She saw him then, when he was befriending the maintenance staff and stealing couches (as a prank) at college. She sees him now, his stock soaring, his flock spreading, his name splashed across the Internet and the papers, and a future within sight.
His wife, Meryl, tells a story. They stood recently in a Sunday school class, this pastor's son and his pretty wife. The leader spoke about him, echoing what Justin Masterson has always known about himself, or at least since those seventh-grade girls chided and mocked him into running off his huskiness. Good job, the leader said. Good looks. Good family. Good wife.
You should hate him. You don't, though. You can't help it.
And then you ask, just because everything is there for him, just because he is talented and intelligent and a month away from turning 23. You ask if all this - his promotions through the Red Sox' minor league system, his invitation to his first big-league camp, his locker spot down the row from Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka - is overwhelming.
You wait for him to say yes. You wait for him to say what all the prospects have said all the times they've been asked the question.
"I'd love to say that it is, just because it sounds cool when you say it's a little overwhelming," Masterson says. "I mean, I can't really go with that. Just because this is where I feel like I'm supposed to be.
"It's like when you're doing something and everything's just clicking right. I'm not saying everything's going right or I'm doing everything perfect. But it's just - I feel comfortable."
A few drawbacks
There is no perfection, not when the slider still needs work, not when you're between Double A and Triple A status and it's not certain where you'll start the season. Not when the whispers among the crowds gathered to seek autographs reflect a desire to know exactly who the tall, bald kid is who has just signed their baseballs. Because he hears the whispers, he knows that the only reason they all know his name is that he was almost gone.
