4. The F-U-Ndamentals

4 The F-U-Ndamentalsb Mr. Ott said to meet him in our playground after school. When the dismissal bell rang, he was out there waiting for us. He had a bunch of bats, balls, gloves, and batting helmets. We sat around him on the grass. "How many of you youngsters have

played ball before?" Mr. Ott asked. I've played Pee Wee football, but hardly any softball. Only Andrea raised her hand. She smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know she did something nobody else did. "That's okay," said Mr. Ott. "I'll whip you kids into shape." "Is that legal?" I asked. "It's just an expression, Arlo!" said Andrea. "Baseball is all about the number three," Mr. Ott explained. "You got three strikes and three outs. You got nine players and nine innings. Three times three is nine." Man, this was sounding like a math lesson. "There's ninety feet between the bases," continued Mr. Ott. "That's

thirty times three. Blah blah blah blah blah blah..." He went on like that for a million hundred minutes. I thought I was gonna die from old age. We had less than a week to get ready for our game. When were we gonna learn how to hit, throw, and catch? "Can we play ball already?" asked Michael. "First, you need to learn the fundamentals," replied Mr. Ott. "Fundamentals starts with F-U-N. Let's start by throwing and catching." Finally! He picked up a laundry bag from the grass. And you'll never believe what he pulled out of the bag. It was a turtle! "Ooooh, I love turtles!" said

Andrea. "Good," said Mr. Ott. "Think fast!" He threw the turtle up in the air. Andrea freaked out for a moment, and then she caught the turtle just before it hit the ground.* "Good job!" said Mr. Ott. "You caught the turtle with both hands." "Uh, shouldn't we play catch with a ball?" asked Michael. "No!" barked Mr. Ott. "If you drop a ball, it doesn't matter. But nobody wants to drop a turtle." I guess that made sense, in a weird way. Turtles are cool. One time, we did turtle yoga at school. We had turtles climbing on our backs. (You can read about it in a book called Ms. Jo-Jo Is a Yo-Yo!) Mr. Ott told us to pair up so we

could toss turtles back and forth. My turtle tossing partner was Neil. "Don't let your turtle hit the ground!" Mr. Ott shouted as he watched us toss the turtles. "If you can catch a turtle, you can catch a ball." Andrea was the best turtle tosser, of

course. But we were all pretty good, because nobody wanted their turtle to hit the ground and get hurt. Mr. Ott said it was time for us to work on hitting. "Everybody grab a bat," he said. We all picked up bats. "Okay, put the knob end of the bat on your toe," said Mr. Ott, "and see if you can balance the bat on your foot." What? I tried to balance the bat on my foot. It was hard! The bat kept falling off. "What does this have to do with hitting a ball?" asked Alexia. "You need to have good balance to be a good hitter," said Mr. Ott. We balanced bats on our feet for a million hundred minutes. After a while, I got the hang of it. Andrea was the best