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Show Why We Cry Butch and Fenn Stories 127 Our All Stars arrive one at a time on their bikes wearing tennis shoes. In our hats, we look a lot like small time vendors at this pageant. But slowly enough of us gather to seem a team and Dickey, our best player, has even brought a baseball. It's covered with black electrician's tape, but the All Stars fan out in a rangey mob and start throwing it around, calling each other's names frantically in order to receive it-maybe-once every fifteen minutes. Screaming like that and grouped in what appears to be a nine pointed star, hurling a black sphere each to each, our All Stars appear kind of dangerous. The Holladay kids stop warming up to witness the ritual. Old coach Gurber sits on the front row of the bleachers in his coaching shirt. Keith sits beside him in civilian clothes, waiting for the chance to escape and climb trees down by the bandstand. Poor Keith hates baseball; it hasn't been very good to him. Luckily for Fenn, Gurber is not the All Star coach. His team came in last. Our coach is Ribbons, whose Red Hats won the league. Ribbons is a young guy, a good ball player himself, but what really qualifies him to coach, in my opinion, is that he doesn't have kids. When he comes in the park, we All Stars swarm around him, and he spills out the baseballs before us as if he is feeding fish. I can see Butch at his old place, behind the backstop, fingers in the fence. The Piston Bat leans against the chain-link beside him. When I catch his eye, he shakes his head |