Sam Strutt and the Magic Bat

again, Sam said to Mr. Dollars, "Give me a better bat. I can hit a hundred home runs if you give me a golden bat." So Mr. Dollars gave Sam a solid gold bat. On opening day, Sam arrived at the ballpark in a limousine. The crowd roared as he stepped up to the plate with his splendid new bat. Sunlight flashed off the golden bat as Sam took his practice swings. The crowd hushed as the pitcher wound up. He reared back and threw a splitter. Sam swung the mighty bat...and missed. Again, the pitcher wound up. He tossed a curveball. Sam swung even harder...and missed. The crowd began to murmur and mumble. Sam had two strikes on him. This was unthinkable. The pitcher wound up, kicked his leg way up high, swung his long arm way around, and fired a fastball. Sam took a mighty swing. He swung so hard he fell down. But he missed. "Strike three!" the umpire called. The huge crowd was silent. Sam's bat had failed. Sam had failed. Sam had struck out. Sam struck out three more times in that game. The Heroes lost. In the next game he struck out four more times, and in the game after that, he struck out five times. The fans stopped coming. They didn't want to see Sam strike out. Sam tried his old silver bat. He struck out ten more times. He tried his platinum bat with emerald dollar signs. He struck out fifteen more times. Sam just could not hit the ball. Mr. Dollars was very angry. "The people have stopped coming," he said to Sam. "You have to hit home runs again. You must find a bat that works." The word went out. Sam Strutt needed a new bat. He needed a bat that would hit home runs. Men, women and children brought bats to the ballpark. They brought aluminum bats and manganese bats and oak bats and plastic bats. They brought long bats and short bats. They brought thin bats and fat bats. All the bats failed. Sam could not hit the baseball with any of the bats. On the day of the big Fourth of July game, only twenty-three people were in the stands to watch the game. "Excuse me, Mr. Strutt." Sam looked down and saw a small boy holding a bat out to him. "Is that a bat or a toothpick?" Sam bellowed at the boy. The boy looked up at Sam. "It's a magic bat," he said quietly. Sam took the bat from the boy. It didn't look magic. It looked plain and ordinary ...a beat-up old wooden bat with tape on the handle. "Take your bat and go home," Sam snarled. "I can't use an ordinary little bat like that." "It is a magic bat," the boy insisted. Sam scowled. "It doesn't look like a magic bat." "Please try it," the boy pleaded. Sam took the bat. 3He held it up over his head and squinted at it. In Sam's big hands, it did look like a toothpick. The boy smiled as Sam took the bat and stepped up to the plate. The pitcher wound up, kicked his leg way up high, swung his long arm way around and fired a fastball. Sam swung. Craaack!!! The ball soared over the center field fence. In the third inning, Sam hit another home run. In the sixth inning, he hit a triple off the left field wall. In the eighth inning, he hit the ball over the parking lot. The Heroes won the game. "Where did you get this magic bat?" Sam asked the boy as he handed him an autographed baseball. "Peel back the tape on the handle," the boy said. Sam pulled at the tape. When it came loose, he pulled it off. He looked down at the handle of the bat. Sam's eyes got wide. He looked at the boy. "This is my bat," Sam said. "This is my very first bat that I had when I was a boy like you." Scrawled on the bat in smudged pencil letters was the name "Samuel Strutt". "You tossed it over the fence into my yard when you joined the Heroes," the boy said. Sam spun the bat around in his big hands. He studied it as it rotated. Then he smiled. "When I used this bat, baseball was fun. I loved to play the game. It really is a magic bat. Thank you." Sam sold the silver bat and the platinum bat and the solid gold bat. With the money he got for the bats, he built ten new baseball fields for the children in his hometown. He bought balls and bats and gloves and hats for all the girls and boys. He bought himself a new wooden bat. He hung the magic bat on pegs in the back of the dugout so he would never forget where the magic was. Sam hit 101 home runs that year.