He was taller than the last time Robbie had seen him, and stronger-looking too. His chest seemed to strain against his jersey, as if when the Braves handed out uniforms, he got stuck with a medium instead of a large. But there was no mistaking that it was Stevie. The kid exuded the same quiet confidence as before.

He took his time getting settled in the batter’s box, digging in with his right foot and then planting his left foot only when he was ready. Gently, he tapped the outside corner of the plate with his bat, making sure he could reach a pitch out there if he had to.

Then he seemed to nod almost imperceptibly at the pitcher—Okay, I’m ready—and he stood there with the bat held high, waiting patiently for whatever the kid wanted to throw.

Watching this, Robbie felt a wave of relief go through him.

“That’s what I remember,” he whispered to the others. “Look how relaxed he is up there!”

“Any more relaxed, he’d be asleep,” Ben muttered.

The Dodgers pitcher started him off with a fastball that was just outside. But Stevie didn’t swing. Instead, he seemed to watch it all the way into the catcher’s glove. Then he stepped out and nonchalantly blew a huge bubble while taking a practice swing.

“He did that to me, too,” Robbie whispered. “Like he was studying my fastball under a microscope. And he wasn’t that impressed.”

“No wonder you wanted to whiff him,” Marty said. “Gives you no respect. If I was a pitcher, I’d be ticked.”

“If you were a pitcher,” Ben said, nudging Robbie, “it would set baseball back two hundred years.”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Marty said as the two other boys smothered giggles.

Now the Dodgers pitcher went after Stevie with a hard, nasty curveball that seemed to break somewhere out by the Braves dugout.

Robbie could tell right away that Stevie was anything but gun-shy. He stood in there all the way until the pitch dipped near his left shoulder and just missed inside for ball two.

Then it was the same ritual: step out, casually blow a bubble, take another little practice swing.

“Wow! That was one sick breaking ball!” Ben said.

“Stevie’s measuring the pitcher, all right,” Robbie’s dad said in a low voice. “Wants to see what the kid has. And he’s only gonna swing if it’s a strike.”

He turned to look at the three boys. “Now tell me again, class,” he said. “What do you call it when the pitcher’s two-and-oh on the batter?”

“Hitter’s count!” they said in unison. “Look for a pitch you can drive!”

Ray Hammond grinned. “Very good, students. Now we’ll see what happens next.”

What happened next, they would all agree later, was a big-time mistake by the Dodgers pitcher.

Worried about walking Stevie, he tried to slip a belt-high fastball past him. Stevie’s bat was a blur. He took a short, compact swing—the textbook swing every baseball coach in the world wants his players to take.

They heard the muffled ping-g-g! of the bat, and the ball rocketed into the gap in left-center as the fielders gave chase and two runs scored.

“Smoked!” Ben said as the Braves’ parents leaped to their feet and cheered. “The kid’s got a little thunder in his bat, doesn’t he?”

Stevie cruised into second base, calmly blowing another bubble as the Braves dugout erupted with chants of “STEE-VEE! STEE-VEE!”

“You know something?” Marty said. “I’m starting to hate that kid. And I don’t even know him. He makes it look so easy.”

Robbie nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes off Stevie, who wasn’t even breathing hard as he coolly peeled off his batting gloves and stuck them in his back pocket.

Ben clapped Robbie on the back. “Dude?” he said. “Can we all agree on something? That whatever you did in that all-star game did not exactly bring the kid’s baseball career to a crashing halt?”

Robbie simply nodded again. He was afraid to look over at Ben, afraid his bud would see the tears of happiness he was blinking back.

For the rest of the game, Robbie couldn’t stop smiling as his eyes followed Stevie everywhere.

The big kid played center field for the Braves and had only one ball hit his way, a shot in the right-center gap that he cut off nicely, holding the batter to a long single. But he came to bat two more times, hitting a long fly ball to left in the fifth inning, and then driving in another run with a double in the sixth as the Braves broke the game wide open with four more runs.

It was getting dark when the game ended, with the final score Braves 10, Dodgers 2. As the two teams lined up to shake hands, Robbie’s dad leaned over and asked, “Want to go say hi to Stevie? See how he’s doing?”

Robbie thought about it for a moment.

“No, that’s okay, Dad,” he said. “I can see how he’s doing. He’s doing just fine.”

Then his smile widened even more. “Besides,” he added, “we gotta get ready to play the Yankees. Remember that pain-in-the-neck kid on your team who said he didn’t want to pitch anymore? Well, he’s definitely changed his mind.”

Now Ray Hammond was smiling too. So were Ben and Marty.

“Coach,” Ben said, jerking his head in the direction of the parking lot, “let’s go home. Looks like our work here is done.”