"Concentrate, concentrate," I said softly. Then I raised my voice. "Keep your eye on the ball!" I yelled.

I must have startled Jackie Rodowsky because he swung way too low and missed an easy pitch.

"Strike two!" shouted the umpire.

"Darn," I muttered. I went back to murmuring, "Concentrate, concentrate."

It was almost the end of another game between the Krushers and the Bashers. Who are the Krushers and the Bashers? They're softball teams here inStoneybrook,Connecticut . I am the coach of the Krushers. Bart Taylor is the coach of the Bashers.

I have a crush on Bart.

Anyway, for the first time in the history of softball games between my Krushers and Bart's Bashers, it looked like the Krushers had a chance to win. See, the Krushers are not

your average softball team. The players are all kids who are too young or too scared to try out for T-ball or Little League. In other words, as you might have guessed, they aren't great players. (Well, most of them aren't.) One kid ducks every time a ball comes toward him. Most of the kids are not good hitters. We even have one player who's only two and a half years old. We let her use a special ball and bat so she doesn't get hurt, and we have to tell her everything to do. But you know what? She's a pretty good hitter for her age.

Bart's Bashers, on the other hand, are an older, tougher group of kids. (I don't know why they don't just join Little League. Maybe they like having Bart as their coach. I could certainly understand that.) The thing is, the Bashers have always beaten the Krushers easily.

Until now.

Now the score was tied, the Krushers had been playing very well, the bases were loaded, and it was the bottom of the ninth — with two outs. The only problem was that the Krushers were up, and our batter was Jackie Rodowsky, the walking disaster. Poor Jackie. I love him to bits, but he is a walking disaster. He's accident-prone, he has bad luck, and he's not too coordinated.