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Show Why We Cry Butch and Fenn Stories 126 "Prototype!" Fenn says, grabbing the bat back and shaking it. Tink! Tink! Tink! "Prototype!" "Just use it, Fenn," Butch says. "It's a bat for an All Star." 9 The only little league games that are played at one in the afternoon are the opening game and the All Star Games, and both are extravaganzas. The park is a circus. You can hardly see the swings. They put the same old pennants up along the backstop, and if you didn't know what was going on, you'd think they were selling used cars. Just after noon the music starts waving out of the pressbox as everybody's mother arrives to wipe the counters and start up the snowcone machine. The Holladay mothers arrive early and put up a paper banner that says: SUPPORT HOLLADAY LITTLE LEAGUERS. The Holla-day team arrives in a van. The players step out casually and they look good. Instead of four colors, their uniforms are only grey and white. They look real sober, like pros, like this is just one stop on an unending baseball tour in which they have humiliated teams from here to Midvale. I feel funny watching them climb out of the van and begin to warm up. They are not that much bigger than our kids, but they arrange themselves in measured rows and begin to toss brand new baseballs back and forth. It looks like a drill. I notice they all wear polished black shoes with rubber cleats. |