Free Pee Wees on First by Judy Delton Page B

And even though Rachel and Ashley didn’t like the game, she was sure they could play. They would probably hit a home run! She would be left with Sonny, holding the bat. And holding the wrong end!
    “What do we do to get the badge?” asked Rachel. “What is the other part of the news? Part two?”
    “The second part,” said their leader, “is to keep a notebook or a scrapbook of baseball trivia. See how much you can find out about the history of the game, or about the players. You can save baseball cards in the book, and anything else youcan find. You can go to the library and see if you can scout out facts that no one else knows.”
    Some of the Pee Wees were writing all this down in school notebooks, just the way they wrote their homework down. Molly liked lists and she liked notebooks. But she didn’t have to write this down. She’d remember this. This was the easy part. Notebooks were fun, hitting a ball wasn’t.
    “I can hit a ball, but I don’t like that stuff about notebooks,” said Tim.
    “Neither do I,” said Roger. “I just want to hit a home run over the top of a tree.” Roger swung an imaginary bat at an imaginary ball and spun around like the batters do on TV.
    Mrs. Peters was talking about how baseball began. She told them about famous players and record-breaking home runs. She told them about outdoor games and indoor domed stadiums. And then she told them how to play the game.

    “The object is to hit the ball and run around the three bases to score a home run,” she said.
    She told them about pitching and scoring and strikeouts. And she held up pictures of a baseball field.
    But Molly wasn’t paying much attention. She was thinking about her note-scrapbook. She could put more than facts in it. She could draw pictures of baseball players. She could make her book the best one in the troop—the fattest and longest and neatest—and then Mrs. Peters would excuse her from hitting any balls.
    “I wish we could either hit the ball or keep a notebook,” said Tracy when Mrs. Peters was through talking. “Instead of doing both of them.”
    “I do too,” said Roger.
    Most of the Pee Wees wanted the “one thing” to be hitting a ball.
    Others like Kevin couldn’t wait to do them both.
    But Molly was the only one who only wanted to do the scrapbook.
    She wondered how Jody was going to hit a ball. How could he run around bases? Probably the pitcher would throw the ball really slow and right to him. They would make sure he hit it! Molly wished she were handicapped too. She
was
handicapped when it came to hitting a ball! If she were in a wheelchair, and everyone made a fuss over her, she bet she could hit the ball too. Jody was lucky. Someone would probably even push his chair around the bases. Rat’s knees!
    “I have some more news too,” said Mrs. Peters. “This news is even more fun.”
    The Pee Wees cheered. Except Molly. She wasn’t going to cheer ahead of time.The news could be some other fun thing that really wasn’t.
    “There is a professional baseball player coming to town to scout out players for a new team,” said Mrs. Peters. “He’s retired now, and his name is Brett Brady. He’s going to watch local games and round up talent.”
    “Hey, I’ve heard of him!” shouted Roger.
    “Well,” Mrs. Peters went on, “he has agreed to come and talk to us about the game while he’s here! He’ll tell us about his experiences playing ball. And he’ll give us some tips.”
    “Yea!” shouted the Pee Wees.
    “He’s a VIP,” confided Jody.
    “What’s a Vip?” whispered Mary Beth to Molly. “One of those things like Dracula that sucks blood?”
    “That’s a vampire,” said Molly.
    “A VIP means a very important person,”said Ashley. “I know because my uncle is one.”
    Rat’s knees, pooh to you, thought Molly.
    “I’m sure Mr. Brady will be interesting to listen to,” said Mrs. Peters. “He will help us get our badge, and give us lots of inside information about