Satch & Me

by Dan Gutman

  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.

  “Hey, 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, Flip turned into a real health nut. The only thing he lets us eat in the dugout is sunflower seeds. The tasteless, unsalted kind.

  “There’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.

  “What’s that, Flip, a ray gun?” asked Jason.

  “Yeah, next time we lose, Flip’s gonna zap us,” said Blake, and everybody laughed.

  “No, 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.

  “Those things are cool,” said Tanner.

  “See,” Flip explained, “the gun shoots out a microwave beam—”

  “Can that thing make popcorn?” asked Blake, and a few guys laughed.

  “Very 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 and the reflected wave, and then it translates that information into miles per hour.”

  “Can we try it, Flip?” asked Jason, who can probably throw harder than anyone on our team.

  “Well, 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.

  “Now, I don’t want you bums hurtin’ yourselves,” Flip told us. “Throw the first two nice and easy. Just lob ’em in. Put a little more on your third and fourth pitch. And on your last throw, give it all you got.”

  “What does that thing go up to?” asked Rob.

  “Don’t worry, Anderson,” said Flip. “You ain’t gonna break it.”

  Rob gripped the ball and went into a really pathetic windup. The ball went sailing over Ryan, over Flip, and over the backstop. Everybody cracked up.

  “Try again,” Flip said. “That one didn’t register. Nice and easy, now.”

  Rob threw one reasonably near the plate. Flip looked at the back of the gun.

  “Twenty-two miles per hour,” he announced. We just about fell all over ourselves laughing. Every body knows that a major league fastball is around 90 miles per hour, and a few pitchers can even crack 100.

  “I could walk the ball to the plate faster than that,” cracked Blake.

  “Knock it off, Blake,” Flip said. “You ain’t no Sandy Koufax either.”

  Rob got a little better with his next three pitches, but the best he could do was 36 miles per hour. I knew I could throw harder than that. Some of the guys were snickering. But I wasn’t. There was always the chance that I’d make a fool of myself too.

  Mike Baugh was next. He pitches for us sometimes, and he’s got a decent arm. In four pitches, the gun recorded 35, 38, 43, and 50 miles per hour.

  “Okay, cut it loose now, Mikey,” said Flip.

  Mike reared back and gave it everything he had.

  “Fifty-nine miles per hour!” Flip shouted.

  I was surprised. It looked like Mike was throwing pretty fast, but major league pitchers can throw 40 miles per hour faster. It was hard to believe.

  We went through the line one at a time. Most of the guys reached the 50s on their final pitch, and one or two guys reached the 60s. Jason clocked 67 miles per hour on one pitch.

  I’d like to say that when it was my turn I threw the ball so hard that the gun registered “Wow!” or “Sign the kid up!” But the truth is, my hardest pitch was only 56 miles per hour. Pretty weak.

  After we all had a turn, the guys started getting on their bikes or drifting over to the parking lot, where some of the parents were waiting in their cars.

  “How fast could you throw, Flip?” asked Tanner. “I mean, in your prime.”

  “Geez, I dunno,” Flip said. “They didn’t have these gizmos when I was in my prime.”

  “Hey, Flip,” I asked, “how fast was the fastest fastball?”

  Flip scratched his head.

  “Well, guys like Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Nolan Ryan clocked 100 miles an hour,” Flip told us. “A few other guys too. Maybe 102, 103 even.”

  “No, I mean ever.”

  “You wanna know who threw the fastest pitch ever?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, they’ve only had radar guns since the 1970s,” Flip said. “Guys like Walter Johnson and Bobby Feller and Satchel Paige were plenty fast in their day. But they all pitched long before the 70s. There was no way to clock ’em.”

  “Couldn’t they take old movies of those guys and figure out how fast they threw?” asked Jason.

  “Guys like Cy Young were pitching even before they had movie cameras,” Flip said. “Nobody knows how fast those guys threw the ball. It’s one of those mysteries that’ll never be solved, I guess.”

  I looked at the radar gun. Then I looked at Flip. Flip looked at me. Then he looked at the radar gun.

  I wondered if Flip was thinking what I was thinking.

  3

  The Fastest Fastball

  THERE’S SOMETHING YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT me. I’ve got a secret power.

  No, I can’t read minds. I can’t fly and I can’t predict the future and I can’t communicate with the dead or anything weird like that. My secret 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 sensation gradually 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 mys
elf 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.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.

  “Well, that depends on what you’re thinkin’, Stosh.”

  “I’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.”

  “That’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.

  “One problem, though,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I borrowed the radar gun from the coach of the high school baseball team. I promised him I’d give it back to him as soon as I’m done with it.”

  “Can’t I just borrow it for a day or two?” I asked. “He’ll never know I had it.”

  “These guns cost a bundle,” Flip told me. “If something happened to it, the coach would go nuts. He’d have my head.”

  “Oh, come on, Flip!” I begged. “Nothing’s gonna happen. I promise. I’ll be real careful with it.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds, and I thought he was about to cave, but he didn’t.

  “I’m sorry, Stosh,” Flip finally said. “These guns are delicate. I’m responsible for it. I gotta make sure I return it to the high school in perfect condition.”

  That’s when I got a brainstorm.

  “What if you went with me, Flip?” I asked.

  “Went with you where?”

  “Back in time!” I said. “We’ll go back and meet guys like Walter Johnson and Bob Feller and the others. We’ll see how fast they really were. We’ll find out who was the fastest pitcher in baseball history! Can you imagine? When we get back and you tell everybody what you found, you’ll be like the king of SABR, Flip!”

  “Oh, they’d never believe me.”

  “I won’t touch the gun,” I begged. “You can hold it the whole time. Oh, come on, Flip. If nothing else, it’ll be fun!”

  Again, I thought I had him. There was silence at the other end of the line. He was thinking it over.

  “Stosh, I’m seventy-two years old,” he said wearily. “I don’t fly no more. With my crappy vision, I shouldn’t even be drivin’ my car. I can’t be doin’ somethin’ crazy like travelin’ through time.”

  “Please?”

  “Adventure is for the young,” Flip said. “I’ve had enough excitement for my life.”

  “Oh man, Flip!” I said. “You never go anywhere. Just think of it. We’ll get to meet those old-time players you’re always talking about. We can tell Cy Young they named an award after him. It will be so cool!”

  “I’m sorry, Stosh. No can do.”

  Well, that was that. I gave it my best shot. Baseball historians would just have to keep on speculating which pitcher was the fastest. I hung up with Flip and went upstairs to take off my uniform. Then I got started on my homework.

  Later that night, I was playing a computer game when the phone rang. My mom picked it up and hollered that Flip was calling for me.

  “I thought it over,” Flip said. “I’m in.”

  4

  Our Guy

  FLIP’S FAN CLUB IS A LITTLE STORE IN A STRIP MALL OFF Shelbyville Road on the east side of Louisville. It’s only about a mile from my house, so I usually bike over.

  When I went to see Flip the next day, I locked my bike to a No Skateboarding sign outside. The little bell jangled when I pulled the door open. There weren’t any customers inside. Flip was behind the counter reading an old Invincible Iron Man comic book.

  Flip doesn’t just sell baseball cards. He sells comics, Star Wars action figures, those old-time metal lunch boxes, and all kinds of collectibles from a long time ago. On one wall Flip has a bunch of black-and-white photos of the old Brooklyn Dodgers—Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider. You never know what you’re going to find in Flip’s Fan Club.

  “Stosh!” Flip looked up when I came in. “I been waitin’ ferya!”

  Flip pulled some big books out from behind the counter. There were yellow Post-it notes sticking out of some of the pages.

  “I did a little research,” Flip said as he opened one of the books.

  So did I. I have a copy of The Baseball Encyclopedia at home, which lists the complete statistics for every player who ever appeared in a major league game. It’s more than two thousand pages long, and about four inches thick.

  The only problem is that statistics don’t always tell the whole story. There were some really great pitchers who won a lot of games even though they weren’t known for overpowering speed. Guys like Tom Seaver and Greg Maddux won because of their control, location, and smarts. But all I wanted to know was who threw the fastest pitch in baseball history.

  “Walter Johnson,” Flip said, pointing his bony finger at a picture in one of his books. “Now he was a pitcher. The Big Train, they used to call ’im. Awesome speed. Tall fella. Big sidearm motion. Murder on righties. He retired in 1927 with 417 wins and 110 shutouts. One year he led the American League in wins, games, strikeouts, starts, complete games, innings pitched, and shutouts. Can you imagine that? And he pitched for the Washington Senators, who were just about the worst team in baseball!”

  “How fast was he?” I asked.

  The Big Train

  “Says here they clocked him at 99.7 miles per hour once,” Flip said. “But that was in 1914, so it don’t mean nothin’. They didn’t have the technology to track speed accurately back then.”

  “It would be cool to go back in time and clock him with a radar gun,” I said.

  “We could do it,” Flip said. “Wouldn’t be hard to get a Johnson card.”

  The door jangled open and a little girl came in with her mother. They started looking at some girly stuff in the corner. Flip asked if they needed help, and the mom said they were just looking.

  “Now, here’s Bob Feller,” Flip said, leaning toward me and lowering his voice a little. “Prob’ly the fastest guy in the late 1930s and 1940s. He fanned fifteen guys in his first big-league start, and he was still in high school! He claimed he was clocked at 107.9 miles per hour. That don’t mean nothin’ either. There’s no proof.”

  “Do you have any Barbie cards?” the little girl suddenly asked.

  “Sure,” Flip replied. “I got a 1968 Velvet Suit Barbie and a 1969 Sailor Suit B
arbie and I got three 1989 Dance Club Barbies. That’s the one where she’s wearin’ a white leather jacket. Be-you-tiful. Mint condition too.”

  “We’re looking for new Barbie cards,” the girl’s mom said. Flip wrinkled up his nose at the word “new” and rolled his eyes at me.

  “But these come in a glitter plastic case,” he added.

  “No thanks.” The girl and her mom left.

  Flip pulled out one of his other books and opened to the pages he had marked with Post-it notes.

  “There are so many old-time guys who threw hard,” he said. “Back in the 1890s, Amos Rusie was so fast, they moved all the pitchers back just so hitters would have a chance against him. And Lefty Grove led the American League in strikeouts seven years running. They said he was so fast, he could throw a pork chop past a wolf.”

  “Look, here’s Cy Young,” Flip said. “Y’know he got his name because he was supposed to be as fast as a cyclone, right? He won 511 games. That’s more than anybody else ever. Of course, he lost more games than anybody else too. 316 losses. Ouch!”

  Cy Young

  Flip really got into this baseball history stuff. Most of it was in his head. The books just refreshed his memory.

  “Dizzy Dean, boy, he was fast,” Flip continued, thumbing through pages. “Then there was this guy named Steve Dalkowski who was really fast and really wild. He never made it to the majors ’cause he couldn’t get the ball over the plate. Then, of course, there was Satchel Paige.”

  I knew a little bit about Paige. My dad has a ball that was autographed by him. He told me that Paige pitched in the Negro Leagues back in the days when African American players weren’t allowed to play in the majors. That was before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

  “We can’t go visit all those guys, Flip,” I said.

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “We gotta pick one to be our guy.”

  Flip closed the books and turned on his computer, which was on the counter next to him. He went to Google and started searching for stuff.