Batter Up!

by Kurtis Scaletta

  For Byron, keeping his streak

  alive as the best kid in the world

  —K.S.

  For Mom

  —E.B.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and

  may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-0727-8 (paperback)

  Copyright © 2013 The Topps Company, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Topps and Topps League Story are

  trademarks of The Topps Company, Inc.

  Book design by Chad W. Beckerman

  Published in 2013 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  www.abramsbooks.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  About the Artist

  woke up an hour earlier than I had to, thanks to the sound of whistling from the kitchen. Dad is a morning person and a whistler. I tried to ignore it, but I also smelled bacon and pancakes. That was too good to ignore, so I got dressed and headed downstairs.

  Dad was at the stove, poking at the bacon. He was still whistling. Our dog, Penny, was perched right by him, staring hungrily and whimpering. She carried a better tune than he did.

  “Grmdg,” I said. It was the best I could do.

  “Good morning to you too!”

  He handed me a plate of food, and I sat down to eat. I felt a lot more awake after a few bites.

  “Thanks, but what happened to Mom?” Usually she made breakfast on Sundays.

  “She’s playing golf with friends,” he said. “They wanted to hit the links before it started raining. Speaking of which, maybe you won’t have to work today. Sounds like it’s going to come down pretty hard later.”

  “I sure hope not.” I was a batboy for the Pine City Porcupines, the Single-A team in our hometown. It was really fun, and way better than sitting around on a rainy day.

  • • •

  Dad was right. The sky was dark and gloomy, and looked like it might let loose any second with a storm. But they don’t cancel baseball games unless they absolutely have to. I walked to the ballpark and got ready for the day’s game against the Centralville Cougars. I made coffee, set up the bat rack, and made sure the supply chest was full.

  The players started coming in.

  “I bet we don’t play today,” said Wayne Zane. He was the Porcupines’ catcher.

  “Hope I can get some bull-pen time in,” said Ryan Kimball, the closer. A closer is a pitcher who only plays late in the game, when the team is protecting a small lead.

  Diego Prado said something in Spanish. Diego was a bench player. That meant he mostly sat in the dugout and waited. Sometimes he would get a turn at the plate or an inning in the outfield.

  “He says he hopes to play every day,” Lance Pantaño translated. Lance was a pitcher from Puerto Rico and was fluent in both Spanish and English. Diego was from Mexico and spoke only Spanish.

  I knew how Diego felt. That’s what it was like for me when I played Little League. I got to play, but never for the whole game.

  “You’ll get a chance. Just be patient,” said Sammy Solaris, the designated hitter. “You’re good in the outfield, and you’ve been hitting well in batting practice.”

  Lance started to translate, but Diego waved at him to stop. “Entiendo,” he said, which must have meant, “I understand.”

  • • •

  It was drizzling when the game started. The umpires met and decided the game could be played. It wasn’t raining very hard, at least not yet. The fans wore ponchos or raincoats. Some made their programs into hats.

  In the top of the second inning, a Cougar batter hit a fly ball to deep left field. Danny O’Brien ran after it, skidded on the damp grass, lost his balance, and fell down. The ball bounced all the way to the wall. Danny tried to get up, but he was clearly hurt. Myung Young ran from center field to get the ball. The batter ran all the way to third base.

  After the play, the trainer helped Danny off the field.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Danny as he passed through the dugout. He looked like he was in a lot of pain.

  “I just twisted my ankle,” he said. “I’ll be OK.”

  “Prado, you’re in,” said Grumps, the manager of the Porcupines. His full name was Harry Humboldt, but everyone called him Grumps. He made the change on his scorecard.

  “Gracias”, said Diego. He got his glove and ran out to play left field.

  He got a base hit in his first turn at the plate, and batted in a run.

  The rain started coming down a lot harder in the sixth inning. The game was called, but enough innings had been played for the game to be official.

  Danny O’Brien was still in the locker room after the game. He had his leg stretched out on the bench, and ice packs were taped to his ankle. He was reading a paperback book.

  “How are you doing, Danny?” Wayne Zane asked him.

  “I’m good,” said Danny. He closed the book, using his finger to mark his place.

  “Are you sure?” asked Tommy, the third baseman. “It looked like a bad spill.”

  “Sure I’m sure,” said Danny with a wince. “It doesn’t even hurt that much. Really.” He opened his book again, but he didn’t look happy.

  I sat on the bench to towel off some of the equipment. I liked hanging around the players after the game, when they were joking around and ribbing each other.

  “Hey, what are you reading?” Wayne asked Danny.

  “Trouble on the Mound,” said Danny. “It’s a Mike McKay mystery.”

  “Oh, yeah. Mike McKay, the Sports Detective! I’ve read all of them,” said Wayne. “I think that’s the one where the pitching coach put the poison in the rosin bag.”

  “Hey!” Danny said, sputtering. “I’m only on page thirty—you just spoiled the ending!”

  “Oops.” Wayne went to his locker. Danny chucked the book, and it bounced off the locker door next to Wayne.

  “You missed,” said Wayne. “Good thing you’re not a pitcher.”

  I was right there, so I picked up the book and handed it back to Danny.

  “Do I get three throws for a dollar?” he asked me.

  I laughed. “Sure.”

  “I’ll get you the dollar,” joked Teddy Larrabee, the first baseman.

  Diego Prado walked by on his way to his locker.

  “Nice hit, today,” Danny told him, offering a hand. Diego slapped it.

  “Gracias.”

  “I might need a few days to heal,” said Danny. “Hope you’re ready to play every day.”

  Diego answered in S
panish.

  “He hopes he is, and he’s sorry you’re hurt,” said Lance.

  “Tell him ‘Thanks,’ and I’ll be fine,” said Danny to Lance.

  “He knows,” said Lance. “He understands almost everything you guys say. He just can’t speak English.”

  Diego nodded and said something else in Spanish.

  “He says he knows enough English to get Wayne’s jokes,” said Lance.

  “Poor guy,” said Danny.

  • • •

  Dylan returned from the other dugout. He was the other batboy, and he had been in the visitors’ dugout helping the Cougars.

  “Hey, Wally,” he said to the clubhouse manager, who was our boss. “I have something important to talk to you about.”

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s kind of … secret,” said Dylan, looking around the locker room.

  “OK. Let’s meet in my office.” Wally’s office was nothing but a desk in the equipment room, but Dylan followed him in there.

  I was dressed and ready to leave. Then I remembered that it was still raining, so I looked for my rainproof poncho. Wally had given both Dylan and me Porcupine ponchos a while back.

  My locker was kind of a mess. I had extra clothes, game-day souvenirs, and a bunch of other junk. I kept meaning to sort it out but never got around to it.

  Dylan came back and grabbed his poncho from his locker.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I’m going to miss most of the next home stand the week after next.”

  “Really?” The next home stand was going to be the longest of the season, with games on ten straight days. “How come?”

  “I’ve got other plans.” He closed his locker door. “Wally’s going to try and find a replacement.”

  “OK.” I expected Dylan to tell me why he would be gone, but he didn’t.

  “Are you ready to walk home?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I finally found my poncho hiding in the corner of my locker, under a baseball glove I used during batting practice.

  We headed out. We walked with our hoods up and our heads lowered because it was raining really hard. Dylan had plenty of time to tell me where he was going, but he didn’t say a word. I wondered what the big secret was and why he wouldn’t tell me.

  onday was a day off, so Dylan and I went for a bike ride. It had stopped raining and the sun was out. We stopped at the golf course clubhouse to have a Coke and cool off. You don’t have to play golf to use the clubhouse.

  “How’s Penny?” Dylan asked. He had taken care of her when my family was on vacation. He was crazy about animals.

  “She’s fine,” I told him. Penny did mope around for two days because she missed Dylan, but she was getting better. “Hey, do you need somebody to take care of your rabbits while you’re gone?”

  “No. My parents can take care of them,” he said.

  So his parents weren’t going with him. That was a clue! Was Dylan going to camp? Was he visiting relatives on his own? And why would either of those things be a secret? Why couldn’t he just tell me?

  I needed Mike McKay, the Sports Detective, to help me crack the case. That gave me an idea.

  “Want to stop at the library on the way home?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  We finished our Cokes and went to get our bikes, which were locked up by the putting green. Dylan nudged me.

  “Look who’s practicing.”

  I glanced over and saw a guy in bright checkered pants.

  “Ernie Hecker!” I whispered. Ernie was the biggest loudmouth in all of Pine City. He came to every Porcupines game and sat behind the visitors’ dugout so he could yell at the opposing players.

  He glanced over at us. “Boys, it’s rude to talk when a player is getting ready to take a swing,” he said. “Even if it’s just a practice shot.”

  He must not have recognized us without our batboy uniforms.

  “Sorry,” said Dylan.

  “Me too,” I said. I knew that Ernie was right, but he was the last person on earth who should complain about other people talking!

  “Shh!” Ernie lined up the putt, took his swing, and missed the hole by a foot. “Darn it! I would have made that if you hadn’t distracted me.” He glared at us both.

  It was all we could do to get to our bikes and pedal away before we burst out laughing.

  • • •

  We pedaled over to the library. Dylan got three different books about horses. I got four paperback mysteries about Mike McKay, the Sports Detective.

  “You’re going to read grown-up books?” Dylan asked me.

  “I’m getting them for Danny,” I told him. “If he has to rest his ankle, he’ll want something to do.”

  We went to the self-check-out table. I slid one of the books across the scanner, and a card fell out.

  “Hey!” said Dylan. “It’s a baseball card.”

  Sure enough, it was a real baseball card. It looked old, and part of the front was peeled off. Across the top was the name Ozzie Virgil. I had a card for a player named Ozzie Virgil Jr., but it was from the 1980s. This must have been his dad!

  “The last person to check out that book must have used it as a bookmark and forgotten about it,” said Dylan.

  “I wonder if there’s any way to get the card back to him?”

  “Or her,” Dylan added.

  “Right.”

  Who said a woman couldn’t collect baseball cards and read sports mysteries?

  We went to the reference desk. The librarian was clacking away on a computer.

  “Excuse me, can we look up the last person who had this book?” I asked. “He or she left something in it.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I can look up who has a book checked out now, but not everyone who ever checked it out. What did you find?”

  “An old baseball card.”

  “Hmm.” He took the book and scanned it. “It hasn’t been checked out for weeks. If the borrower was going to call about the card, he or she would have done so by now. I guess it’s your lucky day.”

  “Thanks.” The card probably wasn’t worth a bazillion dollars, but I felt a little weird keeping it.

  “Maybe you can give it to one of the Porcupines to help them out of a jam,” said Dylan. “You’ve done that so many times before, I’ve lost count.”

  “Maybe.” Some of the Porcupines thought my baseball cards were magic. I thought the cards just reminded them of what was possible. The player on the card had always done something amazing.

  Had Ozzie Virgil done anything that was extraordinary?

  • • •

  I looked him up on the Internet when I got home. I read that Ozzie bounced between the minor leagues and the big leagues, mostly as a utility player. His claim to fame was that he was the first person from the Dominican Republic to play in the big leagues.

  Virgil was probably a nice guy, but if the card had any magic in it, I didn’t know what it was. I decided to leave the card in the library book for now. It seemed like that was where it belonged.

  For the first time, I really looked at the cover of the book. The title was Never Get Back. I flipped it over and started reading the summary.

  When a minor league batboy named Charlie goes missing …

  It was about a minor league batboy? And his name was Charlie? This kid and I had the same job—and the same name! “Charlie” and “Chad” were both nicknames for Charles. It was kind of cool but also kind of spooky. I needed to know whether the batboy in this book ended up alive and well.

  I opened it up and started reading.

  Charlie worked for a team called the Cactus City Scorpions. One day he disappeared right in the middle of a game. Mike McKay, the Sports Detective, was called in to figure out what happened to him. It turned out that Charlie had a really big baseball card collection. Mike McKay suspected that one of the rare and valuable cards might be missing. That part made my heart beat faster. The Charlie character was way too much like me. I
put the book down, afraid to read any further.

  I would have peeked at the ending, but I didn’t want to spoil it for myself. I was no Wayne Zane.

  was halfway to work the next day when I remembered I’d forgotten to bring Danny’s books! I ran home, barged in the front door, and bounded up the stairs to my room.

  The books were all there, with a sticky note on the top one that said, “Remember to give to Danny!” The note hadn’t done any good because I had forgotten to read it.

  I grabbed the stack and ran back down the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Mom asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, wheezing. “Everything is fine.” I hurried out the door and headed for the ballpark.

  I’d just stowed the books in my locker and started getting dressed when Danny hobbled into the locker room wearing a plastic boot. He looked miserable.

  “I’m not going to be able to play for at least two weeks,” he announced. “I have a sprained ankle. I can’t put any weight on my foot.”

  “Oh, man. That’s rough.” Sammy patted him on the shoulder.

  “We’ve all been there once or twice,” said Wayne. “Hang in there.”

  “Thanks, guys,” said Danny. “This is hard. I really want to play.”

  “Hope these will help pass the time,” I said. I gave him three books about Mike McKay, the Sports Detective. I’d decided to keep the one about the missing batboy, even if I was scared to read it.

  “Hey, thanks! That’s really thoughtful of you.” Danny flipped through the books. “I think I’ll read this one first. Point Blank After Touchdown.”

  Wayne opened his mouth.

  “Shut up, Wayne,” Danny told him before he could get a word out. “I want to find out how it ends by reading it.”

  “I was just going to say it’s a good one,” said Wayne. But you could tell he was itching to blurt out the ending. “One of my favorites. Never would have guessed that …”

  Before he could get another word out, Sammy clapped a hand over his mouth. “Do you promise not to spoil his book?”