Now it was Danny’s jaw that dropped.

He caught the ball and stared at it for several seconds. Then he looked out at Mr. Spinelli.

“What…was…that?” he managed to squeak.

The old man shrugged.

“I’m a little rusty,” he said. “Haven’t thrown one of those in years.” He grunted. “Guess it wasn’t too bad for an old codger, though.”

Now Danny wondered if his eyes had played tricks on him. A ball couldn’t just…stop like that, could it?

Like it had little air brakes?

And then drop like an egg rolling off a counter?

No, he thought. Impossible.

And yet…hadn’t that very thing just happened?

He shook his head in disbelief and murmured, “Could you…throw that again?”

Out on the mound, Mr. Spinelli cupped one ear. “What? Speak up, boy! You’re not in church, you know!”

“I said, could you throw it again?” Danny repeated. “Please?”

The old man huffed. “You got a lot of demands, you know that? Okay, once more and that’s it! What do I look like, a pitching machine?”

But not only did he throw the pitch again—he threw it three more times after that, too.

Each ball floated in on an arc that would cross the plate at the height of a batter’s shoulders.

And then dropped as if hitting an invisible wall.

When Mr. Spinelli walked off the mound, rubbing his shoulder, Danny stared at him bug-eyed. He was bursting with questions.

“What do you call that pitch?” he asked.

The old man seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Well, I…I don’t call it anything,” he said. “Haven’t thrown it in nearly fifty years.” His voice took on a melancholy tone. “There was a time when I could practically make the ball back up, too. Oh, the hitters hated me. Always accused me of cheating, doing something to the ball. Cutting it, putting pine tar or Vaseline on it to make it dip and dart. ‘Doctoring’ the ball, they called it.”

He snorted and shook his head.

“But I never cheated,” he went on. “Didn’t have to. It was a perfectly legal pitch. Just because they couldn’t hit it didn’t mean there was some funny business going on with the ball. I resented the implication, I can tell you that. It got me in quite a few fights. I had a terrible temper back then.”

As opposed to now? Danny thought. When you’re Mr. Laid-Back?

Aloud he said, “So you used to play baseball? Even though you hated it?”

Mr. Spinelli’s eyes narrowed.

“Young man, you insist on misquoting me,” he said. “And it’s starting to get on my nerves. Again, I never said I hated the game. If anything, I loved it too much at one point in my life. Only later did I realize what a frivolous exercise it was.”

Danny couldn’t stop thinking about what he had just witnessed.

Seeing a ball do what Mr. Spinelli made it do—it was like stumbling upon something you never knew existed, something exotic and mysterious and unknown to anyone else. Something you never thought was even possible.

And the more Danny thought about it, the more he knew there was another question he had to ask the old man.

The prospect was so intoxicating he wondered if he’d even be able to get the words out, or whether he’d start stammering and stuttering to the point where Mr. Spinelli would just get up and leave.

Danny took a deep breath and exhaled.

Okay, he thought, here goes.

Time to swing for the fences….

“Could you show me how to throw that pitch?” he asked finally. “Please? I…I really need to know.”

Mr. Spinelli turned to study him. His face registered no surprise. It was almost as if he’d expected the question.

For a moment, he said nothing. Danny’s heart began to sink.

“Okay,” the old man said finally, “but I’m only gonna show you once. It’s not like I have all day to help every crappy kid pitcher in the whole country.”

“No, sir,” Danny said quickly. “Of course you don’t. I’m sure you’re a busy man. But if you could just help this one crappy pitcher, that crappy pitcher would be supergrateful.”

For an instant, Mr. Spinelli’s mouth seemed to twitch, almost as if a smile were about to form.

But it didn’t.

“Okay,” he barked. “Watch and learn.”

He gripped the ball with four fingers along the top seam and his thumb positioned in the middle underneath.

“You want the batter to think it’s like any other pitch coming,” he explained. “So you keep your windup and delivery the same. But when you release the ball, you snap your wrist like…this.”

He moved his hand and arm slowly so Danny could see what the downward motion looked like.

“Okay, you try it,” he said. He flipped Danny the ball and scooped up his glove. Then he walked back to the plate and crouched down.

As he stood on the mound, Danny was suddenly nervous.

He felt the way he did before a big test in school, or a tryout for a new sports team. Only if he screwed up now, instead of having to face the disappointment of a teacher or coach, he’d have to deal with a grumpy senior citizen who probably just wanted to get home in time to watch a World War II documentary before going to bed.

Danny gripped the ball the way he’d been shown, rocked, and fired, snapping his wrist hard.

The pitch floated to the plate.

For an instant, he could imagine a hitter standing there, bat held high, licking his lips in anticipation of launching this tantalizing piece of junk into space.

Then the most wondrous thing happened.

The ball dropped out of the sky and dove for the plate, where Mr. Spinelli’s glove was waiting.

It landed with a soft thwump.

Danny let out a whoop, then punched the air with his fist, which drew an annoyed look from Mr. Spinelli.

“Don’t go thinking you’re anything special!” he barked. “I could teach a chimpanzee to throw this pitch if I had to. The key now is to keep practicing, until you can throw it without even thinking.”

But Danny wasn’t listening. He was so happy, he was on autopilot.

He ran toward the old man with his arms outstretched, ready to give him the biggest hug he’d ever given anyone.

But Mr. Spinelli quickly waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” he said irritably. “Can I go home now? It’s about two hours after my regular dinnertime.”

Just then Danny heard a car horn. He turned and saw his mother waving from the parking lot.

“One more thing,” Mr. Spinelli said as he turned to leave. “Tell your dad he did an okay job fixing my studio window. Strictly okay. But tell him if he had any brains, he wouldn’t let his kid play ball and go around busting windows in the first place.”

Danny grinned and waved at the retreating figure.

No, he thought happily, I don’t think I’ll pass that one along to Dad.

Especially not now.