The Team That Stopped Moving Page 2

  Stan banged out a long, shallow drive over short for a double, scoring the two runners. Then, as if Jack Munson, the Foxes’ redheaded pitcher, had jinxed the ball with some magic, he struck out Andy. Then Dick lined a sharp drive right back at Jimmy, who spun on his heels and whipped the ball to second to double off Stan before he could tag up.

  Stan kicked the second base sack so hard that dust puffed off it. “Rotten luck!” he grumbled.

  Pat Hammer, the Tigers’ alternate pitcher, was able to put the ball right over the plate — and right in the path of Fox bats. The first Fox batter drove a hot grounder down to third that sizzled through Ben’s legs to the outfield. The second Fox batter popped a high fly to first that Dick fumbled and missed. The third Fox then slammed a rabbit-hopping grounder to second base, which Mark fielded and whipped to home in an effort to get the runner from third. The throw wasn’t bad, but the ball glanced off the edge of Clyde’s mitt, rolled to the backstop screen, and the run scored.

  Dick waited for a slow dribbler to come to him, caught it, then raced the hitter to first base and lost.

  “Charge those, Dick!” Coach Banks yelled at him.

  A Fox struck out, but two more runs scored before the next two outs were made. Tigers 2, Foxes 3.

  Clyde led off in the top of the second inning.

  “We know he can’t catch,” Stan remarked dismally. “Let’s see if he can hit.”

  Clyde blasted a single over second base.

  “Well, how about that? He can!” Stan cried, standing up and applauding.

  Both Jim and Tony got out, bringing up Pat. Pat took a three-two count, then laced a line drive over second base for a neat double, scoring Clyde. Mark flied out, and that was it for the half-inning.

  A Fox doubled on a sharp drive just inside the third base line. The second hitter socked a pop fly high over Clyde’s head. Clyde, circling round and round under the ball until he was nowhere near it, missed it by a mile. Then the hitter slammed out a long home run, scoring the runner on second.

  Another double followed and next, a batter hit a dribbler just in front of the plate and Clyde pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. He picked it up and hurled it to first. The throw was wild, and the sixth run scored.

  Dick didn’t know how they finally got the Foxes out, but they did. When the Tigers trotted in to the dugout, there was Eddie — quiet, shy, peace-loving Eddie — waiting for them, wearing his uniform and cap.

  “Eddie!” Dick cried. “Am I glad to see you! What happened, anyway?”

  “Mom and Dad had a talk,” Eddie said as everyone listened wide-eyed. “Dad won.”

  “Am I glad!” Clyde exclaimed, throwing his arms around Eddie. “I think that if I were to keep on catching I would be scalped after the game!”

  “Well — clipped, anyway,” Dick said, smiling. “But nobody’s done well, so you didn’t have to worry.” He saw a chilled look come over Stan’s face and corrected himself. “I’m sorry. I guess that the only guy doing real well is Stan.”

  The Tigers failed to hit safely in the top of the third inning, which didn’t surprise anybody. The Foxes returned to bat, this time uncorking five clean hits and collecting four runs. Tigers 3, Foxes 10.

  As each half-inning ended, the Tigers seemed more dispirited than ever. Now and then they hit and scored, but the Foxes, as if they were endowed with some magic formula, were able to do so more often. When the game ended, the Tigers were literally buried, 23-5. Tempers flared after the game.

  “I thought that getting up a team would help make friends, not break them up,” Dick said to Coach Banks as they collected the balls and bats.

  “Well, most of the guys are new at this,” he explained. “Each is hurt because he thinks the other guys are down on him for missing a grounder, or a fly, or for not hitting. I’m trying to teach them that we’re here to play for the fun of it. No matter what some big leaguers say, my feeling is that winning isn’t everything. Of course we want to win. We do the best we can to win. But somebody’s got to lose, too. Must the loser dig a hole into the ground and bury himself?”

  He laughed. “I sound like a soapbox lecturer. Take off. I’ll see all of you at the next game.”

  “I like him,” Eddie said as he and Dick headed for home behind their parents. “He understands.”

  “Right, he does,” Dick said.

  “I hope we don’t break up,” Eddie said sadly. “Baseball is a lot of fun, and it’s good exercise. Better than piano playing! I like it especially because, well …” He shrugged, as if unable to find the right words to express himself.

  “Because we can all get together once in a while,” Dick said. “It’s like a party.”

  “Right!” Eddie said.

  That night Eddie came over and the boys played chess. Dick won. It was too late to play another game so they listened to records and talked.

  When Eddie left, Cindy said to Dick, “You know that you’re the only guy I know who pays any attention to him?”

  “Anything wrong with that?”

  “No. I think it’s super. But why don’t the other guys have anything to do with him? I could understand it if he’s a creep, but he isn’t.”

  “I guess it’s his personality,” replied Dick. “He’s a real shy kid. You know that he never raises his hand in school when the teacher asks a question? Yet he’s one of the smartest brains there?”

  “He’s wrapped up in a shell,” Cindy said. “Maybe playing baseball will get him out of it.”

  “Not unless the guys cooperate,” Dick replied somberly.

  Thursday, June 21, was a day of sunshine and ninety-degree heat. Most of the crowd that attended the Bears-Tigers game sat in the shade of the trees behind the left-field foul line. Only a few braved the scorching sun by sitting in the stands.

  The Tigers took the field first. Eddie was behind the plate and Art was on the mound. Dick wished that Eddie would do some yelling to help perk up the team, but he knew that no one could force Eddie to do anything.

  The game started, and the Bears’ leadoff hitter pushed a Texas league single over second base. Right fielder Tony Berio fielded the ball and pegged it to first. On the throw in, the hitter raced to second, and Stan yelled at Tony, “To second, Tony! Second! Never behind the runner!”

  Stan was right, of course, thought Dick as he tossed the ball to Art. “Stay in there, Art,” he said encouragingly.

  Art, rubbing the ball as hard as if he were trying to pull its cover off, faced the second batter, then pitched. Crack! A solid hit to short! Stan caught the ball and whipped it to second as the runner, after making a start for third, turned and dashed back. Mark reached out to tag him, but the runner made it in time.

  Then Mark bullet-pegged the ball to first. But there, too, the ball arrived too late to nab the runner.

  We’re playing like a bunch of beanheads! an inner voice screamed inside of Dick. Are we going to lose all of our games by such terrible scores as 17-3 or worse?

  Then, with runners on first and second, a Bear clouted a long drive to right center field that drove in both runners. It was a stand-up triple. The Bears were on the move.

  “Let’s do something!” Stan yelled, making a fist of his right hand.

  It’s going to be a long ball game, Dick thought despairingly.

  Art pitched. The ball arced like a rainbow. The batter swung as if to drive it out of the state. Crack! A slow, dribbling grounder toward first base! Both Dick and Art charged after it.

  Suddenly something happened. Something that Dick had never experienced in all of his thirteen years.

  The ball stopped. Art stopped — posed in a running position, looking as if he had frozen solid. Even all sound stopped.

  Dick looked around, then thought that he, himself, would freeze, too. Everybody on the field and in the stands was like a statue! Nothing moved!

  4

  HI, THERE!” said a voice.

  Dick whirled.

  Less than five feet away from him s
tood a man, a man Dick had never seen before. He was in his twenties — or was it thirties? It was hard to tell because of his handlebar moustache and pointed goatee, both the color of a flaming fire. He was wearing a white jersey, baseball pants, and baseball shoes. On his baseball cap, set jauntily on his head, was the word “Champ.”

  “I’m Jack Wanda,” he said, flashing a broad smile.

  Dick’s mouth had popped open, but nothing could come out of it.

  Jack Wanda laughed and stroked his moustache. “I know just how you feel, kid,” he said. “Every boy I meet for the first time reacts the same way. And it’s natural!” He paused and crossed his hairy red arms over his chest. “Let me tell you about myself. I’m kind of a male witch,” he went on, a glint of devilish pride flashing in his ice blue eyes. “My specialty is helping teams get started that need help — baseball, football, hockey — you name it. And, believe me, you guys need help. Now — are you ready?”

  Dick gulped. “For what?” he managed to blurt out.

  “For a lesson in baseball, kid!” Jack snapped as if Dick should have known.

  “What about these guys? These people?” Dick swung an arm around at his teammates and the fans, all of whom had not moved from their frozen positions. “Will they always stay like that? Like statues?”

  Jack Wanda laughed loudly. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t explain that!” he said. “Actually, kid, when you and I are finished with this lesson, everything will go on as if nothing had happened. I’ve stopped time, you see.”

  Dick stared, wide-eyed. “You mean all — all over the world?”

  “Oh, no. Just yours. At this moment you are my subject, therefore this time applies only to you. And me, of course. Now, let’s get back to the ball game. Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” said Dick, still unable to believe that this crazy phenomenon was actually happening.

  “Good. You know what would happen if both you and Art go after that grounder, don’t you? No one will cover first, and the hitter will get on base safely.”

  “But — what about Mark?”

  “Mark? Well, look at him. He’s playing too far back to get to first base before the hitter does. What you should do, Dick, is run back, cover first, and let Art handle the grounder. Get it?”

  “Got it,” said Dick.

  Jack Wanda flashed a smile that seemed to make his moustache and beard more radiant than ever. “Good! See you later, kid. And good luck.”

  In the next instant he was gone — just like that — and Dick found himself chasing the grounder that the batter had hit toward first. From his right side, Art was chasing after the grounder, too. It was quite likely that a collision would occur unless one of them stopped.

  Dick stopped. It wasn’t the thought of a possible collision, though, that made him decide. It was the instruction from someone who had appeared to him for a split second — some strange, moustached, bearded character wearing baseball clothes and a cap with “Champ” on it.

  Sliding to a halt, Dick spun and dashed back to first base. “Get it, Art!” he yelled.

  Art fielded the grounder and snapped it to first. The throw beat the runner by a step.

  “Out!” yelled the ump.

  The runner on third started for home, then changed his mind as Dick made a motion to throw there.

  One out, a runner on third, and the next Bear came to bat. Art fed him a neat pitch over the heart of the plate. Crack! A sharp blow to deep center field! The ball hit the tip of Jim Tanner’s glove and bounced out to the wide-open field for a home run, much to the enthusiasm of the Bears’ fans and the dismay of the Tigers’.

  The next Bear popped out to Art, and a ground ball to second base ended the half-inning.

  “That’s four to nothing,” Stan grumbled as he dropped onto the bench. “Looks like it’s going to be another circus.”

  Eddie socked Dick lightly on the knee. “Nice play at first base, Dick. You, too, Art.”

  “Right. That was a good play,” Coach Banks said. “Darn good thing you changed your mind at the last second, Dick, or no one would have been covering first. You probably avoided a collision, too.”

  Dick smiled. The strange experience he had just had seemed like a dream. It had to be a dream. Time just didn’t stop and everybody didn’t freeze like statues. But, a dream like that when you’re in the act of playing baseball? It was crazy! — what was that man’s name? Jack Wonder? No, it was Wanda. Dick smiled again.

  No one got even close to getting a hit that half-inning. And only Stan managed to get on base, thanks to an error by the second baseman. Sadly, nobody drove him in.

  The Tigers held the Bears, and vice versa, for the next two innings. In the fourth, Dick and Art were involved in a play that was almost a repetition of the one that had happened in the first inning. Dick charged after the ball for a moment, then, remembering what had happened in his “dream,” raced back to first, getting the hitter out by two steps. That was one play he knew he would always remember to do right.

  The Bears picked up two runs in the fifth to go into a 6-0 lead, and it looked as though the Tigers were falling to their third defeat, counting the practice game.

  Something happened in the bottom of the fifth, though, that gave Dick hopes that the picture would change. Stan led off with a single, advanced to second on Andy’s scratch hit to short, and Dick stepped to the plate.

  Ray Coombs, the Bears’ dark-haired, left-handed pitcher, looked nervously at the runners on base, tugged at his cap, and pitched. The ball missed the plate by six inches. He threw two more wide pitches, then two directly over the plate.

  The next pitch was also in there, and Dick swung. The blast was loud and clear as bat met ball, driving it like a cannon shot to deep right center field. The bases cleared and Dick ran in for his first homer of the season.

  The whole Tiger team stood behind the plate waiting for him as he crossed it. They pumped his hands, hugged him, and yelled as if he had won the ball game. Even Stan joined in as if nothing had ever happened between them.

  It wasn’t till later on that Dick was to think of this happy moment, and wonder if only great plays or home runs would insure friendship between members of a baseball team.

  It wasn’t right, he thought. Friendship should exist in spite of anything. If there are arguments, let’s hash them out and talk things over. But don’t let our baseball team turn into a curse. Don’t let our own individual performances decide for us whether we are going to make friends or make enemies.

  The Bears held the Tigers to the three runs, came to bat anxious for revenge, and picked up one run. 7-3.

  “Okay, this is our last chance,” said Coach Banks as the Tigers came to bat in the bottom of the sixth. “Go get ‘em.”

  Art put on his helmet, picked up a bat, and stepped to the plate.

  5

  PITCHERS were often placed at the bottom of the batting order because usually they were poor hitters. Coach Banks had a different theory about this. He liked to have a good hitter at the bottom of the batting order. If he was a pitcher, the odds were that much better. If he got a hit, the leadoff batter was up next, followed by the power hitters in the lineup.

  Art was such a pitcher. He could hit.

  He proved it by socking the first pitch over short. Mark struck out. Then Art raced to second on Ben’s fly ball to center field, only to turn around and beat it back to first as the center fielder caught the fly.

  Stan got up and peppered a line drive over second base, advancing Art to second. Andy doubled to right center, scoring both Art and Stan. Bears 7, Tigers 5.

  “Let’s get three more!” Stan shouted from the bench. “Come on, Dick! Drive it!”

  Dick straightened his helmet, then rubbed the fat end of the bat as he strode to the plate. A lot of weight was on his shoulders now. If he got a hit, depending on how far the ball traveled, Andy might advance to third, or even score. But, if he didn’t get a hit, the weight would then shift to Eddie’s shoulders. And Edd
ie had not gotten a hit yet.

  Crack! A sharp bullet blow to deep short! Dick dropped his bat and bolted for first. “Safe!” boomed the ump as Dick touched the bag just a fraction of a second before the ball slammed into the pocket of the first baseman’s mitt. Andy remained glued to second base.

  “Well, I can see the headlines already,” Stan said as Eddie stepped to the plate.

  “ ‘Tigers drop third in a row. Can anybody help the poor Tigers?’ ”

  Crack! Eddie lambasted the first pitch out — far out — to deep left center field for an indisputable home run!

  Screams and cheers such as never had been heard before for the Tigers rang out from the win-thirsty Tiger fans and players as Eddie circled the bases.

  The Tigers had copped their first game of the season, 8-7.

  “He did it!” Stan yelled, jumping up and down in front of the dugout. “The little stinker did it!”

  Dick and Eddie slapped hands. “You came through, ol’ buddy!” Dick cried, as happy as if he had clouted the homer himself. “You really came through! How does it feel?”

  Eddie, looking as if he wasn’t sure what had happened, replied, “Like I’ve just hit the first home run in my life!”

  “Was it, really?”

  “Sure! The Tigers is the first team I ever played on.”

  Dick poked the little guy on the shoulder. “You’re all right, Eddie.”

  Dick could hardly wait to tell Eddie about the “dream” he had. He couldn’t think of what else to call it. It did seem like a dream, yet it had been as real as life. It wasn’t until they had arrived home and their parents had gone into the house that Dick found himself alone with Eddie.

  “Eddie, you won’t believe this, but I had the most fantastic dream!” he said, looking around to make sure no one overheard.

  “Dream?” Eddie frowned curiously.

  “Well — I’m not so sure it was a dream,” Dick confessed. “It happened during the game when a Bears batter hit the ball down to first base and both Art and I went after it. Suddenly, every person on the field and in the stands stopped moving, and this man showed up — a man with a red moustache and goatee and wearing a cap with ‘Champ’ on it. He said he was Jack Wanda, a male witch, then went on to tell me not to go after the ball, too, but to run back and cover first base. Eddie, it was the most fantastic thing that has ever happened to me in my whole life! I-I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about it!”