Curveball (Jeter Publishing) - Hardcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Derek Jeter is a fourteen-time All-Star and five-time World Series winner who played for one team—the storied New York Yankees—for all twenty seasons of his major league career. His grace and class on and off the field have made him an icon and role model far beyond the world of baseball.

Paul Mantell is the author of more than 100 books for young readers, including books in the Hardy Boys and Matt Christopher series.

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Curveball

Chapter One

SUMMER DREAMS

Crack!

As soon as the bat hit the ball, Derek knew it was coming his way. From his crouch he tracked the screaming liner with his eyes, timing his leap, upward and to his right. At the last instant he stretched his arm as far as he could.

It seemed to Derek in that nanosecond, as he flew through the air, that he really was flying! It also seemed to him that his arm extended farther than the possible limits of human arm-stretching. . . .

And the ball hit his mitt—right at the outer edge of the webbing! Derek squeezed the ball tightly as he fell back to earth, held it as he hit the dirt of the infield and kept skidding.

“Two! Two! Two!” someone was shouting at him. Derek knew what that meant. He had a chance to get the runner trying for second base, making two outs in one incredible play—if he could just get up and throw to second on time!

Somehow he got the throw off, and Willie Randolph grabbed it in his mitt. At that exact millisecond the runner slid into Willie’s glove. “OUT!” the umpire yelled.

“Way to go, Derek!” shouted his best friend Dave from Kalamazoo, who was manning third base.

“Attaboy, Derek!” said Ron Guidry, the pitcher, congratulating him as they both stepped into the Yankees dugout. “Thanks for saving my bacon.”

“Great play, kid!” Don Mattingly said, tipping his captain’s cap.

Suddenly Derek found himself outside the stadium, in the parking lot. The game was over, but he was still in uniform. Next to him a car was gunning its engine—a sports car . . . and in the driver’s seat, Dave Winfield. Derek’s all-time favorite ballplayer!

“You played a great game today, kid,” he told Derek as he gunned the engine. “Awesome job for an eleven-year-old.”

HUH?

Eleven? What in the—

Derek sat up in bed with a start. Wow, he thought as he let his heart calm down in the darkness of the bedroom. That was some dream.

Across the room his sister, Sharlee, lay peacefully in her bed, softly snoring. Derek looked over at the alarm clock. It was just after five in the morning.

Hearing the revving of a car motor, he realized that was what had woken him up. He went to the window. It was still dark outside, but at the far end of the yard, where the property met the road, his grandpa’s old pickup truck was just pulling out of the long driveway.

Sharlee and Derek were spending the summer with their grandparents in Greenwood Lake, New Jersey, just as they did every year. And like on every other day while they were there, Grandpa was already on his way to work. Six days a week, and half days on Sundays too. That’s what it was like to be the chief caretaker of a church, which was what Derek’s grandpa had been for many, many years.

Grandpa always came home from work hungry and tired. Most evenings, all he could do was eat dinner, watch a little TV, and fall asleep—usually before Sharlee’s bedtime, let alone Derek’s. So it was mostly Grandma who was able to spend time with the kids.

She was the one in charge of the kids all day. She cooked for them, did the wash, cleaned the house, played with them, and tended to their cuts and bruises. The amazing part was, she almost always seemed to enjoy it. To Derek she had always been a kind of—well, not superhero, maybe, but superperson. She’d had thirteen kids of her own, including Derek’s mom, and she’d raised them all into fine, upstanding grown-ups, and now she was helping watch all the grandkids, too. He hoped that when he was a grown-up, everyone would love and respect him the way everyone in the family did Grandma.

Derek looked out the open window. He could hear the crickets chirping. The sky was starting to get lighter.

He didn’t feel the least bit tired. In fact, he felt restless. He couldn’t wait for the morning to get going so that the usual fun could start!

He and Sharlee had already been here a few days, but it had rained a ton. They’d hung out a lot with their cousins, who all lived in the area, and some of whom always managed to end up sleeping over at Grandma and Grandpa’s. They’d all gone bowling once, and to a movie another time.

But Derek hadn’t been swimming in the lake much yet this summer—and that was where most of the fun happened around here.

Right now everyone was still asleep. Derek got dressed quietly, washed up, and went down to the kitchen to make a bowl of cereal, and wait for Grandma to come downstairs.

She was almost always the first awake, in order to make sure everyone’s breakfast was ready before they even got downstairs, but she wasn’t the first today. Grandpa’s truck had seen to that by waking Derek up extra early. Still, Grandma was sure to be down in a few minutes, well before Sharlee, who usually slept till eight o’clock at least.

As he made “pre-breakfast” Derek thought back to the dream that had woken him up so early. What had been so great about it was that he and his friend Dave had been playing for the Yankees—the real Yankees, including Mattingly, Randolph, Guidry, and especially Dave Winfield.

Winfield had been a great player for years, and Derek idolized him. Derek knew everything there was to know about Winfield. Not just because he was a great ballplayer, but also because he was a great person. He’d even started his own charity!

Derek knew that, because he had done a report on Winfield last term at school, when they’d had to write about their role models—the people you look up to and listen to because you want to be like them in some way or other.

Derek had considered writing about his mom or dad, or grandma or grandpa. But his teacher had told them all to look for role models outside the immediate family. So Derek had chosen Winfield, naturally.

Derek hoped he could someday be like Winfield—except that he wanted to play shortstop for the Yankees, not right field. Derek felt deep inside that if he worked hard enough, and kept improving his game . . .

That was the thing that had been eating at him ever since he’d arrived for the summer. His game.

Sure, everything was great here in New Jersey, as usual. But Derek had just come off a great season of playing baseball, with his dad as his coach. They’d won the league championship—Derek’s first title ever!

He’d been so psyched by the end of the season that he never wanted to stop playing ball. And as much fun as he always had with his grandma and grandpa, there was no summer Little League here that he could be a part of.

Derek feared he’d lose some of his new baseball skills over the summer. In fact, he wouldn’t have another chance to get into a real game until Little League started up again next spring, almost a whole year from now.

Well, at least when Dave comes, Derek thought, we’ll be able to work on our game a little. Dave was a good player, even though he’d been playing baseball for only a couple of years. Golf was Dave’s real passion, and someday he hoped to go professional in that sport. For him baseball was just a way to have fun. But he had enough athletic talent that he could go far in baseball, too.

Derek knew why he’d seen Dave in the dream about...