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Marcus Thames’s Mother Inspires and Amazes
DETROIT, Oct. 21 — Veterine Thames watches the world from a custom hospital bed in the back room of a modest yet bustling five-bedroom brick-and-aluminum-sided ranch in Louisville, Miss. She cannot move her legs, she cannot move her torso and she cannot grasp anything. She has been in this condition for more than 24 years.
But Thames can talk, she can see and she has persevered. She reared five children, mostly on her own, while lying on her back. One of them is Marcus Thames, who plays for the American League champion Detroit Tigers.
When Thames bats against the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, many fans may know him as an outfielder and designated hitter who labored through parts of nine seasons in the minor leagues. He emerged this season as a solid power hitter with 26 homers in 348 at-bats. Finally, at 29, Thames made an impact in the major leagues. As Veterine’s son, it was only natural that Marcus would persevere.
But most fans do not know 1 percent of his life story. An automobile accident on June 19, 1982, changed everything. It brought his tight family even closer and maybe, in a way, helped Thames become a survivor.
The accident happened on State Highway 14 in Louisville. Veterine was a passenger in a car driven by G. W. Hughes, the father of four of her children, including Marcus. Two vertebrae in her spine were seriously damaged, said Ethel May, Veterine’s sister. Hughes, who was not much involved in his children’s lives, was not injured.
Thames, 52, did not want to revisit the specifics of the crash. “I think about it all the time,” she said in an interview at her home. “I want to get up, but I can’t. It’s hard. I used to cry all the time about the things I want to do.”
Marcus, the middle child, was 5 when his mother was paralyzed, and he said he had never asked her about the accident. Like Veterine, Marcus said he had often pined for normalcy.
“I want her to be able to do things,” he said. “I want to be able for her to walk around. That’s my mom.”
Thames (pronounced timms) added: “When I go to the field, I like to drive there by myself. I turn the radio off and I think about her. It lights a fire under me to get me going.”
On an 88-degree day this week, Thames was propped up in bed in the bright, air-conditioned room, her gray-specked black hair tied behind her head. She was eager to talk about Marcus, whom she still sees as a little boy nicknamed Slick because he sucked his thumb. Before she could speak, she needed a tube inserted in her throat because of the tracheotomy she has had for four years.
Thames nearly cried before the third syllable. Speaking softly and pausing to catch her breath, she said she believed that her paralysis had motivated Marcus to excel.
“It made him want to show that he could make something out of himself,” she said.
After his mother’s comments were relayed to Thames, he nodded.
“When you have somebody who can’t get themselves a glass of water, you look at this baseball stuff and it’s easy in comparison,” Thames said Friday before the Tigers worked out at Comerica Park.
“You can’t take life for granted. She was probably all happy and smiling that day. And, that night, boom, she can’t move her legs anymore. It just made me a stronger person.”
The accident caused the Thames family to mobilize, and caring for Veterine has been as natural to them as singing hymns. May simplified the devotion to caring for Veterine and her children by saying, “It was a job that had to be done, and someone did it.”
Everyone did it. While Marcus lived with his Uncle Lester and Aunt Ada after the accident, his mother and four siblings lived with his grandmother Ethel Thames. At one point, Ethel, the mother of 11, had 18 people living in her home. She said she did not know how to make a small meal and placed her hands 18 inches apart to show how high plates would be stacked.
About four years after Veterine was paralyzed, she shocked her mother by announcing that she planned to move into her own home with her five children, Stacy, Tabitha, Marcus, Carnetta and E. W. Ethel Thames was bewildered.
“I was worried that she wasn’t going to make it,” she said.
Veterine reasoned that they could stay together because Stacy, her oldest son, was 14 and responsible, and Tabitha, her oldest daughter, was 12 and could cook. She read recipes to Tabitha for chicken and pork chops, she reminded the children to do their homework and chores, and they somehow managed with about $400 a month in welfare and food stamps. Marcus had to walk to the grocery store and buy the right items on the list or, he said with a smile, risk being scolded by his mother and Tabitha. Kenny Gill, whom Veterine described as a special friend, moved in with them and is still caring for her.
When it came to disciplining her children, she would coax them to come close, place their heads on her shoulder and slap them with her other hand.
“Trust me, if she wanted to get you, she’d get you,” Marcus said. “She’d call you over to the bed. You see her arms, they’re big, and bam.”
Although Thames is resourceful, she faces daily medical challenges. Seven months ago, May said, Veterine’s heartbeat accelerated to a dangerous level.
“At 6 in the morning, we got word to come to the hospital because she was dying,” May said. “By 1 in the afternoon, she was revived.”
As May recounted that day, Thames never blinked.
“The doctors gave up on me two or three times,” she said. “I didn’t give up.”
Marcus was a freshman in high school and Stacy was a freshman in college when their mother contracted pneumonia and was placed in intensive care. The boys took turns skipping two weeks of school to be with her.
“I said then, if I want something, I got to fight for it just like she’s here fighting for her life,” Thames said. “The doctors gave up on her. She kept fighting. When I got a chance to play and then I got sent down or got released by Texas, it just made me hungrier.”
As usual, Veterine was released from the hospital and went back to her bedroom, which is filled with almost 50 family photographs. The largest picture is of Marcus.
The Yankees drafted him out of East Central Community College in Decatur, Miss., in 1996. Thames made his major league debut in 2002 with the Yankees, and he homered off Randy Johnson on the first pitch he saw. He played briefly with the Texas Rangers in 2003 and bounced between Detroit and Class AAA Toledo in 2004 and 2005.
Thames said that he hoped to win a title with the Tigers — which would probably mean a World Series share of more than $300,000 — and continue to improve as a player so he can buy his mother a new house.
From the lush lawns and pristine homes at one end of Louisville to the ranch homes like the Thameses’ on the dusty streets across the railroad tracks, everyone seemingly knows Marcus. At Louisville High School, the morning announcements include updates about his career. The athletes who congregated for football and baseball practice this week have repeatedly been told to try to emulate Thames.
“We use Marcus a lot,” said Brad Peterson, the football coach, who played baseball with Thames. “We probably use him too much.”
Thames, who lives about 30 miles away, in Starkville, in the off-season, has remained close with Charlie Smith, his former baseball coach. Smith planned to attend at least one World Series game.
“He wanted to play, he wanted to be good, and he’s talented,” Smith said. “But I think the driving force of his mom is 90 percent of it for him.”
To earn extra money, Thames joined the National Guard after his junior year in high school. He gained 20 pounds during nine weeks of basic training and returned to school stronger and more confident. He was not a starter in baseball or football until his senior year.
“The National Guard made me,” Thames said. “I was skinny and weak before I went there. I came back and I was a whole different person.”
Thames, his mother and his brothers and sisters will always be different. They are a proud, spiritual, connected family.
Thames said the years had not made it easier to accept his mother’s disability. He wishes she could attend the World Series. Instead, she will watch her Slick on television, from the bed that has been and will always be her home.
“When Marcus was little, he always said that he was going to play ball,” she said. “When I see him on TV, sometimes I say, ‘I wish I was there.’ ”
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