The Rookie Blue Jay Read online

  “Hey, kids, come on back to the table. Your waffles are getting cold,” Mrs. Hopkins called out. “What are you two so interested in over there?”

  Kate glanced at Mike as they sat down at the table. He shrugged and then nodded.

  “Ghost lights!” Kate said.

  “Ghost lights?” Mrs. Hopkins said. “In the Blue Jays’ stadium? What are they doing—beckoning players to the minor leagues?”

  Kate laughed and took a bite of her eggs and Canadian bacon.

  Mike shook his head. “No, it was really strange,” he said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window. Strange lights kept flying back and forth in the bull pen. I even woke up Kate and showed her.”

  Kate nodded. “It was weird,” she added. “We weren’t imagining things. There was something there!”

  “Well, I can’t explain the strange lights in the Blue Jays bull pen,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “But I can introduce you to a Blue Jays player. How would you like that?”

  “Really?” Kate asked. “That would be great!”

  “Who is it?” Mike asked.

  “Dusty, their best new player,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “He just joined the team last year, and he’s up for the Rookie of the Year Award. He hasn’t made an error all season. I’m interviewing him after breakfast, and he said you two could come along.”

  “Cool!” Mike said as he poured maple syrup on his waffles. “Maybe we can ask him about the ghost lights.”

  After Mike, Kate, and Mrs. Hopkins finished breakfast, they paid and went outside. To get to the stadium, they had to walk around the ballpark to the main entrance. Mrs. Hopkins showed the security guard her press pass. He led them to the team’s locker room and opened the door. “Dusty’s expecting you,” the security guard said.

  The Blue Jays locker room was long and wide. It had a big ceiling that swooped up on one side. Players’ lockers lined each wall. Tables, couches, and big leather chairs on wheels were arranged in the middle of the room. It was early, so there were only a few players in the locker room. One waved them over.

  “Hello! I’m Dusty,” he said as he stood up to shake hands. Dusty was tall with curly hair. He looked much younger than most of the baseball players Mike and Kate had met before.

  Mike whistled. “Wow, what a cool clubhouse,” he said.

  “It is nice,” Dusty said. “The team wanted to make it feel like home.” He glanced around the room and let out a long sigh. “I’ll miss it when I leave.”

  Dusty picked up a baseball off a table and rolled it back and forth between his hands. He turned to Mrs. Hopkins. “I guess you want to interview me?” he said.

  Mrs. Hopkins took out a pad of paper to take notes. “Yes, thanks. You haven’t made an error all season long, and you’ve had a hit in each of the last fifteen games,” she said. “How are you keeping that streak alive?”

  Dusty brightened up a bit. He smiled a toothy grin. “Well, I always wear my lucky T-shirt for games,” he said. He pointed at the shirt he was wearing. It had a white maple leaf on the front, and the deep blue of the shirt matched his eyes.

  Mrs. Hopkins wrote down Dusty’s answer. Then she flipped through her notes. “I have a bunch of questions,” she said. “Can Mike and Kate wait somewhere while I interview you?”

  Dusty shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He pointed across the room to a locker. It had the name DUSTY MARTIN printed above it. “Why don’t you two sit down there?”

  Mike and Kate walked over and plopped down on the chairs in front of Dusty’s locker. Inside hung bright blue game jerseys. Pairs of cleats lined the bottom. A few baseballs rested on a shelf, along with a tan and black glove. The sides of the locker were filled with pictures of Dusty. There were lots of him from when he was younger, playing baseball and hockey. In one picture, he was standing on skates on an ice rink with a hockey stick and a trophy.

  When Mrs. Hopkins was done, she called Mike and Kate back. Dusty had excused himself to get a cup of coffee.

  When he returned, he slumped down in his chair and took a big sip of coffee. He seemed lost in thought. He shook his head as if he were trying to get cobwebs out.

  After a minute, Mrs. Hopkins broke the silence. “Are you okay, Dusty?” she asked.

  Dusty nodded slowly. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m tired. I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping lately. I almost made my first error of the season a few days ago because I was so tired.”

  Mike jumped out of his seat. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping, too!” he said. “Last night I woke up at midnight and saw something really strange in the stadium.”

  Dusty suddenly sat up straight. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Did you see someone?”

  “No,” Kate said. “We saw these weird glowing lights from our hotel window.”

  Mike hopped from side to side. “The blue lights streaked from one side of the bull pen to the other, like this,” he said as he hopped. “Then, all of a sudden, they stopped!”

  Dusty fidgeted with his coffee cup. “That’s odd,” he said.

  “We think they’re ghost lights,” Kate said. “We listened to an audiobook in the car that said ghost lights lead people into trouble.”

  Mike made a slashing motion across his neck and fell to the floor as if he were dead. “Sometimes they even lure you to your death,” he said from the floor.

  “I don’t know if they do that,” Kate said. She pulled Mike off the floor. “Have you ever seen them, Dusty?”

  “Me?” Dusty asked. He glanced down at the floor and scratched the back of his neck for a moment. “I’ve never—I’ve never seen anything in the stadium that I can’t explain.”

  Dusty checked his watch and stood up. “I’m afraid I’ve got to get going now,” he said. He led them to the clubhouse door and opened it.

  “Thanks for talking with us,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “Good luck with your streak. We’ll be rooting for you.”

  “Thanks,” Dusty said. He nodded at Mike and Kate. “I’ll keep my eyes open for those lights. Let me know if you see them again. If I’m not in the dugout, just ask one of the workers to find me.”

  The door closed behind them. Mike, Kate, and Mrs. Hopkins headed for the exit.

  “Was he nervous or something when we asked about the ghost lights?” Kate asked as they walked outside. “He seemed to want to get rid of us in a hurry.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “He said he was having trouble sleeping. He’s probably just stressed about the streak.”

  “I don’t think that’s why he’s tired,” Mike said.

  “You don’t?” Kate asked. “Why’s he tired, then?”

  “I think he’s having trouble sleeping because he must have seen the lights, too!”

  A Surprise Find

  “Nice hit!” Kate shouted as a ball sailed high into the outfield. A group of Blue Jays players chased the baseball until one called it and it dropped into his glove. The player tossed the ball to a batboy standing behind a big protective screen near second base.

  Mike, Kate, and Mrs. Hopkins had just come back from an early lunch to watch batting practice. The Blue Jays were playing the New York Mets in an afternoon game. On the field, the players were busy practicing. Near home plate, a coach threw balls to batters. Each batter got about twenty pitches. Some batters hit towering home runs. Others hit grounders.

  Kate and Mike stood by the infield fence. They watched the first few players hit. Kate’s mom was on the field with other reporters. She was doing pregame interviews.

  The third Blue Jays batter stepped up to the plate. He popped a foul ball that headed right for Mike and Kate.

  “I’ve got it!” Mike called. He stretched over the fence to catch the ball. But as he leaned forward, his baseball cap slipped off his head. It fell to the ground just as the ball hit the fence and bounced back into the infield.

  “Hey, my hat!” Mike said. He tried to reach for it, but his arms weren’t long enough.

  Next to
Mike, a tall man watching batting practice leaned over and scooped the hat up. He turned to hand it to Mike, but stopped suddenly.

  The man smiled. “Not you again,” he said. It was Buck, the hockey player from Niagara Falls. Buck handed Mike his hat.

  Mike’s freckled face blushed. “Sorry, I guess I was leaning over too far,” he said. He slipped his hat back on. Then he pulled it down tight. “Thanks for saving my hat—again.”

  Buck laughed. “No problem,” he said. “I usually only save hockey hats. But if you have to wear a baseball hat, at least you’ve got the right team.”

  “I thought you didn’t like baseball,” Kate said.

  “Well, hockey’s better, but my son plays baseball,” Buck said. “I always wanted him to play hockey like me, but he had other ideas. And he’s a lot better at baseball than I ever was at hockey.”

  Just then, Buck’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got to take this.” Buck stepped away from the fence. He walked up the steps and sat in the aisle seat of the last row.

  Mike and Kate waited a few minutes for him to finish his call. But it didn’t look as if Buck was going to get off his phone anytime soon. Out on the field, a new batter stepped up to the plate. Kate’s mom was still interviewing a team official near the dugout.

  “Want to check out the bull pen?” Kate asked. “Maybe we can find the ghost light.”

  Mike and Kate snaked their way through the rows of seats to the left-field corner. About twenty feet below them was the Blue Jays bull pen. It was sandwiched between the outfield and the outfield seats. A pitcher was already warming up. He threw one baseball after another to a catcher crouching at the far end. Whiz—pop. Whiz—pop.

  Except for the catcher and pitcher, the bull pen was empty. There were baseballs on one side and a screen behind the catcher.

  “I don’t see anything unusual,” Kate said. “It looks like a bull pen.”

  “But there was something here last night,” Mike said. He took off his hat and looked up to his left, near the scoreboard. “That’s our room,” he said. “We definitely saw something.”

  Kate nodded. “Well, let’s look for clues,” she said. “I’ll do this row. You take the next one.”

  They split up and checked under each seat. It didn’t take long for Mike to make a find.

  “Hey, look at what I got!” he said. Mike held up a half-empty bottle of red PowerPunch. “I’m thirsty. Should I finish it?”

  Kate wrinkled her nose. “Ew. That’s gross,” she said. “Keep looking. If the PowerPunch had been glowing last night, it would have been a red light.”

  Mike placed the bottle at the end of the row and continued searching. Kate finished her row. She started again a couple of rows below Mike. She didn’t find anything until she got to the last seat. Kate spied something between the seat and the wall. It took a minute for her to wiggle it out.

  “Mike!” Kate called. “Look what I found!”

  The Streak

  Mike jumped over the seats. Kate held up a bright blue disk about the size of a doughnut. Its top and bottom were smooth, but the side was a little rough. Kate handed it to Mike.

  “It’s a hockey puck!” he said. He turned it over in his hands. “Cool! Someone must have left it behind.”

  Kate nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Remember how they gave out those American flags when we went to a Phillies game? Maybe around here they give out hockey pucks!”

  Mike tossed the puck back to Kate. “My dad’s got some old hockey sticks at the store,” he said. Mike’s father owned a sporting-goods store in Cooperstown. “Maybe we can try this out when we get home.”

  “Good idea,” Kate said. She slipped the puck into her pocket.

  They searched the rest of the seats but didn’t find anything else.

  Mike flipped up the last seat. It was empty underneath. “This was a bust,” he said. “It’s getting close to game time. At least maybe the game will be good.”

  Mike and Kate made it back to their seats just as “The Star-Spangled Banner” began. When it was over, Mike started to sit down, but Kate tapped him with her foot. “Pssst…,” she whispered. “You’ve got to keep standing for Canada’s national anthem!”

  The words of “O Canada” rang out through the ballpark. Mike stood back up as it played.

  The fans all around Mike and Kate sang loudly during the last two lines of the song:

  O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

  O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

  “Play ball!” yelled a fan with a deep voice next to Mike and Kate. Everyone cheered wildly as the Blue Jays trotted onto the field. Dusty took his spot at second base. Mike and Kate waved to him, but he was too busy setting up for the game to notice.

  The Mets’ Alvin Shay led off with a strong double to right field. When he stole third base, it looked as if he might score, but Cody Clemens, the Blue Jays pitcher, shut down the next three batters for three outs.

  Neither team scored in the next two innings. In the bottom of the fourth, Dusty helped the Blue Jays get their first run. He hit a single that knocked in a man on third. That put the Blue Jays ahead 1–0.

  The fifth inning was tough for the Jays. Cody Clemens gave up two singles with no outs. The next batter hit a hard grounder right to Dusty, who fielded it and threw to first for the out. Even though it wasn’t a hard play, Dusty’s throw was high. The first baseman barely snagged it by stretching really far. If he’d missed, at least one run would have scored and Dusty would have been charged with an error.

  “That was close!” Mike said. “Dusty almost broke his streak!”

  Luckily, the Blue Jays got two more outs, leaving them ahead. At the end of the fifth inning, Mike and Kate were about to get up to grab some food when the Blue Jays grounds crew raced in from the outfield.

  Kate grabbed Mike’s elbow. “Oh! Let’s watch this,” she said. “I read in the program that this is the world’s fastest grounds crew.”

  “What do you mean?” Mike asked.

  Kate pointed to the field. “Most teams have wide dirt paths between the bases,” she said. “But the Blue Jays have grass between the bases. There are only small patches of dirt around the bases for sliding. That means the grounds crew doesn’t have as much to do, so they finish a lot faster.”

  The Blue Jays grounds crew raced in at top speed from the outfield. Three people charged each base with rakes and a fresh base. In seconds, they changed the bases, raked the dirt, and dashed back off the field.

  “Wow!” Mike said. “If only I could clean my room that fast!”

  When the game started again, the Blue Jays held on to their lead. As they took the field for the final inning, it looked as if they’d win. But the crowd grew quiet after the first three Mets batters loaded the bases with two outs.

  When the next batter let two strikes go by, the Blue Jays fans relaxed a little. But the Mets batter unwound on the next pitch and hit an easy ground ball to Dusty.

  The ball rolled along the infield. Dusty scooped it up and then stood to throw to first. But when he opened his glove, it was empty.

  He had missed the catch! The ball was still rolling for the outfield. Two Mets batters scored.

  Dusty’s streak was over!

  The Glowing Light

  Mike and Kate shuffled slowly out of the stadium. Not only had the Blue Jays lost, but Dusty had made his first error!

  Mike kicked a pebble out of his way. It bounced off the cement wall of the stadium. “Dusty won’t win Rookie of the Year,” he said.

  Kate stuck her hands in her pockets. “It seemed like such an easy out,” she said. “Something must be wrong with him. He almost missed that other play earlier in the game.”

  “Try not to worry too much,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “One of the reporters said Dusty still has a chance of being named Rookie of the Year. He just needs to play well in the rest of the games.”

  “That’s good,” Mike said. “
Maybe he’ll play better tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Hopkins checked her watch. “It’s almost dinnertime,” she said. “How about we order room service tonight? You two can watch them clean up the ballpark while you’re eating, and I can finish my story.”

  “Yippee!” Kate said. “That’s a great idea!”

  Mike perked up. “That sounds cool.”

  When they made it back to the room, Mike and Kate looked over the menu. Mike ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, while Kate ordered a chicken wrap. Then they settled down in two empty chairs near the window and watched as the last fans left the stadium. The bright lights were still on. A TV crew stood on the edge of the field, finishing up interviews.

  It didn’t take long for the room service to arrive. The waiter brought in a big tray and placed it on the desk. On the left side stood a stack of plates topped with shiny silver covers. On the right side were three tall glasses of milk. The silverware was bundled inside rolled-up cloth napkins. Mrs. Hopkins signed the bill and tipped the waiter. Meanwhile Mike and Kate took their dinners and sat in the comfy chairs in front of the window.

  Even though Mike and Kate had been to plenty of baseball games, they’d never watched workers clean up a stadium after a game. Some of the workers had loud leaf blowers strapped to their backs. They walked down each aisle and blew clouds of napkins, hot dog wrappers, and empty popcorn boxes into piles at the end of the rows. On the diamond, teams of workers tidied up home plate and the pitching mound. Another worker drove around the field in a special sweeper cart. The cart did one figure eight after another to smooth out the grass in the outfield.

  By the time Mike and Kate had finished eating, most of the workers were done, too. The field was groomed for the next day’s game, and the lights had been turned down. The baseball diamond was still lit, but most of the seats were not.

  Mike and Kate returned their plates to the tray. Mrs. Hopkins was still working on her story at the desk.