Mystery Coach by Matt Christopher Page A

Coach Edson’s direction. “Not me. And not you, either.”
    Chris caught the implication, but carried it no further. He didn’t want to put a chip on Steve’s shoulder, a thing too easy
     to do.
    He waited for Spike to finish batting, then stepped to the plate.
    “Wait a minute, Chris.” Coach Edson’s interruption was a surprise. “Abe Ryan! Come in and pitch! Bill, have you batted yet?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Okay. Follow Steve. Then we’ll have infield.”
    Chris exchanged a glance with Steve. “Guess he’s alive, anyway,” mumbled Steve.
    Chris missed Abe Ryan’s first two pitches, then dropped to the ground from a wild one the left-hander threw at his head. He
     got up, dusted himself off, adjusted his glasses, and faced Abe again.
    The tall lefty wound up and grooved the next pitch. Chris, a right-handed batter, swung and fouled the ball to the backstop
     screen. He missed the next pitch and popped twice to the infield.
    “Let ’im hit it, Abe!” cried Mick Antonelli from the outfield. “We haven’t got all day!”
    Abe tossed up the next pitch easily and Chris blasted it to deep left. A chuckle rippled from the infielders.
    “Don’t expect those fat balloons in a game, Chris!” laughed Steve.

    Chris bunted the next slow pitch down to first base, ran to first, then gathered up his glove and trotted to his position
     at second.
    After Steve and Bill Lewis batted, Coach Edson worked on the infielders. Tex Kinsetta had trouble fielding grounders at third
     base and began throwing his glove to the ground in disgust, as if he were blaming the mitt for his problem.
    “You’ll come around,” said Coach Edson as he knocked out a grounder to the shortstop, Jack Davis.
    Chris thought he’d say more than that. The coach might at least explain to Tex why he was missing the ball. But he didn’t.
    After infield practice the coach hit balls to the outfielders for fifteen minutes, then called in the team and announced practice
     again for tomorrow night.
    “We definitely need a new coach,” Steve said emphatically as he, Ken, Chris and Tex left the ball park. They had their baseball
     shoes strung over their shoulders and their gloves draped over their wrists. “I don’t think we’ll win any games with him as
     coach.”
    “But who’s going to tell him that?” said Chris. “He’s an old man. It’ll break his heart.”
    “He looks as if it’s half broken now,” said Steve.
    They reached the intersection where they had to split up. “So long,” said Steve and crossed the street to his home, which
     was catercorner from the ball field. Living so close to the park was sure convenient. If Steve didn’t want to go to the park
     to watch a ball game, he could watch it from his house.
    Ken lived a block away; Chris and Texlived two blocks away and four houses apart.
    Rock Center was a small town at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. It had no theaters and featured no big sporting events. So
     when baseball season opened, the stands were usually packed. Rock Center backed its Little Leaguers one hundred percent.
    At quarter of seven that night Chris received a phone call from Tex Kinsetta. Tex had never sounded so excited in his life
     —not even when he had corked a grand slammer in last year’s playoffs.
    “You won’t believe it, Chris!” he cried. “You just won’t believe it!”
    “Believe what, Tex?”
    “This phone call I got! From some guy! He talked like a coach!”
    “It wasn’t Coach Edson?”
    “Heck, no! I don’t know who he was! He told me I wasn’t playing my position at third base right!”
    Chris’s heart pounded. “You — you said you didn’t know who he was?”
    “Right! I asked him! He just said to call him Coach!”

2
    T EX KINSETTA came over early the next morning.
    “Hi, Mrs. Richards,” he said, taking off his baseball cap and grinning. “Is Chris up yet?”
    Chris heard Mom laugh. He was having breakfast in the dining room and wasn’t surprised that Tex was