DALLAS, Ga. — For most of his 30 years, almost all of them in fact, these are the kinds of baseball players Tony Boyd has coached.
Here, on the mound: the big kid with the big delivery, grunting as he throws a heater that tops out at 80 mph. There, on the basepaths: the skinny kid who coaxed the ball into the gap with a mighty swat, then advanced to third on the throw and on home when the ball skipped away.
You can lead a full, satisfying, entirely rewarding career coaching kids like that in the spring, when the East Paulding High Raiders compete in the Georgia Five-A Region, or in the summer, on a day like this, during the more informal summer tournament circuit. These future teachers, lawyers, clerks, salesmen, they play hard for Tony Boyd.
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A FAMILY AFFAIR: Zack Wheeler's parents were on hand to witness his major-league debut, six shutout innings in Atlanta near his hometown of Dallas, Ga.
"It's a joyful way to make a living," he says.
And then there is the one that takes a coach's breath away, even in memory. There is the one who, even as a 16-year-old sophomore, makes you gasp with wonder when you close your eyes and hear the baseball colliding with the catcher's mitt, and who, by the time he's a senior, makes you want to savor every second you get to spend around him.
For Tony Boyd, there was Zack Wheeler.
"Here's what you do when you coach a kid like that," Boyd says, sitting in the third-base bleachers at his home stadium, watching his summer team put an eight-spot up in the second inning on visiting Paulding County. "You make sure you don't forget to put his name in the lineup every day."
He laughs.
"You only get the privilege of coaching a player like that but once in a lifetime," he says, "and you better not do anything to mess it up."
The Raiders made the Georgia state final four in Wheeler's senior year, 2009, when he went 9-0 with a 0.54 ERA and 151 strikeouts in 77 2/3 innings before the Giants selected him with the sixth pick in the draft. Two years later, at 21, just a relative handful of professional appearances under his belt, he was traded to the Mets for a borderline Hall of Famer, Carlos Beltran.
Tuesday night, 19 days past his 23rd birthday, he threw six scoreless innings against the Braves, his hometown team, and he struck out seven of them — including Jason Heyward, his first victim, with whom he works out in the winter. If Wheeler looked a tick nervous at times, he also threw 97 with the kind of sweet, effortless motion that Tony Boyd still can conjure in his dreams.
There were more than a hundred folks who ventured from Dallas, family and friends and neighbors and old teammates, and many of them were there thanks to Chipper Jones, the old Mets killer who also happened to be Wheeler's baseball hero growing up and with whom he shares an agent, B.B. Abbott.
Boyd was there with his daughter, soaking in every second, a man who has taught sound baseball fundamentals for 30 years to kids and loved every bit of that blissful anonymity. But who was also enjoying every bit of this night, too. At one point, his daughter, caught up in the night like everyone else, turned to him.
"How do you make a baseball player like that?" she asked.
And Tony Boyd could only laugh.
"You don't make him at all," he said. "God does."
In front of him, one of his players scooted to second when a ball skipped a few feet away from the opposing catcher and he nodded his approval.
"Don't get me wrong, Zack has worked his tail off to get to where he is now, he has a drive in him that great athletes have, he's had that since high school," Boyd says. "But you can work as much as you want — these kids, on this team, they work hard for me every time they step on the field — and if you don't have the God-given talent, it'll only take you so far."
Dallas is the Paulding County seat, with 11,500 residents, and Zack Wheeler might already be its most famous citizen depending on how you care to analyze the Q rating of country singer Travis Tritt. Two miles down Mount Tabor Church Road is an old battlefield where the Confederate Army enjoyed one of its final triumphs at the Battle of Pickett's Mill on May 27, 1864, the Rebs winning a five-hour skirmish and halting, for a brief moment, Sherman's march to the sea.
Yesterday, the town was buzzing about its favorite son. A mother pointed to the scoreboard beyond left field, which Wheeler donated, and a couple of older men in VFW hats and folding chairs talked about listening to the game on the radio Tuesday night.
And Tony Boyd basked in the memory of the one who takes his breath away, still, four years after he last threw a fastball for him. He hadn't bothered Wheeler after the game, didn't want to add to the crush of people around him, so he texted him a simple message: "I was there last night. You were great."
"Coach," Wheeler responded, "thanks for coming."
If only the kid knew: that's exactly what the old coach has been thinking for the last seven years. Savoring every second.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com
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