I meet Dave at the Hi-Lo Grill and Billiard Hall, the lights of the office towers downtown are looming in the background a few blocks to the north as I walk in. It takes me a minute to shake off the early December night air and take in the bar. The Hi-Lo is one of those bars that doesn’t really get going until the small hours of the morning. It’s quiet now, the music of the jukebox at a volume reasonable for people to have conversations without screaming in each others ears. Later, long after we’re gone, people will gather in here shoulder to shoulder in one of the few bars in town that still allows smoking, and has no published closing time.

Brightly colored Christmas lights and silvery plastic snowflakes decorate the bar. The smell of last night’s burgers lingers near the grill. I squint in the darkness and see Dave at the far end of the bar. He sees me come in and waves at me in recognition. Sam Cooke is singing A Change Is Gonna Come on the jukebox. Dave and I aren’t close friends, just two people who enjoy a quiet drink in a bar that hasn’t changed in thirty years or so, and isn’t like those places closer to the river that cater to the weekend and tourist trade. It has an air of authenticity about it.

Usually when we talked about baseball it was in the past tense, pro ball having left town long ago when the Texas League folded along with Major League Baseball. But lately Dave’s been excited about the future, namely the future of his grandson, Darius, a teenager of exceptional talent, I’m told.

“Gonna start playing this spring at that fancy school I told you about,” says Dave.

“Wilson Classical Academy,” I say. “Yeah, I remember. He does alright in the classroom?”

“He does okay. Won’t have a fallback career at NASA, but he keeps up … mostly.” Dave takes a sip of beer and I order one for myself. “Third base,” he says. “Gonna be the best third baseman this state ever produced.”

I’m mostly respectful of a grandfather’s prerogative to brag on his only grandson, his daughter’s boy, but I can’t help but mention Brooks Robinson.

“Darius’ll be a better hitter,” says Dave confidently, “for sure. Still a little raw in the field, but boy he can fire that thing across the diamond. They tried to get him to try out to play quarterback for the football team in the fall, but his mother wouldn’t allow it. She’s a nurse and she runs that family like she runs that ICU, you better believe it. She’d sooner let her baby ride a bull in the rodeo than play football.”

As Darius approached his freshman year in high school the family faced a big decision. They had to decide whether to have Darius play his baseball locally and keep him close to home, or to accept an athletic scholarship to the private Wilson Classical. In the end, Darius’s mother, Linda, decided that at Wilson Classical the worst that could happen would be that Darius would receive a fine college preparatory education, regardless of whether the baseball actually led anywhere, getting the sort of help and attention that he might need to get into a university without an athletic scholarship. And so, last summer she packed up her only child and sent him away.

Round about the same time, Dave began to pay attention to the professional baseball of the present again, dreaming of what might be in store for his grandson. Dave adopted New Orleans as his team and perhaps regretted it when they finished at the bottom of the IL-Dixie. We took in a few of the post-season games at the Hi-Lo, and witnessed the first honest-to-God world championship in the history of the sport.

Dave produces a picture of Darius. It’s his first team photo at his new school. Darius is in the middle row, hat slightly askew, unsmiling, and his eyelids look like they’re at half-mast.

“That’s his tough-guy look,” says Dave with a chuckle. “Problem is that he’s too nice a kid to pull it off. His friends call him ‘Sleepy’, you know, after the cartoon character.”

He show’s me another photo of Darius in the classic baseball card batter’s stance, staring at the camera, his brow furrowed and a look of stern concentration on his face. This expression looks genuine to me, though, and serious. This one he pulls off.

“He’s all business at the plate,” says Dave, “and never gets in too much of a hurry. Cool as a cucumber.” He taps the team photo with his forefinger, “yeah, you go on calling him ‘Sleepy’ and thinking he’s all lackadaisical. That’s when he’ll sneak up on you and boom, over the fence goes the ball. Yes, sir.” Dave nods to himself, smiling, “look out, baseball, here comes Darius,” he declares, finishing his beer in a flourish.