Game Day

By Hardy Coleman and Kurt Sloop

The Kid is a scrawny member of the Credible Hulks baseball team. The Hulks only have The Professor's handmade ball to play with - a cobbled-together creation of a rock that he coated with melted down bicycle tires, olive oil, and some hair from his baby brother's head.

Until one day, Leg's little sister Tag Along shows up, brin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moonfire Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781954555068

Hardy Coleman

Hardy Coleman comes by his tall tales honestly. The son of a small-town Texas doctor, his dad would pretend to read from medical texts while spinning yarns about ghosts, sports heroes, and World War II villains. He once cooked a meal for the Rolling Stones.To this day, his children have a hard time believing what he tells them because he's always making stuff up. He lives in South Minneapolis, Minnesota with his partner, Patricia Enger, who is far more gullible than his kids. In fact, she'll believe anything he says. This is probably one reason they get along so well.Hardy enjoys the life of a raconteur who draws inspiration from the stories he tells to his partner and his children. He pals around with racoons, fireflies and garlic plants in the bountiful land of the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Game Day is his first novel.

Book preview

Game Day

BY HARDY COLEMAN

A picture containing text, pool ball, dark Description automatically generated

Moonfire Publishing LLC

Copyright © 2022 Hardy Coleman

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher:

Moonfire Publishing LLC, 3106 11th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55407

[phone]

www.moonfire-publishing.com

Published in 2022 by Moonfire Publishing LLC

ISBN: 978-1-954555-06-8

This story is dedicated to Victor and Demitri Furman,

Cheyenne Tabbenkamp, and to my grandchildren

Genna, Asher, Eva and Joey Prouty.

And to all the kids who made it possible.

Dear Reader,

Two things you should know before you start reading this book.

Thing One–

Here is what you gotta do: If you’re a grown-up, read this out loud to some kids. You can read it to your own kids, or you can borrow somebody else’s kids and read it to them.

If you’re a kid, then corner your little brother or sister or, take out a loan on some neighbors’ kids.

But read it out loud to somebody and if they say, No way! just tell them that there certainly IS a way and if they’ll pipe down and listen, they just might discover how things turn out.

When you’ve done this enough times, you can just turn the pages of this book and pretend like you’re reading ‘cause now you got it learned. Then you can start to play with the story. You know, turn it into your own story, with your own wishes and monsters and places to be, both the scary kind and the fun kind. I mean, Hercules used to be just a regular guy after all, bagging groceries in a supermarket. But then people started talking about him and after a long time of people talking, Hercules got bigger and bigger and… well, you get the idea.

Thing Two–

At the end of this book there is a dictionary. So, if you come across a word that is unfamiliar, you can turn to the back pages and look up what the word means. For example:

Unfamiliar: A person, word, or dog that you’ve never hung out with before. That is, until now.

thekid

GAME DAY

The Kid did have a name, though no one ever used it. Certain people, grown-ups, referred to him as the kid. His mom would say to his dad, Don’t forget, the kid has an appointment with the dentist. His dad would say to her, The kid needs a new pair of sneakers. His old ones leak. His Aunt Josephine would call him on the phone, Hey kid, come on over and help me with my window boxes. I baked some cookies.

The other kids — Legs, Battle Ax, Johnny Handsome, Queen Kong and all the rest, called the kid by a long series of short names, which they made up, often on the spur of the moment, to suit their moods. Names like Chunky, Germ, Knee-High, Half-a-Minute and so on. Not a one of these names was his real name, not even close. The Kid’s real name was Victor, but as Woolly the Mammoth, the team short-stop was fond of saying, Victor’s a big kid name, and kid, you got no more altitude than a chicken. This was not exactly true; for a chicken, Victor would be considered pretty tall.

One day his father was cleaning out an old steamer trunk and found a baseball glove. Kid, he said, see if this fits you.

The webbing was sewn together with shoelaces and the leather was crackly and worn smooth. The kid tried it on. It fit just right.

I played in the outfield with this glove when I was even littler than you. his dad remarked. You like it?

The Kid nodded.

It’s yours, then. His dad smiled and rubbed the top of his son’s head. Go have some fun.

So the kid did.

*

That was the summer that Victor grew a quarter-inch taller. Though for all we know, it might’ve been his nappy hair. It was also the summer he brought his old man’s fielder’s mitt back to life.

Everything during those sun-filled months of June, July, and August (for the kid, at least) happened during trips to, from, though mostly at the Stadium. The Stadium used to be the Acme Nose Warmer Factory, but that building was long gone before any of the starting line-up of kids on the team was even born. Now it was grass, dirt and a crumbling brick wall that served as a backstop. Home run territory consisted of a chain-link fence in right and center field, and the torn-up ruins of concrete and weeds on Ruth Street (yeah, maybe Babe Ruth), in left field.

The kids referred to themselves as the Credible Hulks because they figured they were the biggest, baddest, and scariest team on their side of town. Until a certain day in late August, the ball the Hulks used was a concoction dreamed up by The Professor, the kid who usually played first base. He was a chubby, light-skinned boy with thick glasses