For Dukes, Joining Nats Is a Move Toward Stability

"Because I've overcome stuff, now I have that as my backbone," Young said. "I can say, 'Hey, man, I ain't squeaky clean.' That makes it easier for him to go, 'Okay, I get it.' If there was some do-gooder that had never been in any kind of trouble talking to him, he might not listen."

The next step to building Dukes's support structure was to get him out of Tampa. Former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin, now a special assistant to Bowden, owns a piece of Champions Sports Complex, a baseball workout center in Orlando. It became Dukes's offseason haven, a place where he could work on his game away from the demons that seemed to find him back home.

"He listened," Larkin said. "He worked hard. He just acted like a nice young man."

Other Nationals officials have described this side of Dukes, a polite, quiet guy who plays with one of his children, 3-year-old Elijah Jr., after workouts. Larkin's staff, Dukes said, made him feel welcome, and it didn't hurt that, as he said, "I knew who [Larkin] was from jump street."

"There's a lot of people there [who are] real nice and friendly, and that kind of helped me get out of my shell a little bit," Dukes said. "I didn't really talk to people. [At Larkin's complex,] I could talk a little bit more, smile more. That kind of helped me out. You know Barry. He smiles all day."

Relocating, at least temporarily, to Orlando also allowed Manager Manny Acta to drive from his home in nearby St. Cloud to throw Dukes batting practice. And it allowed Harris, who just completed his first stint as a hitting coach, to travel from his home in Miami. Harris came not so much to work with Dukes on his mechanics or his approach, and not because he played 17 seasons in the majors himself. He came because a major league season is a six-month grind, and the club figured it wouldn't hurt to have as many people Dukes trusted at the park, on the road, wherever he was. He came, too, because he knows something of Dukes's background in one of Tampa's toughest neighborhoods.

"I grew up in an area where there's a hundred Elijah Dukes," said Harris, who spent his childhood in the Overton section of Miami. "Tough guys, guys who mean all business, so don't get in their way and stuff like that. . . . I seen it. I been in it. It's a different way of being raised."

To understand Dukes, those who know the situation say, people must understand how he was raised. With his father in prison -- he was sentenced to 20 years for shooting a man who sold his wife, Dukes's mother, what she considered substandard crack cocaine -- Dukes was left to his mother, his siblings, an aunt.

"I remember there just being sand in the front yard, a dog tied to a tree," said Pat Russo, Dukes's coach his senior year at Tampa's Hillsborough High. "It was mayhem. There were like nine kids living in a house. Crazy."

That, then, leads to the final piece of Dukes's hope for stability with the Nationals. The club wanted to hire someone who could work with him one-on-one. Dana Brown, the team's scouting director, asked one of his brothers, who had worked in security, if he knew of anybody that might fit. Brown's brother came up with Williams.

"James, [he's] like that second . . . " Dukes said, and then hesitated over the significance of what he was about to say. "You know what I mean? He's like that second father that everybody needs in your life."

The Nationals' policies regarding Dukes state that Kasten, Bowden, Acta or one of two media relations officials be present for any interviews, even after games. Williams -- who has a background in the military as well as in security detail, but also has served as a youth minister and worked with the Boys & Girls Club -- doesn't speak publicly, though he has been an unmistakable presence at spring training. That might not have been the case, however, had he not approached Dukes in the right manner.