Mystery Coach
Authors: Matt Christopher
THE LUCKY BASEBALL BAT
BASEBALL PALS
BASKETBALL SPARKPLUG
TWO STRIKES ON JOHNNY
LITTLE LEFTY
TOUCHDOWN FOR TOMMY
LONG STRETCH AT FIRST BASE
BREAK FOR THE BASKET
TALL MAN IN THE PIVOT
CHALLENGE AT SECOND BASE
CRACKERJACK HALFBACK
BASEBALL FLYHAWK
SINK IT, RUSTY
CATCHER WITH A GLASS ARM
WINGMAN ON ICE
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
THE COUNTERFEIT TACKLE
THE RELUCTANT PITCHER
LONG SHOT FOR PAUL
MIRACLE AT THE PLATE
THE TEAM THAT COULDN’T LOSE
THE YEAR MOM WON THE PENNANT
THE BASKET COUNTS
HARD DRIVE TO SHORT
CATCH THAT PASS!
SHORTSTOP FROM TOKYO
LUCKY SEVEN
JOHNNY LONG LEGS
LOOK WHO’S PLAYING FIRST BASE
TOUGH TO TACKLE
THE KID WHO ONLY HIT HOMERS
FACE-OFF
MYSTERY COACH
COPYRIGHT
© 1973
BY MATTHEW F. CHRISTOPHER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE
BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW
.
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First eBook Edition: December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-09578-5
Contents
SPORTS BOOKS BY MATT CHRISTOPHER
to
Florence Kramer
C
HRIS RICHARDS
stood near second base, wondering if the Blazers were going to have a team or fall apart before the season started.
He lifted his eyeglasses, scratched the bridge of his nose, and let them drop in place again. He didn’t feel like practicing
any more than he felt like walking across a hot desert. And he wasn’t alone. Half of the guys on the team, felt the same way.
“Well — don’t just stand there!” yelled Steve Herrick from first base at Jack Davis, the batter. “Swing that club, will you?”
If anybody could get irritable, it was Steve.
Chris looked at Coach Tony Edson, a short, frail-looking man who Chris found hard to believe was a former semipro baseball
player. He wore a baseball cap and sweatshirt, and
looked
like a coach, but he was far from acting like one. You would expect a coach to give the boys instructions once in awhile.
How to change their batting stances if they weren’t hitting well, for example. Or how to change their fielding habits if they
weren’t fielding well.
Not him. All he’d done so far was to say, “Scatter out on the field, boys. Two or three of you bat. Hit five and bunt. Lewis,
get on the mound.” And he hadn’t said more than three or four words since.
Coach Edson never said much anyway, but Chris remembered that it was the coach who had helped him on his batting last year.
Chris used to stand too far from the plate and kept his bat on his shoulder. “Stand closer to the plate, Chris,” Coach Edson
had said. “And hold the bat a few inches off your shoulder. Don’t just let it rest there.”
Something was different about Coach Edson this year. He was quieter than he’d ever been.
Jack Davis finally got his hits, then bunted a pitch down the third-base line. He dropped the bat, pulled his glove out of
his hip pocket, and ran out to cover shortstop.
Two boys headed for the plate at the same time, Tex Kinsetta and Spike Dunne.
“I was waiting longer than you,” snorted Tex.
“So?” said Spike.
Coach Edson was sitting in the dugout, writing on a pad. He didn’t seem to notice what was going on.
“Oh, knock it off, will you?” shouted Steve. “Let’s get the show moving!”
Coach Edson looked up. “Stop arguing, boys,” he said. “Bat, Tex.”
Glumly, Spike moved back, and Tex stepped into the batting box. Chris looked at Steve and saw the tall, dark-haired youth
turn and shake his head.
Steve Herrick was the oldest boy on the team and the best player, too. Time and time again his hitting and fielding had helped
the Blazers win ball games last year. But it was really Coach Edson who had made the Blazers a well-knit team. It was he who
had kept them from going into the dumps when they lost. It was he who had given wise counsel when they were in a tough spot.
They couldn’t possibly have done well without him.
Why was he so different now? What was
wrong? Was he ill? He looked healthy enough.
Tex took his cuts, then dropped his bat, got his glove, and ran out to third base. Chris decided that he’d better take his
batting practice now too, before the coach called for infield practice.
He trotted off the field, tossed his glove aside, and went to the pile of bats. He picked out one he liked, slipped a metal
“doughnut” over the handle to the fat part of the bat, and swung the club back and forth a few times over his shoulders. When
he removed the weight, the bat felt like a feather.
Steve Herrick trotted in, too.
“What’s up with Coach?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” answered Chris.
“Maybe he’s tired of coaching us.”
“Maybe. But he’d say so, wouldn’t he?”
“It seems so.”
Chris watched the tall first baseman pick up a bat. “This will be your second time at bat, won’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why not — if he doesn’t say anything?”
“Well, we should have infield practice, too. And outfield.”
“He’s the coach,” grunted Steve, looking briefly in Coach Edson’s direction. “Not me. And not you, either.”
Chris caught the implication, but carried it no further. He didn’t want to put a chip on Steve’s shoulder, a thing too easy
to do.
He waited for Spike to finish batting, then stepped to the plate.
“Wait a minute, Chris.” Coach Edson’s interruption was a surprise. “Abe Ryan! Come in and pitch! Bill, have you batted yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay. Follow Steve. Then we’ll have infield.”
Chris exchanged a glance with Steve. “Guess he’s alive, anyway,” mumbled Steve.
Chris missed Abe Ryan’s first two pitches, then dropped to the ground from a wild one the left-hander threw at his head. He
got up, dusted himself off, adjusted his glasses, and faced Abe again.
The tall lefty wound up and grooved the next pitch. Chris, a right-handed batter, swung and fouled the ball to the backstop
screen. He missed the next pitch and popped twice to the infield.
“Let ’im hit it, Abe!” cried Mick Antonelli from the outfield. “We haven’t got all day!”
Abe tossed up the next pitch easily and Chris blasted it to deep left. A chuckle rippled from the infielders.
“Don’t expect those fat balloons in a game, Chris!” laughed Steve.
Chris bunted the next slow pitch down to first base, ran to first, then gathered up his glove and trotted to his position
at second.
After Steve and Bill Lewis batted, Coach Edson worked on the infielders. Tex Kinsetta had trouble fielding grounders at third
base and began throwing his glove to the ground in disgust, as if he were blaming the mitt for his problem.
“You’ll come around,” said Coach Edson as he knocked out a grounder to the shortstop, Jack Davis.
Chris thought he’d say more than that. The coach might at least explain to Tex why he was missing the ball. But he didn’t.
After infield practice the coach hit balls to the outfielders for fifteen minutes, then called in the team and announced practice
again for tomorrow night.
“We definitely need a new coach,” Steve said emphatically as he, Ken, Chris and Tex left the ball park. They had their baseball
shoes strung over their shoulders and their gloves draped over their wrists. “I don’t think we’ll win any games with him as
coach.”
“But who’s going to tell him that?” said Chris. “He’s an old man. It’ll break his heart.”
“He looks as if it’s half broken now,” said Steve.
They reached the intersection where they had to split up. “So long,” said Steve and crossed the street to his home, which
was catercorner from the ball field. Living so close to the park was sure convenient. If Steve didn’t want to go to the park
to watch a ball game, he could watch it from his house.
Ken lived a block away; Chris and Tex
lived two blocks away and four houses apart.
Rock Center was a small town at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. It had no theaters and featured no big sporting events. So
when baseball season opened, the stands were usually packed. Rock Center backed its Little Leaguers one hundred percent.
At quarter of seven that night Chris received a phone call from Tex Kinsetta. Tex had never sounded so excited in his life
—not even when he had corked a grand slammer in last year’s playoffs.
“You won’t believe it, Chris!” he cried. “You just won’t believe it!”
“Believe what, Tex?”
“This phone call I got! From some guy! He talked like a coach!”
“It wasn’t Coach Edson?”
“Heck, no! I don’t know who he was! He told me I wasn’t playing my position at third base right!”
Chris’s heart pounded. “You — you said you didn’t know who he was?”
“Right! I asked him! He just said to call him Coach!”
T
EX KINSETTA
came over early the next morning.
“Hi, Mrs. Richards,” he said, taking off his baseball cap and grinning. “Is Chris up yet?”
Chris heard Mom laugh. He was having breakfast in the dining room and wasn’t surprised that Tex was here earlier than usual.
He probably hadn’t slept a wink all night, thinking about that phone call.
“Yes, he’s up,” said Mom. “He’s having breakfast. Have you had yours?”
“Oh, yes.”
Chris leaned over and peered through the dining room doorway. “Hi, Tex.”
Tex’s real name was Sherman. The kids called him Tex because he hailed from Texas.
“Hi,” he said.
“Tex got a phone call from some guy last night,” he said to his mother. “He called to tell Tex what he wasn’t doing right
at third base.”
“Oh?” Mom’s eyebrows lifted. “Who was he?”
“He wouldn’t tell me,” replied Tex.
“That’s funny,” she said.
“Sure is,” said Chris. He wiped his mouth, left the table and headed for the door. “We’re just going outside, Mom.”
“I rode my bike,” said Tex. “Get yours and let’s ride awhile.”
As if the word “bike” was a signal, Chris’s dog, Patches, began barking excitedly. He
was tied to his house near the fence dividing the Richardses from their neighbors.
Chris grinned. “Okay if he comes along?”
“Why not?” said Tex. “He always does, doesn’t he?” He laughed, and Chris went to unsnap the chain from Patches’ collar. Patches,
a small, lean dog chock-full of energy, leaped up and licked Chris’s face, then followed Chris to the bike leaning against
the garage wall.
“Wish I had his energy,” said Tex. “Maybe I’d do better at third base.”
“Get a collar and I’ll chain you to Patches’ house for a day,” replied Chris.