Roberto & Me Read Free

yellowed newspaper clipping out of her desk drawer and showed it to me.

    â€œIt was La Noche Vieja —New Year’s Eve,” Señorita Molina told me. “The plane was loaded with 40,000 pounds of cargo, more than it was supposed to carry. The pilot was sleep deprived and in danger of losing his license. The crew was unqualified. There were mechanical problems too. The plane was only volano …how do you say…airborne for two minutes before it crashed into the ocean. Five people died, including Mr. Clemente.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I told her. I didn’t know what else to say.
    â€œ La Noche Vieja is one of the biggest nights of the year in Puerto Rico,” she told me. “Mr. Clemente left his wife and three young sons that night to help the earthquake victims. He was not looking for publicity or fame. It was a mission of mercy. In Spanish—as you should know, Tito—the word ‘ clemente ’ means ‘merciful.’”
    I felt like it was time for me to go. I thanked Señorita Molina for giving me the chance to bring up my grade.
    But after I left the classroom, I stopped dead in my tracks in the hallway. An idea popped into my head.
    I could stop it!
    I could go back in time and make sure Roberto Clemente didn’t get on that plane.
    I could save his life.

3
Just Do It
    I GUESS I NEED TO DO A LITTLE EXPLAINING. ONE DAY, WHEN I was a little kid, maybe eight or nine years old, I picked up one of my dad’s baseball cards. He used to have a huge collection, and his cards were all over the house. It drove my mom crazy. In fact, that was one of the reasons they got divorced.
    Anyway, I picked up this card that was on the table. It was an old card. I don’t even remember who was on it. I was staring at this card, and, suddenly, I felt this strange tingling sensation in my fingertips. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. And as I continued to hold the card, the tingling sensation became stronger and moved up my arm. It was almost like bugs crawling over me.
    I kind of freaked out, you know? So I dropped the card, and the tingling sensation stopped right away.
    But I was intrigued. I started experimenting withother baseball cards. Each time, I was a little less fearful and held on to the card for a few seconds longer.
    Finally, one day I was lucky enough to stumble on a Honus Wagner T-206—the most valuable baseball card in the world—and I decided not to drop it. I didn’t let go of the card. The tingling sensation moved up my arm, across my body, and down my legs, getting more and more powerful until I felt like I was vibrating from head to toe. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. Actually, it felt kind of good.
    And then, suddenly, I felt myself disappearing. It was almost as if every molecule that made up my body was being digitally deleted and emailed wirelessly to another location. Very strange.
    When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my house in Louisville, Kentucky, anymore. I was in the year 1909…with Honus Wagner.
    But that’s a story for another day.
    The point is, I discovered that I have the unique ability to travel through time with the help of a baseball card. For me, a card is like a plane ticket. It takes me to the year on the card.
    Since that day, I’ve been on a number of trips through time. I got to meet Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige, and a bunch of other famous players. I always bring a pack of new cards with me, because that’s my ticket home, back to my time.
    Maybe I was being a little overambitious, thinking I could travel back in time, change history, andsave Roberto Clemente’s life. I mean, I had tried to change history before. My coach, Flip, once told me about this guy named Ray Chapman, who played for the Cleveland Indians. He was the only guy in major-league history to die from getting hit by a pitched ball. I’d figured I would go back to 1920 and save