Raising the Roof
by Piper Wright
Warwick Homestead - When you meet a kid named “Jumper,” you just know that isn’t the name he was born with. When I first saw the Goodneighbor Hancocks’ second baseman, the word jumper was not exactly what I first thought.
He stands at 6’1” and he is a lanky 170 pounds. Still, the 16-year-old second-round pick of the Hancocks, 43rd overall, has been anything buy a tall, lanky kid in his first five weeks of the Commonwealth Baseball Organization.
But first, let’s talk about the name Jumper. He was born Roofer Hayes. Roofer Ferbie Hayes, to be exact.
“My folks said it was on a holotape they found of past presidents,” he said. He was pawing mud near the Warwick Homestead water tanks. “She said she heard the name ‘Roofer Ferbie Hayes’ and knew it was the right name for me because our last name was Hayes and we lived on top of a roof in Boston Common.”
By the time he was six years old, Hayes became a sort of runner for the settlers living above the city. Being small and able was good business for helping gather supplies and making emergency food runs. While they had crop boxes for growing fruits and vegetables and buckets for collecting rainwater, sometimes supplies like stimpacks would become scarce. At all times, the ground would be overrun by raiders, super mutants, Gunners, and whatever other bogeymen occupied the ground. That is why rooftop settlers needed the young to function as runners.
“For most of the runners, they would navigate from roof to roof by using pipes and boards laid across the gaps. Not me.”
Hayes discovered a special ability that most rooftop settlers either did not possess or just would not do.
“I jumped,” he smiled. “One day, I saw a small gap of about six feet between two roofs, so I ran as fast as I could and I jumped. That day, the other kids started calling me ‘Jumper.’”
He said he was sure he cleared it by a few feet because when he landed and rolled on the other side, the other runners stood there in amazement. By the time Hayes was 10 years old, he estimated he was jumping across 15-foot gaps. He may not be the fastest runner, but he has a natural long jump ability.
By the early 90s, Hayes no longer had to live on a roof. Operation Boston was the cause of that.
“We were always unaware of what was happening far below us. Mostly, we hid from everyone else. But one day those vertibirds came through our area like we never saw before. We all thought [the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers] were coming for us, you know, but then they started rappelling down those wires to the ground. A burst of gunfire and explosions, and then they were back up.
“One soldier in full power armor came up to where we were and started asking us if we were OK and if we needed a place to go. They said the entire area was a part of Operation Boston, so we could be safe on the ground from now on.”
Operation Boston was a joint operation between the four factions of the Commonwealth to rid Downtown Boston of the ingrained strongholds of undesirables. Some super mutant groups had made their homes there, but mostly there were Gunners and raiders “like ants” throughout the Commonwealth.
In 2292, his family moved out of Boston Common for the first time to the Free Quincy Settlement, a collection of low-cost trailers just outside of the Quincy city limits. That is when Hayes joined the Quincy Youth League. Now the league has five teams, but it was the Poseidon Energy that took his first interest. His coach first played him in the outfield but soon learned he had the correct range and arm speed to play second base.
“Coach Wiz [Wisniewski] was a great coach for a youth league. He recognized my talent and played me where I felt most comfortable. The bat was always a comfort zone for me, but the glove wasn’t. Now I am comfortable at batting and fielding.”
Coach Aff Wisniewski’s talents have not gone unnoticed. He has since moved from the Quincy Youth League to be one of the CBO’s top talent scouts. For the CBO, a collection of scouts does not work for an individual team but gives the entire league a report tape of each player. According to the Wiz’s report, Hayes was given a late-first grade. Instead, Hayes was taken late in the second round.
For Hayes, where he was drafted does not bother him. He is happy to play for a team where he enjoys playing with an owner that gives support. John Hancock has been that person to give him the support he desires. Being in the right environment, with Goodneighbor itself only “a few clicks” from his former rooftop home, Hayes is right where he wants to be. In the first quarter of the season, he is dominating the Minutemen League with a 33 for 64 (.516 average) clip with 6 doubles, a triple, 9 home runs, 25 runs scored, 32 RBI, 7 walks, 5 strikeouts, and 3 stolen bases. He reaches base at a .554 rate and has a 1.063 slugging percent. In other words, he is the clear leader for the league MVP.
“I suppose the old jumper is jumping over the league’s pitching.”
Hayes will have a tough matchup this weekend against the CBO’s best team, the Warwick Mirelurks, who are 14-1 and have allowed only 62 runs, 34 runs better than the ML’s second-best defense, the Quincy Gunners. Still, Hayes has been hot all season, and there is no reason to believe he cannot soar above the roof.
You could say, Roofer Ferbie “Jumper” Hayes is raising the roof.