Baseball Card Adventure: Satch And Me Part 15

There was a difference. There was a second person in each photo now. And the second person was Flip! Young Flip.

I thought I might faint.

Next to the photos were some yellowed old newspaper clippings, and they were all articles about Flip. I scanned the headlines. FLIP FLIPS CARDINALS IN 3-1 VICTORYVALENTINI WINS 20TH GAMEFLIP VALENTINI ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT.

The last one was dated 1963. I read the first paragraph: Flip Valentini, fireballer who pitched with the Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, and Pittsburgh Pirates over a long and productive National League career, retired yesterday after his 18th season. Valentini finished his career with 287 wins, 2,856 strikeouts, and an earned run average of 2.87. He had an overpowering fastball, but credited his success to his baffling Hesitation Pitch, which he learned from the great Satchel Paige before either of them reached the majors.

"Are you okay, Stosh?"

I turned around to see an old lady standing there. She handed me a gla.s.s of water and held the back of her hand against my forehead, just like my mom does when she thinks I'm coming down with something. Flip was standing behind her.

"Who are you?" I asked, taking a sip.

"See what I mean, Laverne?" Flip said. "We should call his mother."

"Laverne?" I asked. "You're Laverne?!"

I searched the old lady's face. Her hair was gray and her skin was wrinkled, but it was Laverne! I could see a faint resemblance in her eyes.

"Well, of course I'm Laverne, you silly willie," she said, chuckling. "Who else would I be?"

Suddenly it was all clear to me. I had traveled back to 1942 with Flip. We met Satchel Paige, and Satch taught him how to throw the Hesitation Pitch. We also met Laverne in 1942, and she and Flip fell in love. When Laverne's dad went psycho and tried to shoot us, I had to leave Flip behind and come back to the twenty-first century by myself. After I left, Flip and Laverne must have run off together, and Flip must have tried out for the Dodgers. He had a baseball career. He had a new life. And now Flip and Laverne were an old married couple!

"You're just a little dizzy, Stosh," Laverne said. "You'll be fine. Flip, will you please call up Mrs. Stoshack and ask her to come get him?"

Flip was about to pick up the phone, when it rang.

"h.e.l.lo?" he said into the receiver. "Yeah, this is Flip Valentini. Very funnyYou're kiddin' me. You sure this ain't some joke?Okay, thanks."

Flip let the phone fall back on the hook. He had sort of a gla.s.sy-eyed look on his face.

"What is it?" Laverne asked. "Is something wrong? Did somebody die?"

"You'll never believe me," Flip said.

"Try me," said Laverne.

"Not in a million years," Flip said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"They voted me into the Baseball Hall of Fame."

For a moment, the three of us just stood there. It was like somebody had just told me that an elephant had landed on the moon. It was so different from anything I expected to hear that I didn't know how to react.

But it wasn't long until we were all screaming and jumping up and down and hugging one another. Somebody must have seen us through the window, because people started streaming in to congratulate Flip. Soon the tiny store was jammed with people, and we were in the middle of a party. Somebody produced a bottle of champagne and squirted it at Flip. The phone started ringing and it didn't stop.

After about an hour, Laverne told everybody that all the excitement had tired Flip out and he had to go home and rest. I was about to leave when she pulled me aside.

"None of this would have happened if it wasn't for you," she whispered in my ear. "You realize that, don't you? Flip and I owe everything to you. Will you come join us for dinner tonight?"

"What are you having?" I asked.

"Roast chicken and corn bread," she told me. "It'll make you think you died and went to heaven."

She was right. Dinner was great. Flip and Laverne had a nice house too, much nicer than the dumpy apartment Flip used to live in. He seemed so much happier now.

While we were eating, the conversation turned to baseball, as it usually did whenever Flip was around. Laverne said it would be interesting to travel to the future to see what baseball would look like a hundred years from now. But that would be impossible, Flip and I pointed out. I always go to the year on the card. I would need a future card to go to the future, and obviously, future cards don't exist until you get there. Flip suggested some players from the past I might want to visit, like Roberto Clemente, Ty Cobb, or Ted Williams. I tossed out Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg.

It was a great evening, for all of us. The only disappointment, we all agreed, was that we never did clock Satch's best stuff on the radar gun.

"Now that it's all over," I asked Flip, "how fast do you think Satch really was? Do you think he could have thrown 105 miles an hour?"

"Maybe it's none of our business," Flip replied. "Some legends oughta stay legends. Some mysteries oughta stay mysteries. It'd be nice to know, but it's better to wonder."

Facts and Fictions.

Everything in this book is true, except for the stuff I made up. It's only fair to tell you which is which.

From 1898 to 1946, African Americans were banned from professional baseball for no other reason than the color of their skin. Many of the greatest players in history never played major league baseball.

Satchel Paige was arguably the greatest pitcher who ever lived, and certainly the most quotable. (Much of his dialog in this book was spoken or written by Satch himself.) Negro League statistics were not always written down, but Satch claimed to have pitched 2,600 games and won 2,100 of them. He also said he pitched 300 shutouts and 55 no-hitters. Of course, Satch was known to have stretched the truth on occasion.

Satch really did drive his car (and sometimes fly his own plane) to games, rather than take the team bus. He pitched for any team that would pay him, sometimes blowing into town and fronting a hastily a.s.sembled team of local amateurs (like the New York Stars) for one game. The Indianapolis Clowns, however, were a real Negro League team. A young Hank Aaron, by the way, started out on the Clowns at age eighteen.

Satch really did call in his fielders sometimes and strike out the side, and he really was served with divorce papers by somebody pretending to want an autograph.

I played a little fast and loose with the facts about the 1942 Negro League World Series. It was actually Game Two when Satch walked two batters intentionally so he could pitch to Josh Gibson with the bases loaded. That incident took place in the seventh inning, not the ninth. Satch pitched in all four of the World Series games that year, and he won three of them.

After a long Negro League career, Satch finally made his first major league appearance for the Cleveland Indians on July 9, 1948. He was 42 years old by then, and possibly older. (Satch was always cagey about his age.) Satch won six games and lost just one that year, helping the Indians win the American League pennant. (The league banned the Hesitation Pitch as soon as Satch used it.) But he still wasn't finished. Satch went on to pitch four more seasons. Finally, after being out of the big leagues for a dozen years, the Kansas City Athletics brought him back for one last appearance on September 25, 1965. Satch was almost sixty years old. He pitched three shutout innings that day. It had been nearly forty years from his first professional game until his last.

In 1971, Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died on June 8, 1982, in Kansas City. He is buried there, in Forest Hill Memorial Park Cemetery.

Just as Satchel Paige was quite possibly the best pitcher ever, Josh Gibson may have been the game's greatest hitter. He hit around 800 home runs in his career, with a batting average of .352. In exhibition games against major league pitchers, he hit an incredible .426.

But by 1942, Josh had begun to fade. He was experiencing bouts of dizziness and headaches. He only made 2 hits in 13 at bats in that 1942 World Series.

Four months later, on New Year's Day, 1943, Josh fainted and was in a coma for ten days. It was determined that he had a brain tumor. Josh refused to have an operation to remove it, and things got worse. Over the next four years, Josh suffered from nervous breakdowns, hallucinations, alcoholism, and addiction to heroin. After several suicide attempts, he was briefly admitted to a mental hospital.

On Sunday, January 19, 1947, Josh went to a movie. When the lights came up, he was found slumped in his seat. He died in the middle of the night at his mother's house. He was only 35 years old.

n.o.body knows if Josh died from a brain hemorrhage, a stroke, or a drug overdose. Some say he died of a broken heart. He had hit more home runs than Babe Ruth, but he never was allowed to play in the big leagues. He was virtually unknown outside the world of black baseball.

Josh Gibson was buried in an unmarked grave in Pittsburgh's Allegheny Cemetery. Twenty-five years later, his accomplishments were recognized and he became the second Negro League player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Money was raised for a proper gravestone.

Ten weeks after Josh died, Jackie Robinson (who played with Satch on the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945) broke the color barrier. White baseball began s.n.a.t.c.hing up the best Negro League players, such as Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. Fans stopped going to Negro League games and the league went out of business. The last Negro League World Series was played in 1948.

Stosh, Laverne, and Flip Valentini do not exist in the real world (though I do have an old friend named Fred Valentini).

And you can't travel through time. At least not yet.

Read More!.

Most of the information in this book came from reading lots of books about Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and the Negro Leagues. If you'd like to learn more, ask your librarian for these: Bruce, Janet. The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball. Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1985.

Eckstut, Arielle, and David Sterry, editors. Satchel Sez: The Wit, Wisdom, and World of Leroy "Satchel" Paige. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.

Heward, Bill, with Dimitri V. Gat. Some Are Called Clowns: A Season with the Last of the Great Barnstorming Baseball Teams. New York: Crowell, 1974.

Holway, John. Blackball Stars: Negro League Pioneers. Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1988.

Holway, John. Josh and Satch: The Life and Times of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992.

Paige, Leroy Satchel, as told to David Lipman. Maybe I'll Pitch Forever. New York: Doubleday, 1962.

Paige, Leroy Satchel, as told to Hal Lebovitz. Pitchin' Man: Satchel Paige's Own Story. Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1948.

Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970.

Ribowsky, Mark. Don't Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Ribowsky, Mark. The Power and the Darkness: The Life of Josh Gibson in the Shadows of the Game. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Rogosin, Donn. Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues. New York: Macmillan, 1985.

Satchel Paige's Rules for Staying Young -Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.

-If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

-Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

-Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society-the social ramble ain't restful.

-Avoid running at all times.

-And don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

Permissions.

The author would like to acknowledge the following for use of photographs and artwork: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY: 26, 36, 59, 104, 110. George Strock/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images: 72. Nina Wallace: 7, 99, 132. Collection of John Holway: 134, 144.

"Satchel Paige's Rules for Staying Young" were originally published in Collier's magazine, June 13, 1953.

Acknowledgments.

Thanks to Bill Burd.i.c.k of the National Baseball Hall of Fame; John Zajc, Wayne Stivers, and Larry Lester of the Society for American Baseball Research; Marilyn Holt of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; John Holway; my wife, Nina Wallace; and all the folks at HarperCollins Children's Books.

Many thanks also to the great people I met at the schools I visited in 2005: In Alabama: Brookwood, Mountain Brook, and Cherokee Bend schools in Mountain Brook.

In Arizona: Desert Sun, Pima, Desert Canyon, Laguna, Hohokam, Cochise, Sonoran Sky, and ANLC schools in Scottsdale.

In Connecticut: Ledyard Center School in Ledyard; Butler School in Mystic; Noank School in Noank; Fairfield Country Day School in Fairfield; and Adams, c.o.x, Jones, Guilford Lakes, and Baldwin Middle School in Guilford.

In Georgia: Lovett School in Atlanta and Dolvin School in Alpharetta.

In Iowa: Welton and Ekstrand Schools in Welton, Briggs School in Maquoketa, and Camanche School in Camanche.

In Ma.s.sachusetts: Fessenden School in West Newton and Tenacre County Day School and Fiske School in Wellesley.

In Michigan: Forest, Longacre, Flanders, Gill, Hillside, Beechview, Wooddale, Wood Creek, Eagle, HCC, Lanigan, Grace, and Kenbrook Schools in Farmington Hills.

In Minnesota: Groveland School in Minnetonka, Deephaven School in Wayzata, and Minnewashta School in Excelsior.

In New Jersey: Horace Mann School in Cherry Hill, Strawbridge School in Haddon Towns.h.i.+p, Tatem and Lizzie Haddon Schools in Haddonfield, Yellin School in Stratford, Indian Fields School in Dayton, Deerfield School in Short Hills, Roosevelt School in River Edge, Stillwater School in Stillwater, McGinn School in Scotch Plains, Lincoln School in Nutley, H. B. Whitehorne Middle School and Brown School in Verona, Chatham Middle School in Chatham, Deerfield School in Mountainside, Yardville School in Yardville, and Hartford School in Mount Laurel.

In New York: Mount Kisco School in Mount Kisco, Bronxville School in Bronxville, Jefferson School in New Roch.e.l.le, and Riverdale Country School in the Bronx.

In Oklahoma: Was.h.i.+ngton, Eisenhower, Madison, Truman, Wilson, Jackson, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Monroe Schools in Norman.

In Oregon: Errol Ha.s.sell School in Aloha; Scholls Heights and Cooper Mountain Schools in Beaverton; and Wismer, Ridgewood, West Tualatin View, and Montclair Schools in Portland.

In Pennsylvania: Colonial School in Plymouth Meeting; Friends Central School in Wynnewood; Seville, Perrysville, and Ross Schools in Pittsburgh; Jenkintown School in Jenkintown; Newtown Friends School in Newtown; Annville School in Annville; Paradise and Salisbury Schools in Pequea Valley; Buckingham School in Buckingham; and Cold Spring, Gayman, and Kutz Schools in Doylestown.

In Rhode Island: Dunn's Corners School in Westerly and Bradford School in Bradford.

About the Author.

DAN GUTMAN is the author of many fantastic books for young readers. Besides baseball, he has also written about soccer, basketball, bowling, and aliens. When he is not writing books, Dan is very often visiting a school. Thanks to his fans who voted in their cla.s.srooms, he has received fifteen state book awards and thirty-six state book award nominations. Dan lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey, with his wife, Nina, and their two children, Sam and Emma.

You can visit him online at www.dangutman.com.

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