The Year Mom Won the Pennant Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1968 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  Copyright © renewed 1996 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Little Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.twitter.com/littlebrown

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

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

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09613-3

  To

  Charlie Foote

  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

  Matt Christopher®

  The #1 Sports Series for Kids: MATT CHRISTOPHER®

  1

  Nick Vassey drilled the ball straight over the plate. Boom! The ball connected solidly with Gale Matson’s bat and rocketed over the fence, far left of the foul line.

  “Quit pulling that ball!” yelled Cyclone Maylor at second base.

  “I’m not pulling it!” Gale yelled back, his face glistening in the hot sun. “I’m hitting it!”

  Nick grinned. In spite of the monkey business going on, Gale could make the worst-tempered person break into a smile.

  A moment later the smile disappeared. “Isn’t anybody going after that ball?” Nick asked.

  No one budged. The outfielders and the infielders were standing like statues, some of them with their arms crossed, some even with their ankles crossed.

  Pat Krupa, standing near third base, was closest to the ball.

  “Go after it, will you, Pat?” pleaded Nick. “We don’t have many balls.”

  Pat glanced at the others behind him, made a face, and went on a slow run after the ball. He had to go out the gate, then swing right behind the fence. “Straighten ‘em out next time,” he grumbled as he ran by.

  This is the trouble when you don’t have a coach, thought Nick. No one wants to do anything extra.

  Jerry Wong, who was catching the balls thrown in from the fielders, tossed him a ball. Nick stretched and aimed a pitch at the outside corner. Gale swung and drove the ball inches past Nick’s right ear.

  “Hey! What did I ever do to you? Okay, lay this one down, Gale.”

  Gale bunted the next pitch down the third-base line and beelined for first. Jim Rennie batted next. Finally they all had taken their turns. But Wayne Snow wanted to bat again.

  “If you do, everybody else will want to,” said Nick. “And we’ve got to have outfield and infield practice.”

  “We can have outfield and infield practice the next time,” argued Wayne. “Come on, somebody. Pitch to me.”

  “I’ll pitch a couple to you if you’ll pitch a couple to me,” offered Tom Warren, the team’s best hitter last year.

  “You’re on,” said Wayne.

  “Who’s going to shag them?” snapped Scotty Page. “I’m not.”

  Nick looked from one to the other and began to feel angry. You can’t have a team with each guy wanting his own way. It would fall apart in no time.

  “You know what’s going to happen?” Gale Matson piped up. “There won’t be a Thunderballs team, that’s what. Not unless we get a coach.”

  “But Nick says his father doesn’t want to coach us anymore,” Jim Rennie said.

  “Why not?” Cyclone turned a surprised look at Nick.

  Nick shrugged. “He’s working later hours now, so he doesn’t have time. And he’s never won the pennant. He figures maybe someone else could do better. How about your father, Gale? Have you asked him?”

  “He’s a cop,” Gale answered. “He works different shifts. He can’t.”

  “My dad can’t either,” said Cyclone. “He’s a pilot. He’s away a lot.”

  “How about your dad, Wayne?” Nick asked. “Think he’d like to coach us?”

  Wayne shook his head and ran his hand up the full length of his bat. “He doesn’t have time either.”

  “Looks as if the Thunderballs have just fallen apart,” announced Russell Gray. “I’m going to get on another team before it’s too late.”

  “It is too late,” said Nick. “The other teams have been formed.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nick.

  “You sure, Dad?” Nick pleaded again while he and the girls, Jen and Sue, passed the food around the table. “Are you sure you won’t have time to coach this year?”

  “I’m sure,” replied Dad. “I’ve told you my reasons, Nick. I’m working more hours. And I’ve coached the team for four years and have never come close to first place. Give some other father a chance. Maybe he can do better.”

  “But no other father wants to coach us, Dad,” exclaimed Nick. “They all have excuses, too. And without a coach, we won’t have a team!”

  Jen and Sue sat down at their regular places across from Nick, and Mom was across from Dad. They began eating. Hamburgers, mashed potatoes, and corn usually would make Nick forget everything else for a while. But this time the fate of the Thunderballs was uppermost in his mind. What would he do all summer if he didn’t play baseball?

  “Guess there just won’t be any Thunder-balls this year,” Jen said, putting a forkful of potatoes into her mouth. Her voice, thought Nick, sounded like the knell of doom.

  “I have a thought,” Mom said.

  Nick’s ears perked up. “What, Mom? That I play on another team? I can’t. It’s too late.”

  “No. Not that.”

  “What, then, Mom?”

  Mom’s eyes twinkled. “Okay if I tried it? Coaching the Thunderballs, I mean?”

  Nick stared at her. “You? You coach the Thunderballs? Is that what you said, Mom?”

  Mom smiled. “That’s what I said.”

  2

  But, Mom!” Nick was dumbfounded. “What do you know about coaching?”

  Mom loved baseball just as much as Dad. But only as a spectator. She just couldn’t mean what she had said.

  “I’ve watched baseball games for more years than I’d care to mention,” Mom explained. “And I’ve seen coaches work too. Particularly your father.”

  “And I bet Mom can do just as well,” Sue put in, shaking back her blond curls. Her smile showed where she had lost a tooth.

  “She just might do better,” Dad admitted, beaming.

  “She just might,” echoed Jen, who had been born between Nick and Sue.

  “What have you got to lose?” Dad said. “Without her you might not have a team at all. With her you will.”

  Nick shrugged. He wasn’t exactly elated about the idea. “Well, I guess having a team is better than not having one,” he agreed. “Even if we don’t win a single game.”

  “Thanks for the compliment,” said Mom.

  Nick squeezed out a grin. “I’m sorry, Mom. I really didn’t mean that. You sure you want to coach us?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But first you’d better ask your teammates if it’s all right with them.”

  “Wait till tomorrow, Nick,” suggested Dad. “This evening you call all the guys and tell them there’s practice tomorrow. Tomorrow Mom g
oes with you to the park and tells the boys she’s your new coach. If they don’t like it, they might as well forget about having a team.”

  Nick was glum. He appreciated his mother’s offer, but he was pretty sure the guys wouldn’t go for it in a million years.

  At six o’clock the next afternoon every member of the Thunderballs baseball team was present at the field. So was Mom. Most of the boys knew her. Nick introduced her to the few boys she didn’t know.

  Mom’s talk to the boys was brief. She said that Nick had told her that the Thunderballs had trouble getting a coach this year, that it was impossible for Mr. Vassey to coach them for a couple of good reasons, and that she had volunteered.

  “Some of you might have doubts about my coaching because I’ve never done it before,” she added. “Well, without me you won’t have a team. And isn’t having a team with a greenhorn for a coach better than no team at all?” She paused to let that thought sink into their heads a bit. “Besides, I do happen to know the women who coach the junior high and high school softball teams. I’m sure they’ll give me some good advice if I need it. Well, what do I hear? Will you accept me as coach? Or won’t you?”

  There was silence for a second. A long second. It was more like a minute, thought Nick.

  “Yes!” said Cyclone Maylor, putting up his hand.

  “Yes!” said Jerry Wong. In the next instant every boy there said yes and had his hand in the air.

  Mom’s face lit up. “Thanks, boys,” she said. “From now on you can call me Coach.”

  Mom wrote the name of each player down on a tablet she had brought with her. After their names she wrote their positions. Then she asked one of the players to hit fly balls to the outfielders and another to hit to the infielders. There were fourteen players altogether, including two pitchers, Johnny Linn and Frankie Morrow. She had them shag fly balls, too.

  Cyclone Maylor and Bill Dakes alternated at second base. Cyclone was hustling and yelling every minute. Bill wasn’t. Nick, watching from deep short, felt that Bill wasn’t doing his best. Bill hardly made an effort for a ground ball that sizzled past him to the outfield.

  “Come on, Bill!” yelled Mom. “Shake a leg out there!”

  Bill moved faster after the next one.

  Someone laughed nearby. A deep-throated, amused laugh. Nick saw a car parked on the roadside with a man behind the wheel. The car started up and sped down the road.

  “Who was that?” asked Mom, curious.

  “Burt Stevens,” said Russ Gray, the first baseman. “He coaches the Tornadoes, the team that won the pennant the last two years.”

  “Is that so?” A peculiar light glimmered in Mom’s eyes. “Well, maybe by the end of this season he’ll laugh out of the other side of his mouth.”

  A week later Mom made a phone call and scheduled a practice game with — of all teams, thought Nick — the Tornadoes. The game was at six-thirty Friday.

  The Vasseys ate supper early that day. Nick had just finished eating when the Mat-sons’ car pulled up in front of the house. Mrs. Matson was driving and had Gale, Dave, and Marge with her.

  “Mom, I’m going over to Gale’s house for a while,” said Nick. “He wants to show me his aquarium.”

  “Okay,” said Mom. “But don’t be late for the game.”

  Gale lived near the edge of Flat Rock. His father, the only African-American on the police force, used to play professional baseball. He would make a good coach, thought Nick. Too bad he had to work evenings.

  The fifteen-gallon aquarium had tropical fish in it — angel fish, black mollies, zebras, neon tetras. Gale pointed out the different kinds with pride while the fish scooted about in all directions.

  “Those zebras are devils,” he said. “They’re always chasing the other fish.”

  Later they went outdoors. Dave and Marge were skateboarding on the large blacktop driveway in front of the garage. Dave let Nick use his skateboard awhile, and Nick had so much fun he practically forgot about baseball until Mrs. Matson stepped out on the front porch.

  “You’d better hurry to your baseball game, boys,” she reminded them. “It’s almost six-thirty.”

  “Wow!” cried Nick. “Let’s go, Gale! Thanks for letting me skateboard, Dave!”

  He and Gale picked up their gloves and hurried to the street. Taking a shortcut through a strawberry field, they arrived at the ball park just as the Thunderball infielders were running out to take their practice.

  Jim Rennie was running out to shortstop, Nick’s usual position. Nick wondered if Mom was going to let Jim play shortstop even though he, Nick, had gotten to the game in time.

  When Nick and Gale ran up, puffing, in front of the dugout, Mom was handing a ball to Johnny Linn to hit to the infielders. Near first base, Bill Dakes, a utility infielder, was hitting flies to the outfielders.

  “Well,” Mom said a bit firmly, “I wondered whether you boys had decided to play baseball or go fishing. Nick, work out there with Jim. Gale, trot to the outfield and shag flies with those other boys.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Vassey,” Gale started to apologize. “It was my fault that we —”

  “Never mind,” Mom interrupted. “Get going. We don’t have much time.”

  Johnny’s hits to the infielders were soft and easy to handle. They were nothing like the hard grounders Dad used to hit to them. As far as Nick was concerned, the practice meant nothing more than a little exercise.

  Then it was time for the Tornadoes to take their turn on the field. While they did so, Mom reshuffled the lineup slightly.

  It was as follows when she was done:

  Cyclone Maylor 2b

  Jerry Wong cf

  Nick Vassey ss

  Gale Matson if

  Russ Gray lb

  Wayne Snow c

  Scotty Page rf

  Jim Rennie 3b

  Frankie Morrow p

  An umpire of the regular season had accepted the job of umpiring this non-league game. Nick picked up a bat and crouched on one knee in front of the dugout. Waiting for the first pitch from the Tornadoes’ tall left-hander, Lefty Burns, was Cyclone Maylor.

  Lefty breezed the first pitch by Cyclone for a called strike, then slipped another one by him. Cyclone yanked nervously on his helmet while Mom yelled to him to “Swing when it’s in there!”

  Crack! A high soaring fly to center. The Tornadoes’ center fielder moved forward three steps and caught it easily. Jerry Wong socked a grass-cutting grounder down to third for out number two, and Nick was up.

  “Here he is!” shouted Bugs Wheeler, the Tornadoes’ catcher. “The big one, Lefty!”

  And to Nick: “What’s your mother been doing, Nick? Taking coaching lessons? She’ll need more than that to beat us!”

  Nick glared at Bugs and set his teeth. He watched the first pitch come in, but he was too rattled to be ready for it.

  “Strike!” said the ump.

  Bugs laughed again. “’Ataway to go, Lefty! Pitch to me, baby! I think I got his number!”

  3

  Nick braced himself for the next pitch. He tried to ignore Bugs’s taunts and concentrate on the game.

  The pitch. “Ball!”

  The next was in there and Nick swung. Crack! A sharp line drive over third! Nick dropped his bat and started to bolt to first base. But he saw the ball curve and strike the ground just inches outside the foul line and he stopped.

  “Tough luck, Nick!” shouted Mom.

  Bugs was grinning when Nick picked up the bat to try again. “Too bad, Nick. Maybe your coach could tell you what you did wrong that time.”

  Shut up! Nick wanted to say. But that would only make Bugs realize his remarks were hitting home.

  “Ball two!”

  Lefty couldn’t get the next two pitches over either, and Nick walked. He flashed a quick grin at Bugs as he tossed the bat aside. But Bugs wasn’t looking at him now.

  Gale Matson fouled the first pitch, then drove a sky-rocketing fly to short center field. The shortstop,
second baseman, and center fielder all ran after it. It was the center fielder who yelled for it and caught it. Three outs.

  A pop fly to Nick, a grounder to Jim, and a caught foul tip on the third strike ended the half-inning for the Tornadoes. In the top of the second the Thunderballs picked up their first run, but the Tornadoes put across three on a home run by Bugs with two on. Bugs Wheeler. The guy Nick least wanted to see crack out a homer.

  In the top of the third, with one out, Cyclone scored from second on Nick’s double. Gale singled, a worm-wiggling grounder that just got by Lefty Burns. Russ Gray walked, filling the bases. Then Wayne Snow hit into a double play, leaving two stranded.

  The Tornadoes started to hit Frankie hard in the bottom of the third. They scored a run and still had three men on. Nick looked at Mom sitting in the dugout and wondered why she let Frankie continue pitching. It just proved that she didn’t know enough about baseball.

  Another run scored and Nick wished now that the Thunderballs had not voted Mom in to coach. She just didn’t know what to do at the crucial times, that’s all there was to it.

  Somehow the Thunderballs got the third out and went to bat, hoping to start a rally of their own. They couldn’t. The Tornadoes came back up in the last of the fourth and started where they had left off in the third inning. They were knocking Frankie’s pitches all over the lot, and Nick wished he and Gale had stayed away entirely. Mom just was no coach.

  And then, after three runs scored and only one out, Mom decided to do something. “Time!” she yelled, running out of the dugout and waving her arms at the umpire. “Johnny! Johnny Linn! Come on!”

  “Now we’re going to see some strategy!” yelled Bugs Wheeler from the Tornadoes’ dugout.

  Johnny Linn trotted in from the bullpen, where he had been warming up, took the ball from Frankie, and stepped onto the mound. He threw a few pitches to Wayne Snow, then stepped off the rubber. The umpire called, “Play ball,” and the game resumed.

  Nick saw Burt Stevens sitting in the Tornadoes’ dugout with a Cheshire-cat grin on his face. Matter of fact, the whole team seemed to be grinning like that. He just could not understand why Mom got a practice game with them when there were weaker teams in the league. She just could not have been thinking.