The story begins 17 years ago, 1986, with a 10-year-old boy walking the streets of San Cristobal in the Dominican Republic, dust filling the toes of his sneakers. Sometimes in the Dominican, when your feet get too big for your shoes, you don't buy new ones. You cut the toes from the ones you have so your feet can have some more room.

The boy is walking toward a dream, a ballfield, a Little League practice. Over the objections of his father, the boy's mother has paid for her son to play baseball. Jose Guillen doesn't know yet about the fights his parents are having over his future, his mother wanting to stoke his baseball desires, his father thinking that entirely impractical.

Will Bloom of Union, Ky. stands next to Reds outfielder Jose Guillen on Thursday, watching the Reds take batting practice. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

That knowledge will come later. Now he is 10, walking to practice. "I'd go to the field in the morning and play until you could not see the ball," he recalls.

He had no equipment, but the league did, second-hand stuff left by the major-league scouts and leftovers from the big-leaguers who grew up there and never forgot it. "My mom bought me my first bat when I was 12," Guillen said. It was aluminum, too big for the skinny kid trying to swing. "I was so proud."

He had no spikes. He didn't have a real glove until he was almost 16, when San Cristobal native Raul Mondesi came home from a season with the Los Angeles Dodgers and laid a Mizuno pro model on him. "The Dominican is not like here," Guillen says. "People work very hard for every little thing."

The story ends June 5, with Will Bloom from Union, Ky., and the possibilities inherent in the kindness of an athlete. Will walked away from Great American Ball Park that night with the fruits of Jose Guillen's life: a signed, game-used bat; a ball; two batting gloves; and a wristband.

Will Bloom lives in a four-bedroom house with his parents and four siblings. He plays Knothole baseball in the spring and basketball in the winter. He has new spikes because his feet grew out of his old ones. Will is 8 years old. It's a good life.

He was sitting in the diamond seats with his dad, Joe, on June 5, three rows from the field, just above the Reds' on-deck circle. Joe had gotten tickets from his wife for his 40th birthday. Three of his four boys drew toothpicks to see who would get the other ticket.

Will asked Guillen to pose for a photo, when Guillen was on deck.

"I'm getting ready to hit," Guillen said. "I'll catch you later."

Will and his father Joe Bloom meet up with Guillen before the start of the Reds game with the Cubs. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

There was something about Will Bloom. He was shy. His blue cap all but eclipsed his freckled face. He was polite. "Please, Mr. Guillen ..."

He reminded Jose Guillen of his own children, Jose Jr. and Jose Manuel, ages 6 and 4. They're in the Dominican. Jose hasn't seen them since spring training. He gets lonely thinking about them. "It changes your whole life, kids," Jose says. "They steal your heart."

Adam Dunn fouled a ball off the brick wall behind the plate. Guillen retrieved it, gave it to Will Bloom. "How's your popcorn?" Guillen asked him.

During the bottom of the third, Guillen went to the clubhouse. Maybe he recalled his own youth, maybe he didn't. Maybe he saw the look in Will Bloom's eyes, when he slipped Will the ball beneath the screen. Random acts of kindness are the grace that holds the world together. "I'm happy with what I have, so I want other people to be happy," Guillen said.

Maybe that's why he went to his locker, retrieved the bat he'd used to hit his fifth home run of the year, signed it and slipped it beneath the screen to 8-year-old Will Bloom, right in the middle of a game. "Very discreetly," Joe Bloom said. "He wasn't out to make a whole bunch of people think he was a good guy."

When he was 10, 12, 14 years old, Jose Guillen played baseball as if it were the only thing to do. His hands were permanently sore, then forever calloused. He didn't have a batting glove until he signed with Pittsburgh and began playing in the Gulf Coast League when he was 18. After the game June 5, Guillen handed Will Bloom his batting gloves and a wristband.

"I'd never seen anything like it," Joe Bloom said.

Joe coaches Will in baseball and basketball. He shuttles his kids from softball practices to dance recitals. Jose Guillen's father didn't want him playing baseball. "Go to school," he said. "Get a job. You will not make it playing baseball."

Ervo Guillen worked in a bottle-making factory. Jose's mother, Modesta, owned a small market. Modesta paid for Jose to play Little League and bought Jose a plastic glove. "I was just playing, playing, playing," he says. When he was 16, a Texas Rangers scout told him, "You're too skinny. You'll never make it." Guillen went home and cried.

A month later, the Pirates signed him for $2,000, at age 16 years and 3 months. At 19, he was Pittsburgh's opening day right fielder. He was shy, like Will Bloom, partly because he didn't speak much English. He was smart enough to be awed by his good fortune, though, and not to take it for granted.

If there is greatness in goodness, Jose Guillen has greatness in him. It doesn't take much to be a hero to a kid. It takes only a little more to make him a memory to last the rest of his life. Baseball suffers from a lack of small gestures. Its longstanding goodwill as the national pastime leaks a game at a time, every time a player ignores a child and forgets where he came from. Jose Guillen does not forget.

We took Will Bloom to the game Thursday. We told the Reds we wanted a picture of Will with his new hero, Jose Guillen, to go along with a story we were doing about Jose and the goodness that exists in people's hearts.

It was a sellout game. The Reds found two free tickets for Will and his dad. Reds PR man Rob Butcher got Will onto the field during batting practice. Eight years old, hat still eclipsing that big, wondering, freckled face, Will jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his blue shorts.

Will wore his blue-and-gray jersey from Boone County Class D-I Knothole, red spikes and a blue cap. He brought the signed bat with him, in a red canvas bag.

"All this equipment," Jose said. "Looks like you want to play some baseball. Come over here." Jose Guillen guided Will Bloom to the batting cage. He put his hand on Will's shoulder, his right arm almost completely obscuring the numeral 11 on Will's jersey.

"This is Adam Dunn," said Guillen. "You know Adam Dunn?"

Then there was Jason LaRue and Scott Williamson and Jose Cardenal. Will met them all, his eyes like saucers. Will watched Jose take BP, Will's head barely clearing the metal supports of the batting cage. It doesn't take much for a kid to fall in love.

Jose Guillen will see his children during the All-Star break. Will Bloom will be done playing Knothole by then, but he won't be done with baseball. Two picture frames will hang on the wall of Will's room, one containing Jose's bat, the other the ball, batting gloves and wristbands. "My son will treasure that night for the rest of his life," Joe Bloom said.

"When's your next game?" Guillen asked Will on Thursday.

Tonight, Will said.

"When I see you next time, I wanna hear you had one or two hits," Guillen said. "OK?"

Will uttered a tiny OK, his head the moon beneath the stars of his blue ballcap, his eyes wide to the magic of games played by people who care.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com