Say It Ain't So

by Josh Berk

  “Out of three it is,” he said. We laughed. “So you think you can crack the case while announcing ball games?”

  “I can crack the case while announcing ball games, whistling ‘Dixie,’ drinking a quart of milk, and farting the national anthem.”

  “Just do the first two, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I knew what my plan for the next day would be: a trip to the library.

  I took the bus home from school, chucked my backpack into my room, had a quick snack, and got out my bike. I snapped on the helmet, ready to ride alone to the library. There was no game scheduled that day. There was practice, so Mike was busy. I called Other Mike up, but he was hanging out with Davis! Ridiculous. I had no desire to join that team. Oh yeah, I guess I probably had some homework. But I didn’t feel like doing it.

  I decided to put my brainpower to better use. Was someone from Griffith stealing Mike’s signs? How were they doing it? Baseball announcers are always saying that there is nothing new under the sun, so I figured I’d learn a little about the history of sign stealing in baseball.

  The afternoon was warm and the ride was nice enough. I passed the huge Schwenkfelder Church, its spire trying to touch the sky and its bright stained-glass windows twinkling in reds and yellows. I passed the Schwenkfelder Cemetery, thinking sad thoughts about all the people buried there. I took it slow, turning down a side road next to a farm so I could wave hello to the cows like I did when I was little. I think I really used to think that they’d be sad if I didn’t say hello. I was a weird kid. Maybe all kids were weird kids.…

  Eventually the boxy red building that is the Schwenkfelder Library was visible up the road. I decided to pedal as fast as I could, though of course I had no one to race against. I announced out loud this dramatic sprint, finishing with a frenzied “OH MY GOD, HE HAS DONE IT AGAIN, LENNY NORBECK HAS WON THE TOUR DE SCHWENKFELDER FOR AN UNPRECEDENTED ELEVENTH TIME IN TEN YEARS. WHAT THE I DON’T EVEN? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!”

  An old lady leaving the library with a green canvas bag loaded with books gave me a weird look as she walked to her car. I nodded and said, “Tour de Schwenkfelder. You know how it is. You know how I do.” She apparently did not. Some people were never young, I guess.

  I locked up my bike, took off my helmet, and carried it into the library. Schwenkfelder is lucky to have a great librarian, the portly Mr. Bonzer. Sure, for a while I thought he was the evil blogger PhilzFan1 and possibly a murderer, but that was just a misunderstanding. I was happy to see him at his usual spot, his large rump filling up the chair behind the reference desk.

  “Leonard Norbeck,” he said before I even had a chance to say hello. “Where are the Mikes?”

  “Long story,” I said. “I’m flying solo today.”

  “Cool beans,” he said, which is the kind of epically dorky thing only a librarian would say. Come to think of it, “flying solo” is a pretty dorky thing to say. Shut up.

  “Looking for anything in particular? Doing some homework?”

  “Um, what?” I said.

  “You know: homework? It’s schoolwork, only you do it at home. Stop me if you’ve heard of it.” He shifted in his seat and let out a huge sigh.

  “Oh yeah, that,” I said. “No, I’m not here doing homework.”

  “Color me shocked,” he replied, holding a hand to his mouth in mock surprise. Then he smiled his classic gap-toothed Bonzer smile.

  “What I’m actually wondering about is … how to steal signs in a baseball game.”

  Mr. Bonzer now gave me that other classic Bonzer expression: the skeptical eyebrow raise. He paused for a long moment, then pushed himself up from his chair, slowly rising to his feet like an elephant lumbering from a nap.

  “Lenny,” he said. “It is my solemn duty as an information retrieval specialist to help honor any request for information without passing judgment, but I’m going to feel really bad about myself if I’m helping you help the Schwenkfelder Middle School baseball team cheat.”

  “What? No!” I said. “It’s not that at all. I think the other team is cheating. I’m trying to figure out how to catch them.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now I will sleep better at night. Actually, I always sleep well. Like a beautiful baby.”

  “Hey, so do you really have to answer any question anyone asks?” I said. “Like if they ask how to make a bomb or the best way to make someone pee their pajamas during a sleepover?”

  “Put their hand in a bowl of warm water while they sleep. Well, duh. Easy.”

  “Thanks,” I said. We were getting sort of off track. He walked over to one of the computers you use to look up books and quickly tapped out his search. He looked puzzled, then confused, then determined, then happy.

  “So, as it happens, we do have a book on the subject that you are looking for. It is called The Semilegal Guide to Cheating at Baseball and it seems like it will be a good read.” He scribbled down the Dewey decimal number and we walked to the book’s home on the shelves. I almost got distracted looking around at all the other baseball books that surrounded it, but I forced myself to stay focused. Mr. Bonzer pulled the book off the shelf and handed it to me. It was a slim volume that looked like it had been around for a long time.

  “Thanks!” I said. Then I added, “Hey, is there any way to tell if this book has been checked out recently?”

  “I can’t tell you that type of thing,” he said. “Librarians’ honor. We have strict privacy laws.”

  “As you mentioned,” I said. “But I’m not asking who checked it out. Just if it was checked out.”

  “You know,” he said, “if your career as a detective doesn’t work out, you should consider becoming a lawyer. You’re truly good at always finding the technicalities.”

  “That’s why they call me ‘the Human Technicality,’ ” I said. “Go ahead. You can call me that.”

  “Still looking for that perfect nickname, huh?” he said. “I suggest that you keep looking.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You got a point.”

  “Give me a minute,” he said. “I’ll go look up the last time the book was checked out. Shouldn’t be hard to tell.”

  He slowly made his way back toward his desk, muttering something about “the Human Technicality.” It was a catchy nickname! While he walked, I flipped the book open and began skimming the pages. It seemed like people had cheated at baseball in just about every way a person could imagine. There were all sorts of ways to make a ball do unnatural things. Besides good old spit, pitchers had also used licorice, mud, wax, or even a bit of soap. I guess soap was good because if you got caught with it on you, you could just claim to be a neat freak.

  One team even used a potato. The way that worked was that the catcher would keep a potato in his pocket. He’d wait until a runner was on third. He’d catch the pitch, then pretend to be trying to pick the runner off third. He’d fire the potato over the third baseman’s head, and the runner would trot home, thinking he’d score an easy run. Only there waiting would be the catcher, ball in hand. He’d apply the tag and the runner would be shocked. (Note: You’d probably want to warn your third baseman.)

  Mr. Bonzer slowly made his way back toward me. I must have been zoning out because he was like, “Ahem—interesting, I take it?”

  I showed the paragraph to Mr. Bonzer about potatoes. He read and smiled.

  “Nothing specific in the rulebooks against chucking vegetables, I guess,” I said.

  “Technically, the potato is a tuber,” he said.

  “Yeah, whatever.” I made a mental note to tell Mike about the potato trick, in case his team could use it somewhere down the line. It didn’t seem exactly legal, but one never knows when one has to resort to unconventional means to win a ball game. Or catch a criminal.

  “So,” I said, hoping for my first break in the case. “Has this been checked out recently?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “In fact, it just came back yesterday. Funny, a lot of the old books like this sit h
ere on these dusty shelves for years, but this one has been getting a workout, I guess.”

  “Oh, it’s funny all right,” I said. “Ha-ha-freaking-ha.”

  Bonzer gave me a weird look. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “You sure you can’t tell me who had the book out?” I asked. “I won’t tell anyone you told. Totally our little secret.”

  “Afraid I can’t do that, Lenny,” he said, putting on a weird accent for some reason. I think he was pretending to be a guy in a Mob movie. You know, like an old-fashioned Italian gangster. “Afraid I can’t do that, Lenny.” He said it again, cracking himself up so hard he had to put a hand on the bookshelves to keep from falling over. The shelves almost toppled over under his weight. Then he composed himself and said, “Seriously, no. There is zero chance. We don’t even keep those records.”

  “Pretty hush-hush,” I said. “Kinda weird.” He shrugged. Then I went back to flipping through the book. “Can you tell me about this?” I showed him the chapter entitled “The Shot Heard Round the World”—about a famous home run in 1951 that might have benefited from sign stealing. “Were you at that game?”

  “Lenny,” he said. “I was born in 1975.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I do know the basic story, though,” he said. “Bobby Thomson hit the shot off Ralph Branca to win the series. Years later there was some speculation that he had help. Maybe even proof that someone gave Thomson the signs.”

  While he was talking, I kept reading. People don’t usually love that, but I didn’t think a librarian would mind. “Yeah, yeah, they used a telescope,” I said. “Some guy named Hank Schenz used a telescope from center field to see the catcher’s fingers. Then he’d press a button to buzz in the bullpen. The guys there flashed the sign to the batter. Genius.”

  “Think about how much easier it would be these days,” Bonzer said. “With Bluetooth, that sort of thing.”

  “Bluetooth the pirate?” I said.

  “Bluebeard was the pirate,” he said. “Bluetooth is a wireless phone thing. I mean, you know, with laptops and smartphones, all that kind of stuff. Wouldn’t it be pretty easy to communicate secretly during a game?”

  “You read my mind,” I said. “You read my mind.”

  He nodded seriously at me and tapped his nose with his finger. Weird guy.

  I flipped through the book a little more. There was a story about the Brewers using a telescope to steal signs and having the mascot wave a signal. A few others with similar tales—guys using telescopes or binoculars to see the catcher’s sign and then flashing a signal to the batter. Then I got distracted by a story from the really old days of baseball. Apparently, John McGraw, who was a third baseman before he became a famous manager, would hook his fingers in base runners’ belts. So if you were on third and trying to tag up, he’d just grab you by the belt and you’d be stuck. Once, to counter this, a runner loosened his belt. McGraw yanked the belt clean off. The guy’s pants fell around his ankles, but he scored the winning run. He totally taunted McGraw in his undies. Like I said, sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do.

  Bonzer was still standing there. “So you think that someone is stealing Schwenkfelder’s signs, huh?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. I told him all about the Great Imperial Hunter Ashwell and his amazing performance, then the strange game against Griffith.

  Bonzer sighed and rubbed his beard. “Maybe he’s tipping pitches,” he said. “Maybe they figured out what to look for.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Mike says Coach Zo filmed Hunter pitching. He slowed the footage down. Watched it backward and forward. It’s next to impossible to tell if he’s throwing the fast one or the Long, Slow Sally. That’s what he calls it.”

  Mr. Bonzer laughed. “This Hunter sounds like a real character.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s kind of a jerk. But he’s a great pitcher. And my friend Mike is the catcher.”

  “Oh, right,” Bonzer said. “That’s why you’re in here. Trying to help Mike. You’re a good friend, Lenny.”

  “I try to be,” I said guiltily. I didn’t mention how many times I secretly hoped Mike wouldn’t make the team. How jealous I was of him. I felt like a terrible person for that. And how I thought that maybe he only was Hunter’s catcher because he got Davis Gannett busted for stealing a cell phone he never stole! There! I said it! It feels good to get it out.

  But helping him was the right thing to do, so I resolved to keep trying.

  “Can I check this book out?” I said.

  “Do you have your library card?” he asked.

  “You know that I do not,” I said. “I’m notorious for losing library cards. I’ve lost, like, twelve, which averages out to about two a year since kindergarten.”

  “I believe it’s more like five a year,” he said.

  “So you’re allowed to keep track of how many library cards I’ve had, but you can’t tell me who checked out this book?” I yelled.

  “I can tell you to be quiet,” he said. “Those are my solemn duties. Protecting readers’ privacy. Shushing loudies. And giving you a hard time for losing your library card.”

  “Can I have the book anyway?”

  “Fine,” he said. “But don’t tell my boss.”

  I wanted to yell out “Bonzer told me what other people read and let me borrow this book without my card” just to break all his three rules at once. But then I noticed something fall out of the pages. A small receipt. It didn’t have the name of the person who checked out the book last, but it did have the name of another book they borrowed. It was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This was getting interesting.

  For once, I kept my mouth shut. I snapped my helmet on and rode off into the sunset.

  The sun wasn’t really setting. Not quite yet anyway. I rode my bike home at a leisurely pace. This time I wasn’t trying to win the Tour de Schwenkfelder. I was trying to get some thinking done. I rode in a winding path, snaking slowly through the quiet streets. I felt just like a detective mulling over a big case. Actually, two cases—only one of which Mike knew about. Was someone from Griffith stealing signs? And was Davis Gannett innocent in the case of the missing cell phone?

  I started taking the long way home and realized I wasn’t too far from Griffith Middle School. Schwenkfelder isn’t a very big town. Even though I had to cross one or two major streets, it wasn’t too hard to get to Griffith. I knew the way. Schwenkfelder is the kind of town that has just about two major streets. Everything is not far off those two. One of them is called Center Street. It runs through the center of town. I wonder how Sam Schwenkfelder and the other geniuses who formed this town ever thought up that one. Just kidding. There was no Sam Schwenkfelder. Maybe there was. What do I know? I was pretty sure there was a project on local history every year, but I was quite sure that I never paid attention.

  I rode my bike across Center and into Griffith territory. I started to formulate a plan. I felt like a spy sneaking into enemy turf. Of course no one knew I was from Schwenkfelder Middle. And probably no one would really care. But still, it felt dangerous and exciting.

  I realized I wasn’t going to see a pair of binoculars hanging on a fence post, but maybe a clue would present itself. The bike ride down Center to Griffith was a lot longer than I remembered it being last time we went that way. Probably because we took a car. Cars make everything seem shorter. But I had all the time in the world, with both Mike and Other Mike busy and the only thing waiting for me at home being homework.

  Finally I saw Griffith Middle School. It is a long brick building with about a hundred windows. It actually looks a lot like SMS, which leads me to wonder if all middle schools are designed by the same person. What a weird job that is. They should let middle school students design middle schools. They would be awesome. How hard is it to design a building? I should totally be an architect. You got walls, a floor, some windows. Boom: I’m an architect. Oops, just realized I forgot a roof. Maybe I should stick to
announcing.

  And to detecting.

  I got myself mentally into detective mode as I rode my bike across the parking lot and up the long walkway that went behind the school to the baseball field. I pulled my bike up onto the sidewalk and stood with one foot on the ground and the other on the pedal. I tried to look casual as I scanned the field for hidden spy spots.

  The Griffith team was still on the field. I had forgotten that they’d probably have practice. But from the looks of it, the practice was winding down. Most of the players were already headed back toward the school. A few remained on the field, scooping up stray balls and throwing them into a bucket. The coaches were milling around too. I decided I’d wait until they were all gone before I got down to serious sleuthing.

  I got my library book out of my backpack and started flipping through the pages while the practice finished up. Some of the players from Griffith walked past me on the way to the locker room. I kept my head down and the book up over my face. I didn’t know if any of them would recognize me from the games at Schwenkfelder, but it was a risk I didn’t want to run. Head down, book up, I read. There was a pretty funny section about a player named Eddie Stanky who was part of that famous 1951 home run I was talking about with Bonzer. Stanky was apparently a notoriously mean player. He’d lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever it took to win. I’m no psychologist here, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that maybe part of the reason he had a chip on his shoulder was that his name was Eddie Stanky. They’d eat him alive in middle school. Stanky. Ha-ha.

  After I spent a few minutes reading about Mr. Stanky and the various ways signs have been stolen over the years, the field was empty. Finally, all the Griffith players had gone back to their locker room. They were no doubt hatching future evil schemes. I imagined them cackling like evil villains. “And then we’ll use a spy camera! Mwahahaha! And then we’ll kidnap their dogs so they can’t concentrate on the game! Mwahahaha! And then we’ll sell the dogs and use the money for illegal bats and brass knuckles! Mwahahaha.” And so on. I had to catch them before this thing got severely out of control, obviously. We can’t have the Griffith Griffins out there arming themselves with brass knuckles and stolen dogs. Obviously.