Comeback of the Home Run Kid Read online

  To our mother, Cay Christopher, in loving memory

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2006 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.twitter.com/littlebrown

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  Matt Christopher® is a registered trademark of

  Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09378-1

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  The #1 Sports Series for Kids: Matt Christopher®

  Matt Christopher®

  1

  I've got it! I've got it!”

  Sylvester Coddmyer the Third backpedaled from the pitcher's mound. He and his friend Duane Francis were playing a game of pitch, hit, and catch. Duane had just hit a high fly ball toward shortstop. Sylvester was trying to get under it.

  “You're going to miss!” Duane called, laughing.

  Syl kept moving. If he'd learned one thing from playing on the Hooper Junior High Redbirds baseball team, it was never to give up.

  He crossed from the grassy infield to the sandy base path. Head craned back, he searched the sky, found the ball, and realized it was going to fall behind him. Eye still on the ball, he took one more step back.

  Suddenly, his left foot wrenched sideways. He gave a sharp cry of pain and fell in a heap. The baseball thudded down next to him and rolled away.

  “Syl! Are you all right?” Duane ran up, his face full of concern.

  “My ankle!” Syl gasped. “It hurts really bad. I think you better find someone to help me.”

  Duane scanned the park. His expression went from concern to outright panic. “There's no one around anywhere!”

  “My mom's home,” Sylvester said. “Can you go get her?”

  Duane took off at a dead run in the direction of the Coddmyers' house. Syl lay back on the grass and tried to ignore the pain in his ankle.

  “Sylvester!”

  A tall blond man wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap and sweats suddenly came into view. Syl blinked in surprise. Hadn't Duane just said there wasn't anyone else in the park?

  “That was a bad fall,” the man said. He gestured toward Syl's foot. “We should take a look.”

  Syl hesitated for a moment. But his ankle was really throbbing now and the tightly laced cleat wasn't making it feel any better. So he nodded.

  The man carefully took off the cleat and peeled back the sock. He gave a low whistle.

  Sylvester sat up and looked at his ankle. It was as puffy as a marshmallow and turning black-and-blue. Suddenly queasy, he lay back down, closed his eyes, and took some deep breaths.

  “Is it broken?” he whispered. A broken ankle, he knew, could take a long time to heal. School had just let out — and summer baseball was only a few weeks away. If his ankle was broken, his whole vacation would be ruined!

  “I think it's just sprained,” the man replied, “but you'll need an X-ray to be sure. For now, we need to get it elevated.”

  The man grabbed Syl's baseball glove and tucked it underneath the injured ankle. Syl bit his lip, trying not to cry out in pain.

  The man sat back on his heels. “It's going to hurt for a while. Even after the swelling goes down and the bruises disappear, that ankle's going to feel pretty weak. You'll have to work hard to strengthen it again. And even then, it might give you some pain.”

  Syl swallowed hard. “So much for summer baseball.” He squeezed his eyes shut but a tear slipped out anyway.

  The man was silent. Then he said, “Maybe not. If you want, I could work with you to get you ready to play.”

  Sylvester's eyes flew open. He stared at the man. Something about this situation —a mysterious man showing up out of nowhere and offering to help him with his game — was eerily familiar.

  2

  Sylvester Coddmyer the Third's baseball career had started two seasons ago. Back then, he hadn't been a very good player. In fact, he almost didn't make the team that first year.

  Then he met a man named George Baruth. With Mr. Baruth's encouragement and advice, his fielding and hitting improved — a lot. To his own and everyone else's amazement, he began making miraculous catches and hitting nothing but homers every time he came up to bat! His home run streak was so remarkable that some people offered to pay him to publish his story in their magazine. But Sylvester turned them down. Money didn't matter to him; he was just happy to be playing the game he loved.

  When this past season started, he assumed he'd be just as good a player as he'd been the previous year. Instead, he floundered. His coach, Stan Corbin, had no choice but to bench him. Sylvester spent the first few games watching from the dugout and feeling like a complete loser.

  Then a man who called himself Cheeko entered the picture. Sylvester believed that Cheeko was Mr. Baruth's friend. So when Cheeko gave him some pointers to improve his game, Syl listened. Following that advice, Syl started leaning into pitches to get a free trip to first base. He pretended he'd caught fly balls that had really fallen out of his glove. And he “accidentally” bumped into opponents as he rounded the bases.

  These tricks did help Syl's stats. But it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Cheeko wasn't teaching Sylvester to play better ball. He was teaching him to cheat.

  And there was something more, too. Sylvester had a nagging feeling that Cheeko's help went much further than just advice. How else could he explain the weird sensation that he'd gotten an invisible boost in time to make a spectacular top-of-the-fence catch? Or that he'd started getting hits again, and always — always! — when there were people on base? Much as he wanted to think that he was doing these things himself, he just couldn't. Somehow, he believed, Cheeko was helping him.

  The mystery didn't end there. Toward the end of the season, Sylvester made two startling discoveries.

  His friend Duane had a sizable collection of baseball cards. One was of the most famous slugger in the world, George Herman “Babe” Ruth. When Sylvester saw that card, he nearly fainted. The man in the picture looked exactly like Mr. Baruth!

  Duane had another card in his collection, this one of southpaw pitcher Eddie Cicotte. Cicotte played for the White Sox in 1919. That year, the White Sox went to the World Series as the heavy favorites to win. Instead, they lost to the underdog Cincinnati Reds, five games to three.

  The reason for the surprising defeat soon came to light. Cicotte and seven of his teammates had lost the World Series on purpose! Gamblers had promised to give them a lot of money if they flubbed catches, struck out, and got caught stealing base. Knowing that the White Sox were sure to lose, the gamblers bet o
n the Reds instead — and made a pile of cash when the Reds won.

  People everywhere were outraged when they learned that the players had thrown the World Series. Dubbed the Black Sox Scandal, it was the biggest disgrace in baseball history. Cicotte and the others were banished from the sport forever. To this day, they are viewed as some of the most dishonest players the game has ever seen.

  Sylvester had never heard about Cicotte or the Black Sox Scandal. He was stunned when he saw Cicotte's picture for the first time. The corrupt pitcher was the spitting image of Cheeko!

  These discoveries made Syl's imagination go wild. Was it possible that he'd been coached by the ghosts of these two players, one famous, one infamous? It seemed too fantastic to believe, and yet, whenever Sylvester looked at pictures of Cicotte and Babe Ruth, he couldn't help wondering.

  But one thing was certain: whether Cheeko was really the disgraced Cicotte or not, Syl no longer trusted him. Right before the last game of the season, he told Cheeko he wasn't going to play dirty anymore. That very afternoon, Cheeko disappeared, never to be seen again. And that very afternoon, Sylvester stopped hammering in hits and, instead, played with the same skill as any other thirteen-year-old kid.

  That game had been weeks ago. Now Sylvester stared up at the man in the Yankees cap sitting next to him. Was yet another mystery about to begin — and, if so, how would this one end?

  “Who — who are you?” Sylvester asked. “How did you know my name?”

  The man smiled. “I'm a ballplayer, like you. And I've recovered from my share of injuries, too. In fact —”

  He broke off in mid-sentence. Head cocked to one side, he seemed to be listening to something.

  Syl listened, too. He heard car doors slamming shut. He sat up and looked at the parking lot at the far end of the field. There were his mother and Duane!

  A wave of relief flooded over him. “It's my mom,” he said, turning back to the man.

  But the man was no longer there. He had simply vanished!

  3

  Sylvester!” Mrs. Coddmyer hurried to her son's side. “Oh my! How badly does your ankle hurt?”

  “Pretty bad,” Syl admitted. “But there's something else I —”

  His mother cut him off. “I'm calling your doctor.” She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number.

  Duane sat down next to him. “Sorry you had to wait out here by yourself.”

  “But I wasn't alone,” Syl said in a low voice. “Didn't you see the man wearing the Yankees cap?”

  Duane shook his head. “You were alone when we got here! Maybe you hit your head when you fell — or dreamed up the guy?”

  Sylvester sank back onto the grass. His ankle was throbbing worse than ever. “Maybe I did,” he murmured.

  His mother clicked her cell phone shut. “The doctor says to go right to the emergency room for X-rays. Duane, can you help me get him to the car?”

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. The X-ray of the ankle showed it wasn't broken. But the doctor told Syl to stay off it for a week or so.

  “Rest, ice, and elevate that ankle every day,” she said as she pushed her patient in a wheelchair out to the car. “Start doing those exercises I showed you in a few days. And before you play any more baseball, get yourself a sturdy ankle brace. You don't want to suffer a reinjury!”

  It wasn't until that night, after Sylvester had finally crawled into bed, that he thought about his meeting with the mysterious man in the Yankees cap. He toyed with the idea of searching for information on him. He was pretty sure he knew where to look: baseball books, websites of old-time ball players, and Duane's baseball card collection.

  But in the end, he decided against it. While part of him was burning with curiosity, a bigger part of him wanted to see what would happen next. Would the man reappear and help him with his game, as he had said he would? And if he did, would he be like Cheeko or Mr. Baruth?

  But as the days went by, the man didn't show up. By the middle of the next week, Sylvester had almost convinced himself that Duane had been right. He had dreamed up the man after all.

  “Checkmate! I win again!” Duane knocked over Sylvester's black king with his own white bishop and smiled triumphantly. Then his smile faded.

  “You could at least look like you cared that you just lost for the fifth time in a row!” Duane grumbled as he gathered up the chess pieces.

  Sylvester blinked. The day's weather was perfect for baseball. But instead of throwing, catching, and batting, Syl was sitting inside, his ankle elevated on an ottoman.

  He blew out his breath in frustration. “Sorry, Duane,” he replied. “I guess I'm getting bored of these board games.”

  “Oh.” Duane gave a small laugh. “For a moment there, I thought you were getting bored of me!” He finished putting the pieces back in the box and closed the lid. “Say, you hear anything from Joyce?”

  Joyce Dancer was Syl's other close friend. She was away for the summer, vacationing on Cape Cod with her family.

  “I got an e-mail the other day. She sounds like she's having fun.”

  “Did you tell her about your ankle?”

  Syl shrugged. “What's to tell? I sprained it, and now I'm sitting around all day waiting for it to get better instead of playing ball like I want to!”

  In another room, the phone rang. Sylvester heard his mother answer it. A few minutes later, she came into the room carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, some glasses, and a bowl of popcorn on it.

  As Mrs. Coddmyer served the lemonade, she said, “That was Coach Corbin on the phone. He was calling to let you know that you'll be on his team, the Hooper Hawks. First practice is the day after tomorrow”

  She smiled at Duane. “When he found out you were here, he told me to let you know you're a Hawk, too.”

  “Yes!” Duane pumped his fist.

  Sylvester sat back, his mind in a whirl. Stan Corbin was a great coach and Sylvester was psyched to have been chosen for his Hawks. But he was also nervous. He'd been the best player on the team for two seasons, so the coach had to be expecting fantastic things from him. But he hadn't picked up a bat, ball, or glove since the accident. What if he couldn't perform up to the coach's expectations? And what would his ankle feel like when he finally did get back on the field?

  Sylvester didn't want to disappoint Coach Corbin by playing poorly. But he was afraid that's just what was going to happen.

  Just then, the phone rang again. Mrs. Coddmyer hurried to answer it.

  Duane raised his lemonade glass. “To the future baseball champs, the Hooper Hawks!” He clinked his glass against Sylvester's and took a big gulp.

  Sylvester tried to match Duane's happy mood. But the lemonade tasted sour to him and he couldn't help but make a face.

  “What's wrong?” Duane asked.

  Sylvester gestured at his ankle. “Three guesses!”

  Duane waved his concern away. “It'll be fine by the first practice!”

  Sylvester shook his head. “Yeah, but even if it is, I haven't played ball for weeks —”

  “It hasn't even been two!” Duane interrupted.

  “So what if I'm no good when I finally can play again?”

  Duane tossed some popcorn in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “When are you supposed to start doing stuff again?”

  “The doctor said tomorrow.”

  Duane grinned broadly. “So we meet at the diamond for some pitch, hit, and catch tomorrow morning and test it. Deal?”

  Duane's enthusiasm was infectious and Sylvester couldn't help but grin back. “Okay, you got a deal!” he said. He picked up his lemonade and took a huge swallow. This time, the cold drink tasted sweet and delicious.

  4

  The next morning after breakfast, Sylvester put on his new ankle brace and called Duane to say he was ready to play.

  “Awesome!” Duane replied. “I'll get my glove, bat, and ball and meet you at the field in twenty minutes, okay?”

  “I'll bring my bat, too. S
ee you there!”

  Duane was already on the diamond when Syl arrived. “Bad news!” he called when he saw Sylvester. “I can only stay for half an hour. I've got to go to the dentist.” He made a disgusted face. “Other kids get to be late to school because of dentist appointments. But my mom has to schedule one during summer vacation! Sheesh!”

  Sylvester was only a little disappointed, however. Even with the brace, his ankle felt a bit weak and wobbly after the walk to the park. It was aching a little, too. He thought he might be ready to rest it after half an hour anyway.

  “So what do you want to do first, pitch or hit?” Duane asked him.

  “How about we warm up with a game of catch?” Syl countered.

  “You got it!”

  As Duane jogged farther into the field, Sylvester thought — not for the first time —how lucky he was to have such a good buddy. Duane was an easygoing kid. He liked sports, but he wasn't super-competitive about them. He hardly ever got down on himself when he was playing poorly, he didn't boast when he made a great play, and he never yelled at anyone who flubbed up. He'd stuck by Syl through thick and thin the last two baseball seasons, no matter how Syl had been performing. Syl hoped Duane knew how much that meant to him.

  “Heads up!” Duane called. He lobbed the ball high into the clear blue sky.

  When the ball came down, it landed with a satisfying plop in the pocket of Syl's glove. Syl palmed it, hollered “Incoming!,” and threw with all his might.

  The ball zipped straight for Duane's outstretched glove. It struck hard enough for Syl to hear the pop it made against the leather.

  “Yow!” Duane cried. He took his hand out of his glove and shook it. “Nothing wrong with your arm! That one stung!” He hurled the ball back to Syl.

  The two boys played catch for ten minutes. Then Duane suggested that he pitch some to Syl. “But you have to promise not to clobber them. I don't feel like running all the way to the fence and back after every hit!”

  “For you,” Syl replied with a grin, “I'll keep it in the infield!” He picked up his bat and took a few easy practice swings.