The Home Run Kid Races On (2 page)

The photographer didn’t seem to notice Syl’s discomfort. “You sure were the big story back then,” he said with a chuckle.
“So what’s your story now? Still playing ball? Here to check out your number one competition?” He held up his camera. “How
about a photo with you and the Orioles’ slugger together?”

“No!” Sylvester hadn’t meant to shout, but he couldn’t take the man’s questions, or the curious stares, any longer. He jumped
up and thudded awkwardly down the bleachers.

“Syl! Wait!” Duane yelled.

But Sylvester didn’t stop. He grabbed his bike and pedaled away from the ballpark as fast as his legs could take him.

T
he pavement beneath Sylvester’s wheels twisted and turned, taking him past businesses, into and out of neighborhoods, and
finally onto the bike path that went through an area of rolling hills and empty fields. After a while, he looked up and realized
he didn’t know where he was—or how he’d gotten there.

He stopped, wondering what he should do.

Just then, he heard a familiar sound.
Thock!
Somewhere nearby, someone had just hit a baseball; he was sure of it. But where?

Thock!

It’s coming from up ahead!
He pushed off toward the sound. He figured whoever was hitting those balls could give him directions back to town.

He rounded a corner and spotted a man standing in a tree-rimmed baseball field. There were bases marking the diamond, but
the area looked as if it hadn’t been in use for some time.

The field’s condition didn’t seem to bother the man, however. He hefted a wooden baseball bat above his shoulder, tossed a
ball high in the air, and swung.

Thock!

Syl whistled softly. The man had an unusual grip, with his hands spread apart on the bat rather than close together, but his
swing was powerful. The ball didn’t soar into the sky. Instead, it sizzled straight into the trunk of a big oak tree. When
it hit, birds flew from the branches above and leaves fluttered to the ground below.

Syl barely noticed, however. He was too busy staring at the man in open-mouthed amazement.

The second after he’d hit the ball, the man let go of his bat and took off at a full sprint. He rounded first base and continued
to second. Then he dropped into a classic slide—feet first, bottom leg bent, top leg stretched out to touch the bag. The metal
spikes on the soles of his shoes winked in the late afternoon sunlight and then disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Syl waited until the man hopped to his feet before speaking. “Boy, I wish I could move like that!”

The man whirled around, a look of surprise on his face. Sylvester blinked in sudden recognition. It was the man from the game,
the one with the jug-handle ears!

“Hey, weren’t you at the Orioles-Jackdaws…” Sylvester started to ask. But then he caught the man’s expression and left the
rest of his question unfinished.

The look of surprise hardened into the same angry scowl that the man had worn during the game. Sylvester dropped his eyes.
As he did, he saw something on the man’s pant leg that made him suck in his breath.

Spots of blood were mingling with the grass and dirt stains on the material. Syl realized that the man was wearing old-fashioned
baseball pants—ones that had no padding whatsoever!

That slide must have scraped the skin clean off his leg!
he thought.

“How you?” the man suddenly barked.

Syl started, looked up, and met a gaze so penetrating that he turned tongue-tied.

“S-s-sorry if I—I was wondering if you could point me back toward town?” he finally managed to say. “But I guess I could just
retrace my steps.” He started to turn his bike around, feeling foolish for not having thought of that sooner.

“Stop right there!” The man had a slight Southern accent, like the characters in a Civil War movie Syl had once seen. But
it wasn’t his accent that kept Syl rooted to the spot—it was his tone. He was a man who expected to be obeyed.

The man’s eyes bored into Syl as if he were trying to see into Syl’s mind.

“I know who you are,” he said at last. “You’re Sylvester Coddmyer the Third. You hit home runs.”

Syl’s mouth turned as dry as dust. “How do you know who I am?”

“How do I know who you are?” the man echoed Sylvester’s question mockingly. “I’ve got ears, don’t I?”

Sylvester remembered then how the photographer had yelled his name and mentioned his past home run history.
The man must have overheard that back at the game. How else would he know who I am?

Unless
… Syl felt a familiar tingling crawl up his spine. He eyed the man’s old-fashioned baseball clothes.
Could he be another part of my mystery?

“So you were some kind of home run hitter once, huh?” The man shrugged dismissively. “Can’t say I’m too impressed by that.
Any baboon can hit a home run. Now base hits, those are harder to knock out regularly. Bet a certain someone you know never
told you that though, did he?”

Syl’s heart gave a sudden bang in his chest. “A certain someone? Do you mean…
Mr. Baruth?
”

M
r. Baruth? Yeah, I guess that’s who I mean.” The man gave a short laugh. “We’re on opposite sides of the fence about home
runs. He thinks they’re everything. I don’t.”

Syl wrinkled his forehead in puzzlement. “You don’t?” he asked. “Why not?”

“Home runs ruin batting averages, that’s why,” the man replied. “You swing for the fence every time, you’ll strike out more
often than you’ll get a four-bagger. Or you’ll get walked.”

Syl remembered the Oriole slugger’s first at-bats. “I guess that could be true, Mr.…” He paused, realizing that he didn’t
know the man’s name.

“Teacy,” the man said. “Mr. Teacy. And of course it’s true. A player who can sprinkle hits around the field, he’s worth something.
He gets runners on base. He keeps the defense guessing. And he earns himself a high batting average and so keeps his place
on the team.” He shook his head. “A player who just hits home runs is like a singer who only performs one song. After a while,
everyone knows just what tune they’re going to hear. Bet Mr. Baruth never told you that.”

Mr. Teacy picked up a baseball and tossed it to Syl. “Want to see one of my favorite hits?”

Syl nodded, intrigued.

“Then get on the mound and throw me a pitch,” Mr. Teacy said.

“Okay,” Syl replied, “but I’m not a pitcher.”

“Just aim for the strike zone,” Mr. Teacy said as he retrieved his bat, “and I’ll do the rest.”

Mr. Teacy got into his stance in the batter’s box. Syl took aim and threw. He didn’t know what he expected to see, but he
wasn’t ready for what the man did.

Instead of swinging around in a wide arc, Mr. Teacy slid his right hand up the fat part of the bat, squared off, and knocked
the ball to the ground so that it rolled toward third base.

“A bunt?” Syl said, surprised. “That’s one of your favorite hits? But you can swing with so much power! Why would you bunt
when you could send it over the fence?”

Mr. Teacy frowned. “Weren’t you listening? Base hits, not homers! A well-placed bunt will get me on base. It’ll advance runners,
too, and catch the defense off guard. And that’s a win-win-win situation.” He held his bat out, barrel first, to Syl. “Let’s
see you do it.”

Syl shook his head. “I’m no good at bunting,” he admitted. “We usually work on regular hits during batting practice.”

The man’s lips flattened into a disapproving line. “Your coach must be a real lunk-head to ignore bunting!”

Sylvester swelled with anger then. He was very fond of his coach, Stan Corbin. He always encouraged his players to perform
their best and to stay upbeat and positive, even when they didn’t do as well as they had hoped. Whoever Mr. Teacy was, he
had no right to criticize him!

“Coach Corbin doesn’t ignore bunting,” Syl said. “He just focuses on other things, that’s all.”

“Think what you want,” Mr. Teacy said. “But if
he’s
not showing you how to bunt, someone else better. And that someone”—he flicked his wrist, flipping the bat so the grip was
now facing Syl—“is me.”

Any doubt Sylvester had that Mr. Teacy was yet another piece of his baseball puzzle vanished in that instant. He reached for
the bat, feeling that he was reaching toward his destiny.

To his surprise, Mr. Teacy didn’t let go. “Not so fast,” he said. “If I’m going to teach you, I want your promise that you’ll
give me everything you’ve got and that you’ll follow my instructions to the letter.”

Syl gripped the bat tighter, heart pounding. “When do we begin?”

Mr. Teacy allowed Sylvester to take the bat. “No time like now,” he said. Then suddenly, he paused and looked in the direction
of the bike path. “On second thought, meet me here tomorrow afternoon.”

“What’s the matter?” Sylvester turned to see what Mr. Teacy was looking at.

At that moment, Duane and Snooky appeared from around the bend. They looked tired and anxious. Then they spied Syl, and their
faces brightened.

“Sylvester! There you are!” Duane cried.

“We’ve been searching everywhere for you!” Snooky added. “Why are you standing in an empty ball field?”

“Empty field?” Syl twisted around and saw that the field was, indeed, empty. Mr. Teacy had vanished.

“Hey,” Duane said, “where’d you get that cool-looking bat?”

Syl’s gaze dropped to the bat still in his hands. “This? I—uh, I found it lying here in the grass.”

He told them how he’d gotten lost, but kept his meeting with Mr. Teacy to himself. He figured Duane wouldn’t want to hear
about another mysterious ballplayer. Snooky, on the other hand, would go on about how lucky Syl was to be in contact with
another dimension. Syl wasn’t in the mood for that just now. He needed time to sort out what had happened first. Maybe then
he’d tell Snooky about Mr. Teacy.

Maybe.

“Thanks for coming to find me,” he said instead. “You do know how to get home from here, right?”

“Sure!” Duane said. “I’ve biked here lots of times with my folks. Although,” he added, scratching his head, “I don’t remember
this field being laid out like a baseball diamond. Weird.”

Duane and Snooky waited for Sylvester to tuck the bat into his bike’s carryall. Then they turned around to begin their journey
home. As Syl pedaled away, he glanced at where the mysterious man had disappeared.
I’ll be back tomorrow,
he promised himself.

I
t took the boys more than fifteen minutes to bike back to their hometown. There, they stopped for a drink at their local ballpark’s
water fountain. “I gotta take off,” Duane said as he wiped his mouth. “See you here tomorrow, Syl.”

Sylvester looked up from the fountain, confused. “Huh? Why?”

Duane rolled his eyes. “Duh! Earth to Syl! We have baseball practice after school, remember?”

“Jeepers, even I knew that!” Snooky put in.

“I just forgot for a second, that’s all,” Syl said, reddening. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Like ghosts and home run kids?” Duane teased. Laughing at his own joke, he pedaled off.

The moment Duane was out of earshot, Snooky grabbed Syl’s arm. “So did you see him? Did you?” he asked eagerly.

“See who?”

“Mr. Baruth!” Snooky said. “When I saw you staring at that old ball field and holding that strange bat, I couldn’t help wondering
—”

“No,” Syl interrupted, shaking off Snooky’s hand. “I didn’t see Mr. Baruth.”

“Oh.” Snooky’s disappointment was obvious. “Well, will you tell me if he or any other mysterious ballplayer gets in touch
with you? Please?”

Sylvester scrubbed his face with his hands, suddenly weary. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I gotta get going. See you.”

He knew he was being rude, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to answer any more of Snooky’s questions or see the hope
in his eyes. So with a final wave, he turned his bike around and headed for home.

Delicious dinner smells greeted him when he walked into the kitchen. “Mmmm, I don’t know what’s in the oven,” he said, sniffing
appreciatively, “but I know it’s making my stomach rumble!”

Mrs. Coddmyer smiled. “I made roast chicken and vegetables,” she told him. “There’s French bread warming, too. Everything
will be done in about fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll set the table,” Syl said.

He was putting the final fork in place when Mr. Coddmyer returned home. He took a deep whiff of the kitchen air and grinned.
“I love that you cook such wonderful meals!”

“And I love that you clean up when we’re done eating our wonderful meals,” Syl’s mother replied as she placed the dishes of
food on the table.

While they were eating, Mr. Coddmyer told them a funny story about a coworker whose young daughter had surprised him by packing
a lunch in his briefcase. “All day, he smelled something weird in his cubicle,” Mr. Coddmyer said. “But it wasn’t until the
afternoon that he opened his case and found the tuna sandwich she’d put in there! Pee-yew!”

Sylvester cracked up, imagining how awful the smell must have been. Mrs. Coddmyer laughed, too. Then she mentioned a meeting
she’d had with some neighbors to organize a neighborhood yard sale.

“The money we raise will go toward a big block party this summer.” She turned to Syl. “I’d like your help sometime this week.
There’s a lot of old junk in our attic and basement that we can donate, but we have to sort through it all first.”

“I can help anytime except tomorrow afternoon,” Syl said. “I have baseball practice.”

He hesitated then. He knew he should tell them about Mr. Teacy and ask for permission to work with him at the old field the
next day. But he didn’t. They would have asked a lot of questions about who Mr. Teacy was and why they were playing at such
an out-of-the-way place. He had no answers to those questions. So instead, he asked if he could get in some extra practice
the following afternoon.

“I want to work on my bunting,” he added.

His parents agreed. “Just take your cell phone with you,” his mother said, “and call me when you leave the ball field so I
know you’re on your way home.”