MILWAUKEE -- The hitting guru was in the middle of a lesson when 12-year-old Eric Thames knocked on his door. Thames had run the three miles to Joe Bettencourt's San Jose, Calif., home with bat in hand, just as he would do the next day and the day after that, and for years after that, until Thames was old enough and strapping enough that Bettencourt suggested it might not be the best idea for a young man to be running city streets with a baseball bat.
The notion had never occurred to Thames. All he could think about was hitting.