Baseball has corn dogs and waffle fries and cotton candy and soda pop The state fair has all of that plus cheeseburger wontons deep-fried pickles on a stick bacon-butterscotch mini-doughnuts and a thousand other things you didn’t know even existed until you saw them at the fair Baseball has the crowd singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game in the middle of the seventh inning The state fair has a parade every morning right after the gates open with a marching band and a long line of convertibles old trucks and horse and buggies Don’t get me wrong Baseball is still my favorite thing in the world almost all of the time But baseball goes for the entire summer The state fair only lasts nine days And this year I was going to miss all nine of them We were spending a few days at Grandma’s and when we got back I had to work for the Porcupines On the first day of the state fair I was on an airplane to Arizona with my mom and dad We were flying to Tucson to visit my grandmother Why don’t we go see Grandma at Christmas I asked Because she’ll be coming to visit in December said Dad She wants a white Christmas and it rarely snows in Tucson So why did she move there if she wanted snow Because she was sick of cold weather Dad explained Hmm It sounded to me like Grandma wanted to have it both ways
Aren’t you excited about seeing your grandmother Mom Sure but we’re missing the state fair I said You’ll still have fun said Dad Grandma’s having a asked party She did have a party Grandma’s friends were nice but they were old They talked about gardens and golf and grandchildren It was so hot outside that we stayed cooped up inside with the air-conditioning on full blast I got cold and had to put on a sweater I hadn’t packed a sweater so I had to wear one of Grandma’s sweaters It was pink and said Life Begins at Sixty Instead of normal party games Grandma and her friends tried to teach me whist The cake had carrots in it I wish I were kidding Grandma’s next-door neighbor was named Hal He was even older than Grandma So I hear you collect baseball cards Hal said Yeah I have thousands of cards I told him I didn’t tell him the cards were magic The Pine City Porcupines think they are anyway Players have done amazing things when they have the right card from my collection Our jinxed shortstop turned a triple play all by himself The slowest player on the team stole second base I think the cards just remind them that in baseball anything is possible As it happens I have a card in need of a collection Hal said He took one out of his breast pocket and handed it to me It was a card for an umpire named Eric Gregg It was
signed and everything Thanks I said I know I don’t have this one How did you get it It was a weird card to have if you only had one baseball card I coached Eric as a kid back in Philly Hal replied He sure loved to play and he ended up being an umpire Anyway he visited me once and gave me this card Wow Why don’t you want to keep it I want to give it to someone who will take good care of it said Hal When your grandmother told me about your collection I knew you should have it It was a neat card If umpires could have cards maybe one day a batboy could have one The first thing I did when I got back home was go to Dylan’s house He’s the other batboy for the Pines and he took care of our dog while we were gone It was fun having Penny here he told me I’m going to miss her Penny nuzzled Dylan’s hand and licked his palm She barely noticed I was there Dylan loved animals and they loved him How was the fair I asked him Did you see all the animals I figured that would have been his favorite part The fair has buildings full of cows sheep pigs chickens and rabbits They even have ostriches and llamas I sure did said Dylan The best part was this horse named Einstein II He played tic-tac-toe and bowled and
