Satch & Me Read Free Page B

power is that I can travel through time. Not only that, but I can travel through time with baseball cards.
    Oh, go ahead and yuk it up. Have your little laugh. I don’t care. Whether you believe me or not, I’ve had this power for a long time. When I pick up certain baseball cards, I get this weird tingling sensation in my fingertips. Have you ever touched a TV screen really lightly, and felt that static electricity on your fingers? That’s what it feels like when I touch certain baseball cards.
    If I drop the card right away, nothing happens. But if I keep holding it, the tingling sensationgradually moves up my arm, across my body, and down my legs. In about five seconds, I completely disappear from this world and appear back in the past.
    If I’m holding a 1919 baseball card, it will take me to the year 1919. If I’m holding a 1932 card, I’ll show up in 1932. It’s just about the coolest thing in the world. As far as I know, nobody else can do it. But I can take people with me when I go back in time. I know that because I’ve done it.
    The power seems to have become stronger. Or maybe I’m just getting better at it with practice. Under the right conditions, I can even send myself back through time with a plain old photograph. But baseball cards work best, and especially older cards.
    I don’t exactly go around bragging about my “special gift.” That’s what my mom calls it. A special gift. I don’t want the kids at school thinking I’m some kind of a freak. The only people who know about it are my mom and dad, my uncle Wilbur, who’s really old, and my annoying cousin Samantha. Oh, and this really jerky kid named Bobby Fuller who has always hated me. But he doesn’t even play in our league anymore. He’s into football now.
    There’s just one other person who knows I can travel through time with baseball cards. Flip.
    Flip didn’t believe me at first. When I told him that I could travel through time with a baseball card, he just laughed in my face. So I went back to 1919 with an old card and brought back two pieces of paper signed by Shoeless Joe Jackson. His autograph was one of the most valuable in history. I gave them to Flip, and the money he got from selling those autographs saved his store from going out of business. Flip never doubted me again.
    As soon as I got home from the game against the Exterminators, I called up Flip.
    â€œAre you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
    â€œWell, that depends on what you’re thinkin’, Stosh.”
    â€œI’m thinking that I could take a radar gun back in time with me,” I said. “I could take it back to the time before they had radar guns, and I could track the speed of pitches. It would be cool to find out who was the fastest pitcher in baseball history.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I was thinkin’,” Flip said. “Great minds think alike.”
    Flip got all excited. He’s a member of this organization called SABR. It stands for Society for American Baseball Research. They’re a bunch of die-hard baseball fans who devote themselves to digging up facts and stats that nobody knows about. Like, one guy might devote his life to counting how many times Lou Gehrig got a hit on a 3-1 count when he was playing away games in July. Stuff like that. Some of them are obsessed, if you ask me.
    Anyway, Flip is really into baseball history, and the idea of finding out who was the fastest pitcher appealed to him.
    â€œOne problem, though,” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI borrowed the radar gun from the coach of thehigh school baseball team. I promised him I’d give it back to him as soon as I’m done with it.”
    â€œCan’t I just borrow it for a day or two?” I asked. “He’ll never know I had it.”
    â€œThese guns cost a bundle,” Flip told me. “If something happened to it, the coach would go