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Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 3 7 Butch feeds me two fast balls, and I foul off the third. The broomstick doesn't feel right and my confidence is shot. I step out of the box. "This is Elston Howard," I say, tapping my tennis shoes with the broom handle. "He never strikes out." "Yeah, yeah," Butch says, leaning in. I want to slap one out to Fenn who can't see a thing. Butch winds up and throws: a slide-spinning curve, too slow and I tap it with the end of the stick in a loopy fly into deep right-center. Butch narrates: "It's going to be off the roof. Fenn is back to make the catch. Can he play it off the roof?" I watch the cup flip down the shingles. Fenn is back to us looking up"at the eaves. The cup is swinging down the roof, spinning. It tips a standpipe and rolls right into the rain gutter. We've seen it before. Fenn is at the ready, legs spread, arms up, staring into the sky- He dances a little along the edge of the house. I walk out to Butch on the mound and we watch how ready Fenn is. We sit down with our feet in a hol& and watch him hop around. "Did it go over?" Fenn hollers without looking back. "No," Butch says. "Get ready!" Fenn redoubles his hopping. To his left, Karen watches him shaking her head. She is sitting on Tiny, the wonderdog. "Where is it?" "Get ready!" |