http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AvnQebTSdrS.jFmF5NAiWnsRvLYF?slug=ti-braden051410 ANAHEIM, Calif. – Frank Wanner, retired from the local school system, awoke from a nap mid-afternoon last Sunday. From habit, he turned on the television, hoping to catch the last few innings of a ballgame. It was the Oakland Athletics, like he hoped. As his fog cleared, Wanner was somewhat disappointed to see Dallas Braden(notes) on the mound. He’d forgotten it was Braden’s day to pitch and now he’d slept through most of it. Slowly, Wanner began to understand what was happening up the road in Oakland. His mind fell nine years back, to the cold and blustery day at the high school ballpark when Jodie Atwood last saw her son, Dallas, pitch. She’d been in a wheelchair by then, and under a pile of blankets that wouldn’t keep the chill away. Wanner, for so long the coach at Stagg High School in Stockton, Calif., didn’ t recall Dallas ever throwing a baseball harder than he did that afternoon. A scout from the Atlanta Braves was there, and Wanner was sure that was the day Dallas became a genuine prospect. He pitched his heart out, maybe hoping to leave his mom with something great to remember him by. As well as he pitched, Dallas lost that afternoon. He sat in the dugout afterward, staring at those new cleats Wanner had promised him if he’d gotten his grades together so he could play that one varsity season. On the wall behind him, painted in Stagg’s brown-and-yellow colors, the words Wanner had brought back with him from Vietnam: ”Deeds not words.” Around him, Dallas’ teammates cried for his disappointment, for his mom, the whole thing. When Jodie Atwood died from cancer, Wanner had driven over to the motel on March Lane, up against I-5. It’s where Dallas lived. He was out on the front curb, holding to his grandmother, refusing to let go, like he could keep her there if he just held her hard enough. On the television, Tampa Bay Rays hitters kept making outs. Dallas kept trotting to the mound, getting the ball, working fast, getting more outs. Wanner was sure he was more nervous than Dallas was. He’d retired after the baseball season in 2001, Dallas’ senior year. He was coming up on 60 years old, had a bright young assistant ready to take over the program, and figured he’d been a baseball coach for long enough. They’d missed the playoffs narrowly, losing the last game, the one he’d held out Dallas to use him as the closer. They’d lost by plenty, and Dallas never pitched that day. Wanner had seen Dallas pitch lots of times since, most of them on television, like this. He’d chuckled over the Alex Rodriguez(notes) dust-up, having seen that side of Dallas enough before he’d straightened himself out for his senior year. ”Really,” Wanner said, ”I couldn’t get through to him before that time. He had some real anger issues. But the quality he had, when he got on that rubber, it was on. I read where someone said that when Dallas is out there he has no fear. That’s true.” Along about the time Wanner could count the Rays batters remaining on one hand, goose bumps raised on his forearms. It was going to happen. He sensed it. The imperfect kid from the imperfect life and the imperfect town was going to be perfect, if just for a few hours. In fact, that whole imperfect town was starting to sense it. Camron and Mitchell Ratto, brothers first and teammates on the Red Sox in Stockton’s Hoover Tyler Little League second, spent that Sunday afternoon watching Dallas on television, too. Camron, 10, knew a no-hitter when he saw one; he’d pitched one as a 9-year-old, about the time he’d met Dallas. But then, they already thought of Dallas as perfect. He’d paid their way into Little League, had bought them cleats and gloves and bats, then had them up to Oakland to meet the rest of the A’s. So they squirmed in the playroom, where the TV is, while Dallas pitched into the ninth inning. ”He sponsored us,” Camron said, ”and taught us how to keep our balance in pitching. And to always keep working and hoping and to never give up.” Five nights later, the television had Dallas on again, against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night at Angels Stadium. This time, after five scoreless innings, he’d give up a run, then three more, but what Mitchell thought of was the afternoon last summer in the A’s clubhouse with Dallas, how cool that was, and how happy it made his mom. ”It was good and great,” Mitchell said. ”Awesome.” Tami Ratto is 43. The boys’ father had passed away, and now there was more work than time, and sometimes more bills than money. Dallas, the boy from area code 209, who’d had those numbers tattooed across his belly, who’d once clung so hard to baseball, had offered the same to her boys – a glove and a bat and a dream. He had made it work. They could, too. ”God has blessed us, truly,” Tami said. ”The TV came alive. And a hero walked into our lives. ”I’d raised my boys with an attitude, you work toward it and you can have it. The sky’s the limit. And then he showed them that. I told them and Dallas Braden showed them.” The last out came, and Dallas thrust his fist in the air, and Frank Wanner shouted with him. ”I love him,” Wanner said. ”I appreciate what he did, and certainly who he is.” … and Tami and Camron and Mitchell cheered with him. ”I wish the best for him,” Camron said, ”and to continue to pitch perfect games and sponsor kids like me. Hopefully, I can get to where he is right now. ” … because everybody had a little piece of that day. Dallas had paid it forward, played it forward even. Five days later, he gave up some hits, gave up some runs, and the A’s lost. He hated that. But, what a five days they were. What a life it’s been. ”Where I come from, it takes a village to raise a child,” Dallas said. ”My village did a pretty good job. That goes from Frank Wanner to my junior college coach to those little boys, Camron and Mitchell, to my grandmother and my mom.” He smiled a little sideways smile. He looked tired, but not beaten. ”It’s been a ride,” he said, ”that’s for sure.” --

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