running back, too.”

Having just finished the fourth grade at Jefferson Elementary with two A’s and four B’s on his report card, Jeremiah also plays basketball and in his rare down times, likes to get on the computer or hang out with his buddies, though most of the time they wind up playing one sport or another.

“We want to be good,” he said of his posse of pals. “We want to go to state in all-stars this summer.”



Time shared

Jeremiah didn’t have much time with his dad, who died after a long battle with cirrhosis of the liver, but he admits he’s heard things.

“A lot of people tell me how good he was... how he could have gone to the pros,” he said. “He didn’t talk about that much, but a bunch of people have said that to me.

“I hope I can be as good as he was.”

He said the final conversation he had with his dad was very hard on him.

“The last thing he told me was that he loved me,” Jeremiah said. “My mom has really helped me. It’s been hard.”

Have more than a few tears been shed?

“Yeah, I cried a lot,” he admitted. “But Mom and my brother have really helped me.”

So has his love of the game.

“Jeremiah came to the ballpark the morning of his dad’s calling hours and went out and pitched a 1-hitter,” Cicon said. “I told Dana, that was the best game I’ve seen him pitch in the two years I’ve coached him.”

After the game, Jeremiah joined his family at his dad’s service.

“The ballpark was the best place for him,” his Dana said. “I know it might appear strange to some that that’s where he was that morning, but it’s where Jeremiah is most comfortable, so it made perfect sense.”

She said it wasn’t easy to explain John’s death to Jeremiah.

“I told him, ‘Your dad’s not suffering anymore,’” she said. “I knew that was the hardest part for him and Johnny — watching John suffer during the last year.”

Dana, who praised Cicon as being “a wonderful coach and sounding board” for her youngest, said she’s noticed something different about Jeremiah since his dad’s death.

“He quietly makes the sign of the cross before he steps into the batter’s box,” she said. “We’ve always been strong on faith in our family. It’s important to us. And I think it’s even stronger now than ever, especially for Jeremiah.”



An even keel

Those close to Jeremiah say they don’t expect the off-the-charts success he’s enjoying on various athletic fields to change his demeanor.

“No way,” Barber said. “Johnny and Jeremiah are both such great kids. Dana has done a wonderful job with them.”

“Jeremiah is very quiet off the field,” Cicon said. “I give Dana a lot of credit. She has the boys in church every Sunday morning.

“Johnny and Jeremiah are both wonderful kids.”

But Barber said there is something inside Jeremiah... something to watch for when he’s playing sports.

“The young man has a killer instinct... something that is impossible to teach,” he said. “He simply won’t accept failure.

“It’s something only a few are born with.”

His mom agrees.

“On game days, he can’t wait to get to the field,” Dana said. “He puts his uniform on right away and charges around the house, counting down the time until we leave.”

“I just love to play,” Jeremiah said. “It doesn’t matter against who, I just want to play.”

How about those three home runs?

“Well, I pretty much knew they were gone when I hit ’em,” he said. “You can tell when you hit it just right whether it’s going to go far or not.”

“I can’t believe they kept pitching to him,” Cicon said.

“They probably tried not to,” Barber said. “But it’s almost impossible to get a pitch past him because he has an unlimited strike zone. On top of that, he can hit any pitch and, even more, when he makes contact, the ball just jumps off his bat.”



Fade to white...

During practice Tuesday night, a ball is hit over his head in center field to the fence at Franley Field. Jeremiah hobbles to the barrier on his gimpy right ankle, and in one motion picks it up and fires it toward third base.

The third baseman prepares to move up to catch the throw.

But he doesn’t have to.

The ball lands in his glove.

Right on top of the bag.

“Nice throw, Jeremiah!” Cicon yells from behind home plate.

He doesn’t say a word, just hobbles back to his position.

The sports writer, who was best friends with Jeremiah’s dad during their junior-high days and teammates on the Tigers, watches this unfold from just behind the center field fence.

He shakes his head, then shudders a bit. A feeling of deja vu comes over him.

Fade to black...



McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite24.net.