Free The Diamond Champs by Matt Christopher

1
    K IM! ON YOUR TOES
!” yelled Coach Gorman E. Stag from home plate.
    Heart pounding, Kim Rollins watched the coach toss the baseball up, then wallop it with his bat.
    The ball shot up into the blue sky until it looked no larger than a pea, then started to descend.
    “Stay with it, Kim!” cried Larry Wells, standing nearby with other outfielders of the Steelheads team.
    Sure. It's easy for you to say
, thoughtKim as he tried to judge where the hall was going to drop.
You've played before. I haven't. I'm as green as grass at this game. I shouldn't even be here
!
    The ball was coming toward him. He raised his gloved hand, never taking his eyes off the fast-dropping sphere for a second.
     He had learned to do that much when he had missed the first three flies Coach Stag had knocked out to him.
    Thunk! The ball dropped into the pocket of his glove and stuck there.
    “Hey, man! You did it!” Larry exclaimed.
    Someone applauded, and Kim blushed as he saw that it was Cathy Andrews, the only girl among the outfielders.
    “Nice catch, Kim!” she said. “That was hit higher than the ones you missed, too!”
    Kim took a deep breath, exhaled it, and winged the ball back in to home. Coach Stag praised him for the catch too, and proceeded
     to hit him another. Kim caughtit, and caught the next, but dropped the fourth one.
    “Okay, Kim!” yelled the coach. “You did all right! This one's for Cathy!”
    He knocked one to her as high as he had for Kim. She got under it, caught it with no trouble, and threw it back in.
    “Did Coach Stag call you up and ask you to play with the Steelheads, too?” Kim asked Cathy.
    “Yes, he did. He called up everyone on the team.”
    “What about the infielders?” asked Kim curiously. “And the catcher? The pitcher? Where are they?”
    “They're practicing tomorrow,” Cathy answered.
    “How do you know?” he asked.
    She blew at a lock of hair that had fallen over her face. “Coach Stag asked Jo Franklin to play second base. She's a friend
     of mine and she told me.”
    Jo Franklin? He knew her, too. Theywere in the same grade. A whiz kid in social studies. A wizard with a tennis racket. But a baseball player?
    “Cathy, don't you get the feeling that something's really strange about Mr. Stag calling us all up and making a baseball team
     out of us?” Kim said. “Two girls, and me and the rest of the guys. I've never played baseball in my life, except pitch and
     catch. My bag is football and track.”
    “Then why are you here?”
    “I don't
know
. I told him that I had never played before, but he said he didn't care. He'd have us practice every other day so that we'd
     learn the game as quickly as possible, and then enter us in the Bantam League. It sounded challenging. He wants us to win
     the championship.”
    “The championship?” echoed Larry. “He must be a dreamer! We'll end up at the bottom! That's where we'll end up.”
    “Bottom is right,” admitted Kim glumly.
    He began to wonder about the coach asthe short, barrel-chested man with dark sunglasses knocked out flies to Moe Harris and Sam Jacobs, the other outfielders.
     Who was he, anyway? None of the kids Kim had asked had ever heard of him before. And why was he so interested in organizing
     a team composed of both girls and boys? Although there was no ruling that a girl couldn't play on a boys' team in the Bantam
     League, most of the girls in town had their own baseball league.
    Well, the only way to find out is to ask him
, Kim said to himself.
    After half an hour of catching fly balls, the players took batting practice. Coach Stag himself stood on the mound. He threw
     pitches that were easy to hit at first, then gradually he threw them faster.
    The worst hitter of the lot was Kim. He remembered knocking out flies a few times while playing with friends, but that was
     before he had become interested in football and track. He couldn't remember everpicking up a bat once those activities had gotten into his blood, and