Sylvester Coddmyer III didn’t plan on showing the photograph to anyone. But the day after he stole home, he changed his mind.
That afternoon, he found a very special book about baseball history at the neighborhood yard sale. The stories were fascinating, but the pictures were what really captivated him.
As he paged through the volume, he saw countless images of Babe Ruth, along with other familiar figures. There was Eddie Cicotte standing with “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the rest of the Black Sox players. Jackie Robinson, the man who broke through baseball’s color barrier, had a chapter all to himself, as did the Negro League. A photo of Mickey Mantle made him smile. Sprinkled among the biographies and game recaps were graphs comparing stats of one player to another and lists of all sorts, including one of the sport’s longtime record holders.
One name appeared on that list more than once: Ty Cobb. Sylvester was interested to see that, among other things, Cobb had stolen home more often than any other professional player—over thirty-five times.
Intrigued, Sylvester flipped to the index to see if the book had more entries about Cobb. He found one labeled “Cobb versus Ruth.” He turned to that page.
“No way!” he breathed. There, right smack in the middle of the text, was a copy of his photograph!
“Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth with bat,” the photo’s caption read. Syl stared at it for a long time and then shivered.
Ty Cobb. T. C. Teacy!
Just to be sure, he scanned the blurb on Ty Cobb, looking for similarities between the long-dead ballplayer and the man he knew as Mr. Teacy. They leaped out at him one after another.
“Known for his bunting.” Check, Syl thought.
“Top batting average of all time.” Syl remembered Mr. Teacy’s insistence that hits were better than homers because they helped batting averages. Check again, he thought.
“From Georgia. Hated for spiking basemen during slides.” Check and check, Syl thought as he recalled the man’s slight accent, as well as his spike-high slides.
He closed the book then. He didn’t need any more convincing that Mr. Teacy and Ty Cobb were one and the same person.
“Who’d ever believe me, though?” he said to himself. He knew the answer, of course. And as if he’d conjured up the person just by thinking about him, the boy suddenly popped up from behind a table laden with glassware.
Sylvester grinned. Tucking his new book under his arm, he called out, “Hey! Snooky! Wait up! I’ve got something to tell you that I just know you’re going to want to hear!”