Satch & Me Read Free

chores instead?” asked Jason. None of us could believe it.
    â€œThat’s child abuse, Mr. Valentini,” said Blake. “You should’ve sued your mother.”
    â€œOh, I don’t know that I woulda made the Dodgers,” Flip said. “Prob’bly not. My control wasn’t too good. But I could throw the ball hard . Guys wereafraid to hit against me. I always wished I’d tried out. I coulda done my chores later. I coulda…”
    Flip’s voice trailed off. Nobody said a word. I couldn’t think of anything that would cheer him up.
    Looking at Flip, it’s hard to imagine that he was young once. He’s a little stooped over, his hair is white, and the skin hangs off his neck and arms all loose, like it’s one size too big for his bones.
    I don’t know too much about Flip’s personal life. He’s got a sister, but she lives in Texas and they don’t see each other much. He doesn’t have any kids, and he never got married. We’re like the only family he has. His life is coaching our team and managing the store.
    I always felt bad that he went home at the end of the day to a crummy apartment all by himself. There aren’t a lot of old ladies around Louisville, as far as I know. One time Tanner said he could fix Flip up with his grandmother, who lives just across the Ohio River in Sellersburg, Indiana. We all laughed, and Flip said he wasn’t interested. There used to be this little old lady named Amanda Young who lived next door to me. But she sort of disappeared. It’s a long story.
    â€œHey, put that junk away,” Flip said suddenly. We all looked over at Mike, who had a bag of Doritos in his hand. “Don’t be putting that crap in your body, Mikey. You wanna be needin’ a triple bypass when you’re fifty?”
    After he had a heart attack years back, Flipturned into a real health nut. The only thing he lets us eat in the dugout is sunflower seeds. The tasteless, unsalted kind.
    â€œThere’s somethin’ I wanna show you fellas,” Flip said, reaching into an equipment bag. “Almost forgot this too. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached to my shoulders.”
    He pulled out this machine that looked sort of like a handheld hair dryer, but there was no cord to plug in.
    â€œWhat’s that, Flip, a ray gun?” asked Jason.
    â€œYeah, next time we lose, Flip’s gonna zap us,” said Blake, and everybody laughed.
    â€œNo, you bums,” Flip said. “Ain’t you never seen a radar gun before?”
    I had. They clock the speed of a pitch. Somebody sits behind home plate and points the gun at the pitcher. The gun registers the speed of the pitch in miles per hour. Usually when you watch a game on TV, they show the velocity of each pitch. That’s because somebody is clocking it with a radar gun.
    â€œThose things are cool,” said Tanner.
    â€œSee,” Flip explained, “the gun shoots out a microwave beam—”
    â€œCan that thing make popcorn?” asked Blake, and a few guys laughed.
    â€œVery funny, Blake. The microwave bounces off the movin’ baseball and then it goes back in here,” Flip continued. “The gun calculates the difference in frequency between the original wave andthe reflected wave, and then it translates that information into miles per hour.”
    â€œCan we try it, Flip?” asked Jason, who can probably throw harder than anyone on our team.
    â€œWell, whaddaya think I brung it for?” Flip said.
    Flip had us line up in alphabetical order at the pitcher’s mound. He told Ryan to put on the catcher’s gear and get behind the plate. Flip stood behind him with the gun and pointed it at the pitcher’s mound. He fiddled with the buttons.
    Flip said we could each throw five pitches. Rob Anderson, who couldn’t pitch if his life depended on it, got to throw first.
    â€œNow, I don’t want you