Abner & Me by Dan Gutman

Author:Dan Gutman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

11

Poppycock and Flapdoodle

IT WASHIM! I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. AFTER ALL MOM AND I had been through, we had finally found the one and only Abner Doubleday, the man who invented baseball.

Or the man who might have invented baseball, anyway. That was what I was about to find out. I felt my pocket to make sure the baseball was still there.

“At ease, men.”

Doubleday saluted the soldiers as he hopped down off the horse. He looked pretty much the way he did in the photo. He was almost six feet tall, maybe forty years old or so. His uniform looked cleaner and less wrinkled than everyone else’s. Generals, I guess, didn’t have to do the dirty work of fighting.

He walked right up to Mom, removed his hat, and bowed before her. His bushy hair fell mostly over one side of his head.

“Is this the nurse of whom I’ve heard?” Doubleday asked. “I wished to meet the lady personally and issue my sincerest gratitude for the service she has rendered to our noble cause.”

“That’d be her, sir,” Little John said. “If not for her, I’d be dead and buried, sir. She saved my buddy Willie Biddle up on Cemetery Ridge too.”

“Is this true, ma’am?”

“It was really nothing,” Mom said, embarrassed. “Anybody could have done it.”

“What is your name, ma’am?”

“Terry Stoshack, sir,” Mom said, shaking Doubleday’s hand, “and this is my son, Joey.”

“That is an unusual nurse’s uniform you are wearing, Mrs. Stoshack,” Doubleday said. “What regiment are you with?”

“Uh…regiment? Well…”

“They’re with the 151st Pennsylvania, sir,” volunteered Little John.

“Ma’am,” Doubleday said, “because of your courage and skill in the face of this horrific battle, I am going to recommend that President Lincoln award you the Medal of Honor.”

The soldiers gasped. Mom blushed. I was truly proud of her.

“Thank you, sir!” Mom said. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to salute or curtsy, so she did both.

Finally, it was my chance. I didn’t know if Doubleday was going to hang around some more telling Mom how great she was, or if he was about to turn on his heel to go congratulate somebody else for an act of bravery.

“General Doubleday,” I said, stepping up to the man. “May I ask you a question, sir?”

“Certainly, young fellow. What is it?”

I took a deep breath to collect my thoughts.

“Sir, did you invent baseball?”

Abner Doubleday stopped and peered at me for a few seconds. Instantly I regretted asking the question. Thousands of American soldiers had been killed on this horrible day. He had come over to thank Mom for saving lives. And here I was, asking him about something silly like baseball. I was afraid he was going to snap my head off.

“Invent what?” he finally asked.

A crazy thought crossed my mind. What if Doubleday didn’t invent baseball? And what if baseball didn’t even exist in 1863? I would look really stupid.

“B-baseball,” I stuttered, taking the ball out of my pocket. “The game of baseball. You know, bats, balls, gloves…”

“Young man, are you insane?” Doubleday thundered. “Who told you I invented the game of baseball?”

“This guy named Flip Valentini,” I said.

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