Jim & Me
Authors: Dan Gutman
A Baseball Card Adventure
To Rachel Orr and Barbara Lalicki
and all the good folks at HarperCollins
who have been so supportive
Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world!
âKing Gustav V of Sweden, upon meeting
Jim Thorpe at the Olympics in July 1912
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
âF. Scott Fitzgerald
Games of Deception
An Unexpected Guest
Bobby Fuller's Secret
Pros and Cons
That Old Tingling Sensation
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
One Mississippi, Two Mississippiâ¦
Little Pieces of Cardboard
Do Your Own Thing
The Truth About Bobby Fuller
It Ain't Cheatin' If Ya Don't Get Caught
The Little Napoleon
No Fighting
On the Sidewalks of New York
Inside Baseball
The Indian in the Batter's Box
Meeting with an Old Friend
A Bum
I Can Dig It
The Right Thing to Do
Good and Bad
The Perfect Crime
Run on Anything
Games of Deception
“
SEE THE BALL
.
HIT THE BALL
,”
OUR COACH
,
FLIP
Valentini, was telling the guys when I skidded my bike up to the dugout at Dunn Field. “Catch it. Throw it. And show up on time or you don't play. It's a simple game, boys.”
Flip ought to know. He pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers in their glory years. He was with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh too for a while. Flip won 287 games and struck out almost 3,000 batters during his career. He's in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
But Flip wasn't always famous. He used to be just a plain old guy who owned Flip's Fan Club, a baseball card shop here in Louisville. He coached our team in his spare time. But then Flip and I did something crazy one day. We traveled back to 1942 with a radar gun. We wanted to see if we could clock the speed of a Satchel Paige fastball. While we were
back there, Satch taught Flip a few trick pitches. I had to leave Flip in 1942, and he got to live his life all over again. So when I returned to the twenty-first century, Flip was famous.
Oh, yeah. I can travel through time. I'll get to that in a few minutes.
I was sure that Flip was going to stop coaching our team after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Why should a famous guy like him bother with a bunch of kids like us? But he just loves the game and won't give it up.
Anyway, I parked my bike and Flip winked at me even though I was a few minutes late. The other team hadn't shown up yet. While the guys and I huddled around Flip, I kept looking around.
“Who are we playing today?” I asked.
“Your favorite team, Stosh,” Flip said. “The Exterminators.”
“Oh, no!” we all groaned.
“Do we have to play them
again
?” asked Phillip Rollison, our shortstop.
“I told their coach I wanted a rematch,” Flip said.
WHAT?!
“Those guys are murder!” said Kevin Cordiero, who plays first base for us.
The Exterminators are this weird team sponsored by a Louisville company that kills bugsâ¦and other Little League teams. They've got a roach for a mascot. They also have this tall left-hander named
Kyle who we nicknamed Mutant Man because the kid is virtually unhittable. He throws like 80 miles an hour. We were lucky to score a run off him the last time we played.
“Fuhgetaboutit,” Flip said. “I got a plan to beat 'em this time.”
We were all pretty P.O.'d that we had to face the Exterminators again, but we forgot about it once the game started. The nice thing was that the Exterminators didn't start Kyle the Mutant. Maybe he was tired or something. He was sitting on the bench spitting sunflower seeds.
Without Kyle on the mound, the Exterminators were still a good team. We were playing them pretty evenly, and they only had us by a run going into the sixth inning. That's the last inning in our league.
We were getting ready to come to bat in the bottom of the sixth when
guess who
walked out to the mound to warm up.
“Oh, no!” we all groaned. “They're bringing in the Mutant!”
The Exterminators wanted to shut the door on us so we couldn't tie it up in the bottom of the sixth. Kyle's first warm-up pitch sizzled across the plate. I could hear it hiss before it exploded into the catcher's mitt. And the guy hadn't even loosened up yet!
“We're finished,” moaned Phillip. “Might as well start packing up the gear.”
“Relax,” Flip said as he stepped out of the
dugout. “I told ya I got a plan.”
“Maybe Flip can hit this guy,” said Kevin, “but I know I can't.”
Flip is really oldâin his eighties, I think. When he shuffled out of the dugout, the umpire came over so Flip wouldn't have to walk too far. Flip took a piece of paper out of his pocket.
“Excuse me, Jack,” Flip said to the ump. “Can I have a word with you?”
“Whatcha got there, Mr. V?” asked the ump.
“A birth certificate,” Flip said, handing him the paper.
“Tryin' to show me how young you are, Flip?”
“It's not
my
birth certificate, you bonehead,” Flip said good-naturedly. “It's
his
birth certificate.”
Flip pointed at Kyle the Mutant, who stopped his warm-up pitch just as he was about to release the ball. Everybody looked at him. The Exterminators' coach came running out to see what was going on.
“Is there a problem here?” the coach asked.
“The problem is that your pitcher is fifteen years old,” Flip told him. “If I'm not mistaken, this league is for kids who are fourteen and younger.”
“Lemme see that!” the coach said, grabbing the paper.
The three of them gathered together, examining the birth certificate. Finally the ump walked over to Kyle, who was standing on the mound with his hands on his hips.
“Son, how old are you?” the umpire asked.
“I just turned fifteen yesterday,” Kyle said.
“Happy birthday,” said the ump, “but you can't play in this league anymore.”
Well, it was like Christmas and New Year's and the last day of school all wrapped up in one. We all started whooping and hollering on the bench. Kyle the Mutant handed the ball to the ump and slinked off the field. His coach ran desperately up and down their bench trying to find somebody who could pitch the last inning. Flip shuffled back to our dugout and we all got down on our knees and did the “we're not worthy” thing.
“How'd you get the Mutant Man's birth certificate, Flip?” Kevin asked.
“I got my sources,” he replied.
We were so happy, we almost forgot that we still had to score another run just to tie the game. I was due to bat fourth, so somebody had to get on base for me to get my ups.
A few minutes went by before a kid came out of the Exterminator's dugout and walked to the mound. I looked him over. The kid was short. I didn't recognize him.
“I know that guy,” said our catcher, Carlos Montano. “He's in my math class.”
“What's he throw?” asked Phillip.
“Junk,” replied Carlos. “He doesn't throw hard.”
We watched the kid's every move as he warmed up. A righty. He was throwing curveballs. But not the kind of curves that bite into the air and change
direction like they're ricocheting off a wall. Nice, big, lazy curveballs. The kid was just lobbing them in.
I licked my lips. I couldn't hit Kyle the Mutant. But I could hit this kid any day. I
feast
on curveballs. And this kid didn't even have a good one.
If you ask me, the curveball is what makes baseball different from other sports. Look at it this way: In basketball, you have to be tall. In football, you have to be big. But a skinny little kid who can throw or hit a curve has it all over a big, strong doofus who can't. That's because baseball doesn't require height or weight. It's a game of deception.
When I was little, my dad taught me everything about curveballs. It's all physics. You see, a baseball isn't smooth. It has 216 stitches. You grip the ball along the stitches and twist your wrist as you release it. The ball spins, and the stitches bump against the air. The air becomes turbulent. It's sort of like a little tornado around the ball. So there's less air pressure on one side of the ball than on the other, and it curves.
Anyway, I got to be pretty good at hitting curves. If I had bigger hands, I would be able to throw a wicked curve too. You need to put a lot of spin on the ball. The more spin, the more curve. I guess that's why I'm not a pitcher.
We all edged forward on the bench. Owen Jones led off for us, and we were hollering for him to get a hit.
“Save my ups, Owen!” I yelled.
The first pitch was in the dirt, but Owen took a cut at the next one and sliced a scorcher down the third base line. By the time the Exterminators got the ball in, Owen was sliding into third with a triple.
Our bench went nuts. Man on third, nobody out. All we needed was a single, a sacrifice fly, an error, or a passed ball. It would be a cinch to get Owen home and tie it up. And the way this guy pitched, we could probably win it too.
Carlos was up next. I guess he was a little overanxious, because he took a big rip at the first pitch and topped a little dribbler back to the mound. The pitcher looked the runner back to third and threw to first. One out.
That's okay. Kevin was our next batter, and he could hit. I put on a helmet and grabbed my bat. I was on deck.
“Drive me in, Kev!” shouted Owen from third base.
Flip told Kevin to wait for a good pitch and he worked the count to 2 and 2. Nothing but lazy curveballs. On the next pitch, Kevin swung and we all knew instantly he'd hit it a long way. We stood up to watch the flight of the ball as it rocketed down the rightfield line toward the trees.
“Foul ball!” the ump yelled. If Kevin had hit the ball a foot or two to the left, it would have been a home run. Two runs would have scored, and the game would be over.
“Nobody hits a ball that hard twice in one at-bat,” Flip muttered on our bench.
He was right, as usual. On the next pitch, Kevin bounced out to short. Owen scampered back to third rather than risk getting thrown out at the plate.
Two outs. My turn.
“Go get 'em, Stosh,” Flip hollered as I walked up to the plate. “You're our last chance.”
I dug my heel into the box and pumped my bat across the plate a few times. The pitcher looked nervous. I tried to remember everything my dad told me about hitting curveballs.
The first pitch came in and I took a wild swing at the ball, but it clicked off my bat and smashed into the backstop behind me. Strike one. I should have
killed
that pitch.
Relax! You're overanxious,
I told myself.
Just try for a single.
“You can do it, Stosh!” somebody yelled from our dugout.
The next pitch was high. Or at least I thought it was high. The umpire called it a strike. I could have argued, but I know from experience that arguing with umps is a waste of time.
“Get some glasses!” somebody yelled from the bleachers.
Two strikes. Now I had to protect the plate. No way I was going to strike out looking. Not against
this
kid. He threw
so
slow. It was like a beach ball floating to the plate. I was determined to go after anything close.
The pitcher looked in for a sign. I pumped the bat
a few more times. With an 0-2 count, he might waste one off the outside corner and try to make me go fishing for it.
Don't take that bait.
I tried to peek behind me to see where the catcher was setting up his target.
“See the ball. Hit the ball,” Flip yelled.
The pitcher wound up and I got ready.
Wait for it,
I told myself.
Don't be overanxious
.
His arm came down and I saw the ball leave his hand. But it was coming in harder than his other pitches. He crossed me up! He was throwing me a fastball! It may not have been that fast, but it was a lot faster than his curve. I tried to adjust and get my bat on it, maybe foul it off.
Too late. I hit air.
“Strike three!” the ump yelled. “That's the ball game, boys.”
The Exterminators went nuts. Their stupid roach mascot started dancing around the infield. I dragged my bat back to the bench, steam coming out of my ears. Everybody said the right things.
Forget about it, Stosh. Nice try, Stosh. We'll get 'em next time, Stosh.
All those things you say to a teammate after he whiffs
with the tying run at third
.
Sometimes life throws you a curveball. And just when you're expecting the curve, life throws you a fastball. Life is a lot like baseball. You never know what to expect.
Come to think of it, they're
both
games of deception.