Ray & Me Read Free Page B

Valentini. He had his hat in one hand and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the other. Chunky Monkey.
    â€œI promised you I’d get you ice cream if you pitched…” Flip began. He put his hat down on a chair, and then he started to cry.
    It was a little weird. I’m not used to grown-ups crying, especially guys like Flip. I didn’t know how to react. I guess Flip took what happened to me harder than anyone. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. It took him a while to calm down and ask me how I was feeling.
    â€œNot bad,” I said, “but my shoulder is sore, and I can’t sleep in this bed. Last night I had a dream that I was hit in the head with a pitch, and then I woke up in the hospital. It was weird.”
    â€œAfter what you been through, it sounds normal to me,” Flip said.
    â€œHow’s the team doing?” I asked him.
    â€œFuhgetaboutit. We stink without you, Stosh.”
    â€œAh, you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
    â€œIt was my fault,” Flip told me. “I shoulda listened when you said you didn’t feel good. I shouldn’t put any kid on the field unless he’s a hundred percent.”
    â€œHey, I should’ve caught that ball,” I told him. “Then none of this would have happened.”
    Flip told me that I was putting my glove up whenthe ball hit me. It was just coming at me too fast to react in time.
    I told him about the metal bat controversy, but he knew all about it.
    â€œIf the kid hit that ball with wood, you woulda had a fraction of a second more to react,” Flip said. “They gotta get rid of all this new stuff—designated hitters, fake grass, domed stadiums, and fake bats. That ain’t baseball.”
    â€œThe doctor told me if Cameron hit the ball an eighth of an inch up or down on the bat, I might have lost an eye,” I told Flip.
    â€œIt’s a game of inches,” Flip said. “That’s what I always say. If you lost an eye, I don’t know what I woulda done. Stosh, you’re like a son to me.”
    Flip wiped his eyes again.
    â€œI’m gonna take some time off,” I told him. “I mean, before I play ball again.”
    â€œDon’t do that,” Flip said, and then he stopped himself. “Ah, don’t listen to me. Grown-ups ain’t always right. Especially old fools like me. Do what you think is right.”
    I had to laugh. I wasn’t sure if I should listen to Flip when he told me what to do or listen to him when he told me not to listen to him when he told me what to do.
    â€œAnything you say, Flip,” I said.
    He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. I thought he was going to give me some money, but instead he took out a small baseball card.

    â€œI wanna show you somethin’,” he said, putting the card on my bed.
    I didn’t pick it up. I know what happens when I pick up a baseball card. In a few seconds, I get this tingling feeling in my fingertips. The feeling moves through my hand, up my arm, and over my whole body. The next thing I know, I’m in a different place and a different time period—the year on the card.
    I leaned forward to look at the card. It looked really old. Because the word “Yankees” was in quotation marks, I figured that it must have been printed shortly after the Yankees got their name.
    â€œCarl Mays,” Flip said, after seeing the puzzled look on my face. “He played mostly with the Red Soxand the Yankees way back, almost a hundred years ago now.”
    â€œNever heard of him,” I said.
    â€œThat’s too bad,” Flip told me. “He was a great pitcher. Good sinking fastball.”
    Flip opened up the ice cream and took two spoons out of his pocket so we could share. While we ate, he rattled off Carl Mays’s numbers.

    Carl Mays
Library of Congress
    The guy had a lifetime record of 208-126, so he won nearly