Roberto & Me
Authors: Dan Gutman
A Baseball Card Adventure
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To Julie Krass, librarian of Deerfield
School in Westwood, Massachusetts,
who figured it out
“The mythic aspects of baseball usually draw on clichés of the innocent past, the nostalgia for how things were. Fields of green. Fathers and sons. But Clemente's myth arcs the other way, to the future, not the past, to what people hope they can become. His memory is kept alive as a symbol of action and passion, not of reflection and longing.”
âDavid Maraniss
Clemente: The Passion and Grace
of Baseball's Last Hero
It's All You
A Mission of Mercy
Just Do It
The Great One
The Card
Goingâ¦Goingâ¦Gone!
Peace and Love
Sunrise
A Long, Strange Trip
Who's on First?
The Wild Colt
Royalty in Rightfield
Fanatics
Dinner at El Cochinito
Good-bye
Homecoming
An Unexpected Visitor
The Future Is Ours to See
So Much for Science Fiction
Bernard's Mission
Better Late than Never
A Quick Trip
Extra Credit
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With a baseball card in my hand, I am the most powerful person in the world. With a card in my hand, I can do something the president of the United States can't do, the most intelligent genius on the planet can't do, the best athlete in the universe can't do.
I can travel through time.
âJoe Stoshack
It's All You
“
STOSH, YOU ARE THE MAN!” BRIAN WENZEL YELLED FROM
our dugout. “The man with the plan!”
I stepped up to the plate and tapped my bat against my spikes. It was the sixth inning, which is the last inning in our league. One out. Joe Koch was on first and Clay VanderMeeden was on second. A double would tie it for us. A home run would win it. I'm not a home run hitter. In a situation like this, a single would make me very happy.
I looked over at our coach, Flip Valentini, to see if maybe he wanted me to lay down a bunt to move the runners over to second and third. I figured there was a pretty good chance, because Flip knows I haven't been hitting very well lately. I struck out in the second inning, and in the fourth I hit a weak grounder back to the pitcher. If I hit into a double play right now, the game would be over.
But Flip wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the runners and touched his right arm to his left sleeve.
The steal sign.
Flip was telling Joe and Clay to attempt a double steal on the next pitch. Then he looked at me and touched his right ear.
The take sign.
He was telling me I shouldn't swing no matter what.
Okay, I get it. If I were to drop down a sacrifice bunt, we would give up an out to advance two runners into scoring position. But Joe and Clay are both pretty fast. If they pull off a double steal, we move both runners without giving up an out. So then we would have two chances to drive in the runners instead of one. Smart. Flip has been around forever. He's probably forgotten more about baseball in his life than I'll ever learn.
The pitcher looked in for his sign, and then he looked at Clay on second. He wound up and threw. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joe and Clay digging for second and third. The pitch was right down the middle. I probably could have hit it pretty hard. But when Flip tells me not to swing, I don't swing.
“Strike!” hollered the ump.
The catcher jumped up from his squat and fired the ball to third. Clay came sliding in with a cloud of dust. The throw was there. The third baseman only had to catch the ball and slap the tag on Clay's leg.
“Yer out!” hollered the ump.
Ouch! Two outs. Clay didn't argue the call. They had him by a foot. The catcher pointed his finger toward third as if it was a gun and blew on it.
Jerk.
Joe advanced to second on the play.
I looked over at Flip, and he shrugged his shoulders. You win some; you lose some. Even smart strategy fails sometimes.
All I knew was that I could still tie the game. But I'd need a hit, and I hadn't had one in a while.
“C'mon, Stosh!” Flip yelled, clapping his hands. “It's all you, babe. All you.”
“Drive me in, Stosh!” Joe shouted from second base.
I dug my cleats into the dirt of the batter's box. The pitcher looked in for the sign. He wheeled and delivered. It looked outside to me. I didn't swing.
“Strike!” hollered the ump.
Okay. That was borderline. Maybe it was a strike. Maybe not. Doesn't matter. Don't think about the past. Worry about the present and the future. Two strikes now. Gotta protect the plate. Swing at anything close. No way I'm gonna strike out looking.
I tried to remember all the advice people have given me over the years:
Relax. Keep your eye on the ball. Take a breath. Quick bat. Turn your hips. Bend your knees. Don't grip the bat too tightly. Take a practice swing. Focus.
Too much to think about.
The pitcher was ready now, and so was I. He went into his windup and let it fly.
The pitch looked good, and I took a rip at it. I got a piece of the ball, but not a good piece. It went curving into foul territory down the first base line. The
catcher and first baseman gave chase.
“Get out of here!” I yelled at the ball, trying to will it out of play.
The first baseman leaned against the fence and reached over into the first row of seats. It didn't look like he was going to get it, but I guess the ball was curving back, because it ended up at the top of the webbing of his glove. Part of the ball was showing. A snow cone, we call it.
Shoot! Nice catch, I had to admit.
“Three outs!” hollered the ump. “That's the ball game, fellows.”
I cursed at myself and trudged back to the bench. Nobody wants to make the last out of a game. And nobody wants to make the last out on a lame pop foul.
“You'll get 'im next time, Stosh,” Brian said.
What was I doing wrong? Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. Who knew? There are so many things that can go wrong when you're hitting.
I remember reading in some book that the hardest thing to do in any sport is to hit a baseball. I mean, think about it. You're holding a round bat and you're trying to hit a round ball. That's not easy right there. Plus, a good fastball reaches the plate about a half second after the pitcher releases it. You have like two-tenths of a second to decide whether or not to swing. The ball could be coming at different speeds, from different locations. It could be a curveball. It
could be out of the strike zone, making it hard to hit. Or it could be coming at your head. Even if you manage to hit the ball, if you hit it a fraction of an inch too low or too high, you're probably out. Or somebody in the field can make a great play and catch it. And sometimes you hit it right at somebody.
No wonder players who can get a hit just three times in ten at bats are considered superstars. It's a game of failure. You fail seven times out of ten and you're doing great.
I chucked my bat against the fence near our dugout in disgust.
“Hey, none of that, son!” the ump yelled at me.
I plopped down on the bench next to Coach Valentini, who was wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
“I suck,” I muttered to nobody in particular.
“You're in a slump,” Flip said. “It happens to everybody, Stosh. Even the great onesâCobb, Williams, DiMaggio, Aaronâthey all had slumps. I remember this one time in 1954â”
Usually I enjoy listening to Flip tell his baseball stories about the good old days. But today, I just wasn't in the mood.
“What can I do to get out of my slump?” I asked him.
Flip has been playing and coaching baseball for something like seventy years. If anybody knew how to get out of a slump, I figured it would be Flip.
“Ah, the great mystery of life,” he said. “Nothin'
you
can
do. Fuhgetuhboutit. You just gotta wait it out, Stosh. Believe me, the hits will come. You're too good a hitter to stay in a slump for long.”
He was trying to make me feel good. I didn't want to hear it.
I was packing up my equipment when I heard a buzz in the bleachers behind our bench. I turned around to check it out. It was a troop of Girl Scouts. They were marching through the crowd with cans. I figured they were selling cookies, but then I noticed one of them carrying a sign that said
SAVE THE POLAR BEARS
.
“Oh, give me a break,” said our third baseman, Ricky Hernandez.
“Hey, why don't you girls get a life?” said our catcher, Teddy Ronson, when the Girl Scouts got within earshot.
“Why don't you guys get a conscience?” said the girl holding the sign. “Do you realize that burning fossil fuels has warmed the atmosphere so much that Arctic sea ice is melting, making it harder for polar bears to hunt for food? In forty years, they all could be gone. Extinct.”
“Boo-hoo. I'm crying,” said Tommy Rose.
“Ya think that if humans were dying off, the bears would go around with cans collecting money for
us
?” said Lucas Riley.
“Hey, you girls should adopt the polar bears and turn them into pets,” said Tommy.
We were all laughing. The guys started in making
cracks about the Bad News Bears, the Care Bears, Smokey the Bear, and every other kind of bear they could think of.
I had to admit that I felt the same way. I've got enough problems of my own trying to hit the ball. I can't worry about a bunch of bears.
“What are you gonna do with that money you're collecting?” I asked. “Buy freezers for the polar bears?”
All the guys laughed and gave me high fives, which made me feel good. At the same time I felt a little guilty. I've got nothing against polar bears. I just don't like fouling out with the tying run on second to end the game.