Tony’s Problem

“Ouch!” Mike said. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”

The balls dropped to the floor at Mike’s feet. As he rubbed his head, Kate scrambled to pick them up. Instead of being red and white like normal baseballs, they were black and orange tiger-print leather.

“Are you okay?” Kate asked Mike when she stood up.

Mike stopped rubbing his head. “Yeah,” he said with a smile. “It takes more than a few baseballs to stop me.”

“I know,” Kate said. “Usually it takes a few chocolate chip cookies.”

“Hey, I call those energy disks,” Mike said. “They give me the power I need to play baseball.”

Kate rolled her eyes. She held up the tiger baseballs. “I don’t think you’ll be playing with these,” she said. “Look, they’re all signed by Tony the Tiger!”

Tony had signed his name with a bright gold marker across the sweet spot of each ball.

“These must be the ‘you-know-what’ mentioned in the note!” Mike said. “Someone’s stolen Tony’s trophy, and they’re making him sign baseballs! He’s being blackmailed!”

The sound of scraping metal from around the corner startled Mike and Kate. Nearby, ballpark workers had just started to open up their food stands for the game.

“We’ve got to put the tiger back and get out of here before we’re caught,” Kate said. “Then we can figure out what to do.”

Mike turned the tiger over and noticed a zipper on its bottom. It had unzipped when he had picked up the tiger. Mike and Kate stuffed the signed baseballs back into the tiger and zipped the hole closed. Then they placed the tiger on the ground behind the pillar where they had found it.

“Maybe it’s some kind of baseball prank,” Kate said as they headed to the Tigers’ locker room. “I’ve read how players like to pull pranks on rookies and new players. Maybe they’re making Tony do funny things because he’s new.”

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “That note in the car seemed pretty serious. ‘Three strikes’ doesn’t seem like a joke.”

Mr. Hopkins was waiting for them outside the locker room. “There you are,” he said. “I was just going to come looking for you. Tony’s in here.” Mr. Hopkins led them into the locker room. The wide wooden lockers stood along the outside walls, with a black chair in front of each one. The room was filled with baseball players as well as press and other media people. Mr. Hopkins, Kate, and Mike made their way over to Tony’s locker. The sign above it read TONY MALONEY.

Tony looked just like his picture on Mike’s baseball card. He was tall, with frizzy hair, and was wearing his Tigers uniform. He had a black baseball glove on his left hand. With his right hand, he was snapping a baseball into the glove. Pop! Pop! Pop!

“So you’re Mike and Kate,” he said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Tony Maloney. But everyone calls me Tony the Tiger.”

Mike smiled. “We know.” He pulled Tony’s baseball card out of his pocket and held it up. “It says that on your baseball card. Could you sign it for me?”

Tony stopped throwing the baseball and glanced at the older man standing next to him. He was also wearing a Tigers uniform. “I’m afraid you need to ask my coach about that,” he said, nodding at the man.

The coach shook his head. “Tony injured his wrist. I told him he’s got to save his hand for baseball,” he said. “No more autographs until after the season. Sorry, kids!”

The coach patted Tony on the shoulder and started toward the dugout. “See you on the field, Tony,” he said. “Go, Tigers! We’re going to eat ’em up today!”

Mike lowered the card. “But we just saw—” Kate elbowed him in the side. Mike cleared his throat. “Um, we just saw some really cool cars at the car show,” he said. He slipped the baseball card back into his pocket.

“Oh yeah,” Tony said. “Sorry. I know we were supposed to meet there, but I had to leave early. Something came up, and I had to get back here in a hurry.”

Mike and Kate exchanged glances.

Kate pulled out the letter they had found in the car. “We know. We found this note in the front seat.” She held the note up.

Tony took the piece of paper. He removed his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his hair. “I must have dropped this when I left,” he said.

“It looks like someone’s giving you trouble,” Kate said.

Mr. Hopkins held his hand up. “Kate, hold on a minute,” he said.

But Kate continued. “Is that why we saw you hide a stuffed tiger?” she asked.

Tony dropped his hat. He looked confused. “What do you mean?” he asked. He let his hand with the glove fall to his side.

Mike stepped forward. “We saw you carrying a stuffed tiger a little while ago,” he said. “You put it down behind the pillar. We picked it up to take a look at it and found a whole bunch of signed baseballs!”

Tony’s eyes opened wide. “Did you put it back?” he asked. “Please tell me you put it back.”

Kate nodded. “We put it back just the way we found it. Then we came to talk to you,” she said. “To find out what’s going on.”

Tony hung his head. “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he said. “I’ve got big problems.”