The Submarine Pitch
Read The Submarine Pitch Online
Authors: Matt Christopher
Copyright © 1976, 1992 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
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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.
Matt Christopher
®
is a registered trademark of Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.
First eBook Edition: December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-09604-1
Contents
The #1 Sports Series for KIDS MATT CHRISTOPHER
®
T
here was no way in the world that Bernie Shantz would have connected a lady’s vanity with baseball. A vanity was a piece of
furniture with drawers into which women put their personal things, such as cosmetics. Baseball was — well, everybody knew
what baseball was.
Actually, what brought about the connection was the newspaper clipping that Ann-Marie found in the bottom drawer of the vanity.
How it got there, whose it was, and why it was there were the questions that
immediately bothered Bernie, AnnMarie, his fifteen-year-old sister, who had bought it from a friend, and Frankie, the youngest
of the Shantz clan.
“Hey, read this,” said Frankie, who was only eight and longed to be old enough to play ball on his brother’s team.
“It’s about a guy who used to pitch for a team called the Keystones,” said AnnMarie, who looked up at Bernie with her enormous
blue eyes.
“He threw a submarine pitch,” Frankie added. “Ever hear of a submarine pitch? Weird-sounding, isn’t it?”
Bernie frowned as he looked at his sister and brother. “Submarine pitch? Never heard of it.”
“It must’ve been some pitch,” said Frankie, looking at his brother anxiously. “It says here that he had the strikeout record
in the league for three years.”
Bernie knew why Frankie had that anxious look on his face. Bernie was a pitcher himself. Was — until last week, that is. Since
then he had given it up, closed it out of his life forever. No more pitching. In fact, no more baseball
at all
for him, except watching it on TV, maybe. He just wasn’t cut out for it, no matter how much he loved it. He knew his decision
bothered Frankie, who couldn’t understand why his older brother didn’t want to play ball anymore. Well, Frankie was just a
kid. He wouldn’t.
“Dusty Fowler,” Bernie began to read out loud, “pitching his fourth straight victory of the season against Rockville in the
City Twilight League, says of his pitching form, ‘I throw that way because it’s the easiest for me. I can throw all day if
I have to and not get tired. The thing is, I can’t throw overhand if I try. I hurt my shoulder one day
while baling hay, and I’ve been throwing underhand ever since.’”
There was more, but Bernie didn’t care to read any further.
“You’d better give this back to the people you bought the vanity from,” he said to Ann-Marie. “They might not have known it
was there and would want it back.”
“But their name isn’t Fowler,” Frankie intervened. “It’s Hudson. Why would
they
want it back?”
Bernie looked at him. “Dusty Fowler could’ve been a friend,” he replied. “Anyway,” he turned to AnnMarie, “I think you should
call the Hudsons and tell them about it.”
“But,” said Frankie, not one to yield so easily, “there’s more about that submarine pitch that I think you should know.”
“I don’t care.” Bernie’s eyes flashed as he
looked at his younger brother. “I know what you’re thinking, Frankie, and you might as well get it out of your head. I’m through
with baseball. Through… finished… out. Okay?”
Frankie looked at him with large eyes. Bernie paused. No kid on the block read as much about baseball players and teams as
Frankie did. When it came to records, Frankie was a walking encyclopedia. And Bernie — although he wouldn’t say so — admired
him for it.
“Okay,” said Frankie. “I just thought…” He turned and went out of the room abruptly without finishing what he was going to
say.
AnnMarie took the clipping from Bernie. “Too bad he’s too young to play,” she said icily. “I think he’s really more nuts about
baseball than you are.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Bernie sullenly.
There was a sound from the other room, and then a cheery greeting, as a boy with rust-colored hair and a thin smattering of
freckles on his high-cheekboned face came in.
“Hi, AnnMarie. Hi, Bernie. What’s new?”
“Hi, Dave,” AnnMarie greeted him. “Heard you were in New York?”
Dave Grant smiled. “I was. But that was just over Sunday to see the Mets game. Dad had to be back to work today.” He looked
at the clipping in AnnMarie s hand. “Hey, that looks like something out of an old newspaper. Anything important?”
“It’s a clipping I found in a drawer of a vanity I just bought,” AnnMarie explained. “I was about to call up the woman I bought
it from and ask her if she wants it back. Maybe it dropped out of a scrapbook or something. Excuse me.”
As she started out of the room Bernie saw Dave open his mouth as if he were going to call to her, but then he closed it and
looked at Bernie. A sheepish grin came over his face.
“Hey, man,” he said. “That was quite a game I saw. I hope you can come with us sometime.”
Dave’s acting kind of peculiar. Does he have a secret with AnnMarie?
thought Bernie.
“I might, sometime,” he answered, frowning. Ever since the major league baseball season had opened, Dave and his father had
gone to New York City to see games. They had gone to Syracuse to see International League games, too. Apparently Mr. Grant
enjoyed baseball as much as his son did, although he seldom talked about it in Bernie s presence.
Bernie studied Dave’s face; his friend’s
warm blue eyes looked restless. Something seemed to be bothering Dave, that was sure.
Dave lived four blocks away and he was Bernie’s best friend. They were in the same grade at Lake Center School and shared
similar interests: fossil collecting, weird comic books, and horror movies.
“You in trouble?” Bernie asked. After being friends for two years, you can tell when something’s bothering a guy.
Dave shook his head. “Trouble? No. Why?” His phony smile made Bernie even more suspicious.
Bernie shrugged. “I don’t know. You kind of look as if something’s bothering you.”
Dave forced a chuckle. Bernie was pretty sure now that he was right — something
was
bothering Dave. Well, maybe it was something personal. Something Dave didn’t want to tell him about.
In a minute AnnMarie came back into the room, Frankie close behind her.
“Know what?” she said casually. “Mrs. Hudson doesn’t know a thing about this clipping.”
Bernie looked at her. If Mrs. Hudson didn’t know a thing about the clipping, how could it have gotten into the vanity?
“Well,” AnnMarie said, “I won’t have to return it, so that saves a trip over to Douglas Street.”
Hardly were the words out of her mouth when she turned toward Dave. Her blue eyes fastened on him.
“Dave, you must know the Hudsons,” she said. “They’re your neighbors.”
He blushed and then nodded. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “They live four doors from us.”
Bernie suddenly got an idea about the
clipping’s origin. He poked a finger gently into Dave’s ribs. “Buddy boy,” he said, “is there an itty-bitty chance that
you
know how that clipping got into Mrs. Hudson’s vanity?”
The smile flickered on Dave’s face. “I guess it’s no use for me to keep my mouth shut any longer, is it?”
Bernie shook his head. “No, it isn’t. I thought you were acting kind of funny. I read that clipping, Dave. A part of it, anyway.
It won’t work. Frankie’s been trying to get me back into pitching, too. I won’t do it. I’m through.”
“But you didn’t read the
whole
clipping, Bernie,” said Frankie from the doorway. “You didn’t come to the most important part.”
Bernie looked at him. “Most important part? What was that?”
“About the pitch,” replied Frankie, stepping
forward as if he were glad for the chance to participate in the conversation. “There’s something about that submarine pitch
that’s really weird.”
“Oh?” Bernie’s eyebrows went up a notch. “What do you mean? How can a pitch be weird?”
AnnMarie handed him back the clipping. “Here,” she said. “Maybe you’ll learn more about it by reading the whole thing this
time.”
Curious, Bernie took the clipping from her and started to read it again from the beginning. By the time he was finished with
it, his skin was prickling.
T
he pitch comes up like a submarine coming up out of the water, which is how it got its name,” Bernie read. “It sails in a
straight path toward the plate, rising until it reaches the batter. Then, at the last instant, the ball curves sharply — away
from a right-handed batter, toward a left-handed batter.
“Some batters have accused Dusty of putting some kind of substance on the ball, such as saliva, to make it act the way it
does. But no evidence has been found that such is the case. He just throws the ball naturally, and it comes up to the batter,
curves, and
then flies by into the catcher’s mitt. The batter either watches it go by or swings at it, usually missing it by a foot. If
Dusty Fowler keeps his pitch under control, no one will be the least surprised to hear that some major league ball club has
signed him up.”
Bernie waited for his pulse to slow down a bit. He had read about pitchers throwing the illegal spitball in the big leagues,
but never had he heard of
anyone
throwing a submarine pitch.
“Does this clipping belong to you or your father?” Bernie asked.
“It’s my father’s,” admitted Dave. “I got it out of his scrapbook of interesting sports stories. When I saw the guys loading
the piece of furniture on the truck and they said that they were bringing it over here to your house, I got it and stuck it
into the bottom drawer. I suppose it was a stupid thing to do.”
“Not stupid, just silly,” said Bernie. “Did
Dusty Fowler ever make it to the big leagues?”
“No. He only got as far as the International. But that wasn’t bad.”
“Why don’t you try it, Bernie?” Frankie broke in with an eager voice that grabbed Bernie’s attention.
“Try what?” said Bernie.
“Learn to throw that submarine pitch,” Frankie answered. “You said yourself that your overhand pitches are like fat balloons
to the batters. Maybe if you learn this submarine pitch you won’t have to give up baseball.”
Frankie made it sound so simple. Ann-Marie had said that he probably loved baseball more than Bernie did. Well, that wasn’t
true. No one could love it more than Bernie did. He was just too darned proud, that was his trouble. He wanted to be really
good at it, and he just couldn’t be.
Last year he had tried pitching because he had a fair throwing arm. He had no curve, but his overhand delivery could cut the
plate in two most of the time. His problem was not being able to get the ball past the hitters. Players on the other teams
always hoped Bernie would be pitching to them. They boosted their batting averages every time he pitched for the Rangers.
In the infield or outfield he was no worse than any other fielder; his troubles all centered around the plate. Because when
he was up, pitchers were as happy to see him bat as batters were to see him pitch. He couldn’t hit, and whoever heard of a
nonhitting fielder?
Why should he make a fool of himself again this year?
“I’ve brought a ball and mitt,” said Dave. “Get your glove and let’s throw a few. Maybe you can develop into another Dusty
Fowler.”
“Yeah, Bernie! Let’s!” cried Frankie. His eyes flashed as if it were he about whom all the fuss was being made.
Bernie glanced at AnnMarie, not saying anything, but asking her with his eyes if what Dave was asking him to do made sense.
As if she read his thoughts she said, “You know how nuts you are about baseball, Bernie. I was just kidding you when I said
that Frankie loves it more than you do. If you don’t play, you’ll mope around here all summer and bug both Mom and me. I think
you ought to listen to Dave.”
“Come on!” Dave insisted, and started out of the house. “You’re not doing anything else right now, anyway.”