ive him a chance and see what
he can do. Don't force the boy to give up on his dreams.'"

"Your grandfather sounds like a wise man to me," said Ozma.

"He was," said the shadow. "But Dad would never listen. 'Ballplayers are
no good,' he'd insist. 'Ballplayers are no good, and they never will be
any good.' It was very frustrating. He would usually end the argument by
slamming the door and going outside to sit on the porch. And he would
stop speaking to my grandfather or me for hours at a time."

"That's too bad," said Tweaty. "If you were good at baseball, you should
have stuck with it."

"But I did stick with it," replied the shadow. "I told you, I just came
from a game."

"Oh, yeah," said Tweaty. "So you mean you brought your Dad around?"

"Well," the shadow said slowly. "The thing is, I was always very tall
for my age. I had three brothers and a sister, and my sister was the
shortest of the five of us. She grew to be six feet two. So you see, I
was constantly hanging around the older kids and playing ball with them
instead of hanging with kids my own age. When I was about thirteen or
so, I used to carry bats for some of the Cleveland Indians, such as
Elmer Flick, Napoleon Lajoie and Terry Turner. Of course, they were not
called the Cleveland Indians then. They were called the Cleveland
Bronchos in those days. Then the Cleveland Naps--after Napoleon Lajoie.
Anyway, after the regular season was over, a lot of them would barnstorm
around the Cleveland area, and sometimes I'd be their bat boy.

"Later on, I even pitched a few games for Bill Bradley's Boo Gang," the
shadow added proudly.

"Boo Gang?" said Lisa with a little shudder.

"Boo like a Ghost?" added Hootsey.

"No, no," laughed Rube's image. "Bill Bradley was the third baseman for
the Cleveland Indians--and one of the greatest who ever lived--and he
also barnstormed with his 'Boo Gang' after the season was over. So by
the time I was fifteen or so, I knew a lot of ballplayers. And I had my
heart set on being a Big Leaguer myself.

"Well, one of my best friends was a catcher named Howard Wakefield. He
was about five years older than I was. In 1906 he was playing for the
Waterloo Club in the Iowa State League, and ..."

"1906?" echoed Lisa. "But ... But ..."

"What's wrong?" asked the ballplayer's shadow.

"You have to be mistaken," said Elephant, recognizing the reason for his
friend's perplexity. "It isn't 1906 yet. It's only 1902!"

"I think he's