Honus & Me Read online

  Honus & Me

  A Baseball Card Adventure

  Dan Gutman

  DEDICATION

  For Ray Dimetrosky

  Everything in this book is true,

  except for the stuff I made up.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Introduction

  1

  Playing Hardball

  2

  Throwing Money in the Garbage

  3

  A Piece of Cardboard

  4

  All My Problems are Solved

  5

  “I’ll Give You $1,000 Cash. Right Now”

  6

  Floating on Air

  7

  One Last Peek

  8

  Daydreaming

  9

  The Argument

  10

  Growing Up Fast

  11

  The Great Cobb

  12

  The Designated Hitter

  13

  The Other Half

  14

  Pros and Cons

  15

  Going…Going…Gone

  16

  On My Own

  17

  Hmmmm, I Wonder…

  To the Reader

  Honus Wagner’s Baseball Tips for Kids

  The Most Valuable Baseball Card in the World

  Permissions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  THE FIRST TIME I TOUCHED A BASEBALL CARD, I FELT A strange tingling sensation all over my body.

  It was sort of like the feeling you get when you touch your fingers lightly against a television screen when the set is on. Static electricity jumps off the glass and onto your skin, or something like that. I’ll never forget it.

  I must have been four or five the first time this happened, but ever since then I’ve felt that feeling whenever I touched certain baseball cards. It’s kind of creepy.

  I never got the tingling sensation from football cards or basketball cards. A plain old piece of cardboard wouldn’t do it (believe me, I tried). Only baseball cards, and only certain baseball cards. Old cards worked best.

  I never knew what was going on with these baseball cards, but I always thought there was something—oh, magical—about them. Then something happened to me that made it all clear. And that’s what this story is about.

  Joe Stoshack

  PLAYING HARDBALL

  1

  “HEY! ELEPHANT EARS! WHEN YOU WALK DOWN THE street, Stoshack, you look like a taxicab with both doors open!”

  The words burned in my ears, which do stick out a little from my head, I must admit.

  I was at the plate. It was two outs in the sixth inning, and I was the last hope for the Yellow Jackets. We were down by a run, and the bases were empty. Their pitcher was only eleven, but he’d already whiffed me twice.

  That crack about my ears threw me off, just enough so that I tipped the ball instead of hitting it with the meat of my bat. That was strike two.

  Behind me, I could hear some of the kids on my team already packing up their equipment to go home. There wasn’t much chance that I was going to smack one out of the park. I hadn’t hit one out of the infield all season.

  It’s not that I’m not strong. My arms are really big, and people tell me my chest is broader than any other seventh grader they’ve seen. I’m short for a twelve-year-old and a little stocky.

  I’m actually a pretty good ballplayer. But those insults really get to me. The last time up, I struck out when they said my legs looked like a pair of parentheses. You know—(). Bowlegged? I guess I’m kinda funny-looking. If I wasn’t me, I’d probably be making fun of me, too.

  Nobody likes to make the last out. I sure didn’t want to strike out looking at the last pitch whiz past me. I was ready to swing at just about anything. The pitcher went into his windup again, and I stood ready at the plate. The pitch looked good, and I brought back my arms to take a rip at it.

  “Hey Stoshack!” their shortstop shouted as the ball left the pitcher’s hand, “Is that your nose or a door-knocker?” I’d never heard that one before. It threw off my timing. It felt like a good swing, but I hit nothing. As usual.

  “Steeerike threeeeeeeeeeeee!” the ump yelled as the ball smacked into the catcher’s mitt.

  Again. My third strikeout of the game. Did I swing over it? Under it? Too early? Too late? I couldn’t even tell. All I know is that I wanted to shrivel up and fade away. The other team hooted with glee. Even some of my teammates were snickering.

  THROWING MONEY IN THE GARBAGE

  2

  “JOEY, I’M HOME!” MOM SHOUTED AS THE SCREEN DOOR slammed behind her. “How was the game?”

  “Lousy,” I reported honestly. “I fanned three times and let a grounder go between my legs to let the winning run score.”

  Mom threw her arms around me and ran her fingers through my hair.

  “You’ll get ’em next time, slugger.”

  She flopped down in a chair. I could tell she was exhausted. Mom is on her feet most of the day. She works as a nurse in Hazelwood Hospital here in Louisville.

  “So what did you make me for dinner?” she asked with a smile, “I’m beat.”

  “Oh, Mom, let’s go out to eat tonight.”

  “Negative,” she replied. “When you sign your big league contract, you’ll take me out on the town. ’Till then, we’re on a tight budget.”

  “Fast food?” I suggested hopefully.

  “Ugh!” she replied, holding her nose. “I’d rather starve.”

  I wouldn’t say we were poor, but I sure wouldn’t say we were rich either. We never had a lot of money, but things got really tough after my parents split up two years ago. My dad lived in Louisville too, in an apartment. He came over to visit from time to time.

  Money was always a problem. When I was a little kid my folks used to argue a lot about it. Dad always seemed to have a tough time landing a job. When he found one, he never seemed to be able to hold on to it very long.

  I’ve always thought that if only my parents had had more money, they wouldn’t have split up. Mom said that was ridiculous. Money had nothing to do with it, she told me. Besides, she said, money doesn’t make you happy.

  But how would she know? She never had any.

  I always wished I had a million dollars. At least I could see if she was right or not. Even a half a million would have been nice.

  Until we win the lottery, I’d try to make a few dollars here and there doing odd jobs. Yard work. Raking leaves and stuff. The winter before, Kentucky got a lot more snow than usual, and I made a bunch of money shoveling people’s sidewalks and driveways. I gave some of the money to my mom. The rest of it I spent on baseball cards.

  Dad gave me his baseball-card collection and got me started collecting cards when I was seven. I may not have been a great hitter, but I knew more about cards than any kid around. I put together a complete set of guys who played shortstop. That was always my position.

  Mom says buying baseball cards is like throwing money into a garbage can. But I figure a kid should be allowed to have one harmless vice. It’s not like I drink or take drugs or anything.

  And besides, my baseball cards actually saved us money. When I got holes in my sneakers, I would slip a card inside so I didn’t need to buy a new pair right away. I always used lousy cards, of course. I wouldn’t think of stepping on a card that was worth anything.

  “I got you some work today, Joe,” Mom said as we chowed down on leftovers.

  “Oh, yeah? What?”

  “Miss Young needs her attic cleaned out. She’ll pay you five dollars. I t
old her you’d take it.”

  “Oh, man!”

  Amanda Young is this really old lady who lives next door. I know she’s way over one hundred, because my mom showed me an article from the paper that talked about Louisville’s Century Club. She’s pretty peppy for an old lady. Her skin is really wrinkly, though.

  Miss Young never had any kids, and she was never married. I don’t even think she has any relatives who are still alive. She’s been living by herself in that dilapidated old house for as long as anybody can remember. She never comes outside. Her groceries are brought in.

  My mom stops over to Miss Young’s now and then to see if she’s okay. I guess that’s how I got this job.

  It’s not like I don’t appreciate the work or anything. It’s just that Amanda Young is kinda weird. I’ve run a few errands for her, and she starts talking to me about nothing and she goes on and on. I can’t understand what she’s saying half the time. I nod my head yes to be polite.

  Sometimes, I must admit, I pretend my mom is calling so I can go home. Miss Young doesn’t hear very well, so she can’t tell I’m lying.

  I’ve never seen Miss Young smile. She seems really sad, as if somebody did something terrible to her a long time ago and she never got over it.

  I’ve heard kids say that Amanda Young is a witch, and that she murdered some kid once. Kids always make up stories like that. I think she’s just a lonely old lady. I feel a little sorry for her.

  Cleaning out Miss Young’s attic isn’t my idea of a fun afternoon, but five bucks is five bucks. Fleer is coming out with a new set of baseball cards next month, and I can use the money to buy a few packs.

  I’m sure I would have felt differently about the job if I’d known what Miss Young had up in her attic.

  A PIECE OF CARDBOARD

  3

  WE ONLY HAD A HALF DAY OF SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, SO I thought it would be a good time to go over to Amanda Young’s house. The shutters were hanging off the windows at an angle, and the place hadn’t had a coat of paint in decades. You could tell home maintenance was not very important to the old lady.

  Miss Young was in worse financial shape than we were. My mom said she could barely live off her Social Security checks.

  After I rang the doorbell, I didn’t hear a sound inside for a minute or two. I was afraid that maybe Miss Young was hurt or something, but then I heard her shuffling feet coming toward the door. She was really small, so when she opened the door a crack I could barely see her.

  “Come in,” she creaked. “Why Joseph Stoshack, you’re getting to be so big!”

  Inside, the house was like one of those historical houses some famous guy lived in and has been preserved just the way he left it when he died. It was filled with antiques, though I don’t know if stuff is still called antique if somebody never stopped using it. The walls were covered with hats and dried flowers and old guns.

  I couldn’t imagine Miss Young firing a gun, but you never know.

  “Pirates, eh?” she said, peering at my baseball cap. “Are you a Pittsburgh rooter?”

  “No, I just like this baseball cap, Miss Young.”

  “I used to root for the Pirates when I was a girl,” she said. “Well, one Pirate anyway.” She stopped for a moment and let out a sigh before changing the subject. “We didn’t have television back then, or even radio. But we used to pore over the newspaper. Did you know that the manager of the Pirates invented those flip-up sunglasses outfielders wear?”

  “Really?”

  Miss Young had never brought up baseball the other times we’d spoken. For the first time, she had my interest.

  “That’s right,” she continued. “His name was Fred Clarke. He’s a Hall of Famer, you know.”

  I had heard of Clarke, but I didn’t know too much about him.

  “And the baseball bat was invented right here in Louisville, Joseph. There was this fella named Pete Browning. He broke his bat one day, and a little boy took him home and carved Pete a new one on his daddy’s lathe. His dad was a woodworker you see, who made wooden butter churns. Do you know what a butter churn is, Joseph? Oh, of course not. You’re too young. Well, anyway, Pete took his new bat and got three hits the next day. Naturally, his teammates all wanted new bats. The woodworker stopped making butter churns and went into the bat business. And that’s how the Louisville Slugger was born. Of course, that was before my time.”

  I couldn’t imagine anything being before her time.

  “I want to show you something, Joseph.”

  She put on a pair of old-lady glasses and opened a drawer in the bureau in her front hallway. After sifting through the junk in there for a minute, she pulled out a photo and held it under a lamp. It was an old-time baseball player. The image was fuzzy, but I could make out the word “Louisville” across the chest of his uniform.

  The photo looked like it had originally been larger, but it was ripped in half. There was a white border at the top, bottom, and left side, but the right side had no border and the edge was jagged.

  The picture had been taken in a garden. The ballplayer was facing the camera and his left arm was extending out to the jagged edge, like he was holding hands with someone. It was impossible to tell who the other person was, because that half had been ripped off.

  I looked up and saw there were tears in Miss Young’s eyes.

  “I was supposed to hold onto this half of the picture until we saw each other again,” she said softly. “I waited and waited. But he never came back.”

  She handed me the picture abruptly. “Throw it away with the rest of the junk upstairs. It’s worthless.”

  I’m a collector. I never throw anything away. Who knows? A ripped picture of an old-time ballplayer might be worth something to somebody. It certainly meant something to Miss Young a long time ago. As I stuffed the picture in my backpack, I wondered why it had made her so upset.

  Miss Young led me upstairs and told me she wanted me to take everything out of the attic and put it on the street for the garbage men to take away. I figured she knew she wasn’t going to live forever, and she wanted to clean up her affairs while she was still around.

  As soon as I stepped up into the attic, I knew it had been a mistake to take the job. It was dark, filthy, and it looked like a junkyard. This was no five-dollar job, I thought to myself.

  But a deal is a deal. I started picking through the trash and hauling it out to the street. The whole time I was thinking I should have gotten a paper route or some other real job.

  Being a collector and all, I couldn’t resist peeking into a few of Miss Young’s old boxes to see what kind of stuff she had decided to hang on to all these years. But it was exactly what she said it was—worthless junk. Broken candlesticks. Old clothes. A set of encyclopedias. I chucked it all out.

  After a couple of hours I had cleared the entire attic except for a few boxes. I was dog tired, and I picked up the next box without holding it from the bottom. The box had deteriorated with age, and the bottom ripped open in my arms. The contents spilled all over the floor. I was angry at myself for not being more careful.

  I decided to take a short break before cleaning up the mess, so I lay down on the dusty wooden slats and stared at the rafters. In a few minutes I felt rested and rolled over on my side to look at the junk strewn across the floor.

  It was papers, mostly. Nothing too interesting. Bank statements and tax returns from a long time ago. I started picking them up and putting them into a pile. When I picked up the stack, a single piece of cardboard fell out and fluttered to the floor.

  This is what it looked like…

  It didn’t register at first. But when I picked up the card, I felt a strange tingling sensation.

  I turned over the card and looked at the other side. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  ALL MY PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED

  4

  IT WAS A PICTURE OF A MAN’S FACE. I GASPED. INSTINCTIVELY, I looked around to see if anybody was watching. Of course nobody was there.
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  The man in the picture was a young man, with short brown hair parted in the middle. He had a solemn expression on his face, with his head swiveled slightly so he was looking off to the left. His shirt collar was navy blue, and the shirt was muddy gray. It had four white buttons.

  On the right side of his chest were the letters “PITTS” and on the left were the letters “BURG.” There was no H.

  The background of the card was burnt-orange. There was a thin white border on all four sides. Across the bottom border, centered in the middle, were these magic words…

  WAGNER, PITTSBURG

  My breath came in short bursts. I suddenly felt warm. My heart was racing. My brain was racing. The tingling sensation was all over me, and stronger than I had ever experienced it.

  No doubt about it. I had just stumbled upon a T-206 Honus Wagner card—the most valuable baseball card in the world.

  Every serious collector knows the legend behind the Wagner card. These early baseball cards were printed by tobacco companies and were included with their products. All the players agreed to be on the cards except for Honus Wagner, the star shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

  Wagner was against cigarette smoking, and he didn’t want his name or picture used to sell tobacco. He forced the American Tobacco Company to withdraw his card—but they had already started printing them. A small number of the cards reached the public before the card was discontinued.