BY CLARK SPENCER
Mark Hendrickson never heard the knock. Even if he had, he wouldn't have remembered it. He was 5 months old, asleep in his room, when the news was delivered to his mother on a November morning in 1974.
But Barb Hendrickson heard its chilling sound.
And she knew, knew the instant she noticed her husband wasn't in bed with her, that he was dead. Tom Hendrickson never returned home that night from his job as a trooper with the Washington State Patrol. He was killed in the line of duty, purposely run over by a car as he was issuing a citation during a traffic stop.
''Obviously, I was too young to know,'' said Mark Hendrickson, who knows his father only from grainy photographs, hand-written letters from other troopers and stories told by his mother.
Hendrickson grew up without a father.
But because of the determination of a mother who alone raised her two small children, he didn't stop growing up. Today, Hendrickson -- a 33-year-old starting pitcher for the Florida Marlins -- said he owes much to her.
''I had two little kids,'' Barb Hendrickson said. 'I didn't have time to sit around and feel sorry for myself. I couldn't sit around and keep asking why. I might never get an answer to that. I was thinking, `Hey, I've got two kids that have their whole life ahead of them.' ''
The Hendricksons lived in Mount Vernon, Wash., north of Seattle and close to the northwestern-most point of the continental United States. Tom became a state trooper after quitting his job at Boeing. He and Barb had two sons, with Mark being the youngest by about two years.
At 3 a.m. on Nov. 17, 1974, Tom Hendrickson, who was 31, was writing a ticket when a car took aim in his direction, crossed the center line and struck him, killing him on impact. The driver was convicted of negligent homicide.
''It was really difficult around here,'' Barb Hendrickson said of the reaction in the local law enforcement community. ``It had been almost 23 years since any state trooper had been killed in the line of duty, and it would be an additional 25 years before there was another one.''
Over the next several years, Barb Hendrickson stopped whenever she spotted a trooper issuing a ticket while standing on the driver's side of a car, the side closest to the road.
She would wait for the trooper to finish his task before lecturing him on the risks he was taking.
DUAL ROLE
As for her personal life, Barb Hendrickson said ''my faith kept me going.'' She took on a dual parenting role, including doing some household chores once performed by her husband.
''If there was electrical work here, or digging there, I did all those things,'' she said. ``I didn't shy away from it.''
But Barb said, as much as she tried, it was impossible to replicate a father's influence.
''They did miss out on the everyday life experiences that a husband and wife, and a family, go through,'' she said. ``They didn't see that one-on-one interaction.''
FATHER FIGURES
Barb Hendrickson did as best she could, though. When her sons started playing sports, she made a point to choose teams whose coaches she thought best provided a father figure for them.
''I was very, very particular as to who the coaches were,'' she said. ``We were very fortunate that they had good role models.''
Said Mark Hendrickson: ``She was pretty much at every game. She did the best she could without my dad there.''
Barb Hendrickson isn't the only reason her younger son was a Pac-10 standout at Washington State, began his professional life in the NBA and, with a 5-1 record for the Marlins, is off to his best start as a pitcher. His paternal grandfather was instrumental in his athletic development. But some of his success is owed to her.
It was Barb Hendrickson who stood in the back yard with her two small boys, throwing batting practice with plastic bats and balls, ones she had discovered entangled in the thick undergrowth of ivy and shrubbery while cleaning the yard. It was Barb who shuttled them to practices -- baseball, soccer and basketball -- and kept score at their games for years.
Why, when Mark was with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season and struggling with the bat, she detected a slight hesitancy in his swing and mentioned it to him.
As it turned out, Hendrickson had Lasik surgery to improve his vision last offseason, and now he is swinging the bat with some authority.
KIDS CAME FIRST
Barb Hendrickson never remarried, though she said she had the opportunity.
''I almost remarried but chose not to because I knew in the long run it wasn't going to be good for the kids,'' she said. ``It was not the role model in the long run I would have wanted. I can look back on it and be thankful it didn't work out.''
Last summer, Barb was weeding in the back yard and clearing the bushes of ivy. There, entangled in the thick undergrowth, she discovered a few artifacts that brought the memories flooding back.
''There was a Whiffle ball and some of the little plastic balls, the kind that came with the plastic bats kids start out with,'' she said.
It was the equipment she had used, nearly three decades earlier, to send her youngest son on his way.
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