The radar screen flashed 54. Charlie said, "See?" and to the kid, "Boy, my older sister can throw harder'n that. You ever see a knuckleball? I'm gonna show you a knuckler. Look here, how you hold it with the tips of your fingers." Charlie stepped on the rubber, went into his stretch and threw a ball that seemed to float toward the tarp before it dipped into the dirt and the radar screen registered 66. Charlie said to Dennis, "They throw with their arm, you notice? 'Stead of using their whole body. You play any ball?"

"Not once I climbed up on a diving board. I follow the American League," Dennis said. "Now and then I'll bet the Yankees, except if they're playing Detroit."

"You're smart, you know it? How 'bout the '84 Series?"

"Who was in it?"

"De-troit won it off the Padres. You remember it?" No, but it didn't matter, Charlie kept talking. "I was up with the Tigers and pitched in what became the final game. Went in in the fifth and struck out the side. I got Brown and Salazar on called third strikes. I hit Wiggins by mistake, put him on, and got the mighty Tony Gwynn to go down swinging at sixty-mile-an-hour knucklers. I went two and a third innings, threw twenty-six pitches and only five of 'em were balls. I hit Wiggins on a nothingand-two count, so you know I wasn't throwing at him. I come inside on him a speck too close. See, I was never afraid to come inside. I've struck out Al Oliver, Gorman Thomas and Jim Rice. Darrell Evans, Mike Schmidt, Bill Madlock, Willie McGee, Don Mattingly, and I fanned Wade Boggs twice in the same game-if those names mean anything to you."

Later on that day Billy Darwin had come out to see how Dennis was doing. By then he and Floyd Showers had put up four sections of ladder and the metal scaffolding that supported a diving board three meters above the rear side of the tank. Dennis told the boss they'd finish tomorrow and then started talking about Charlie Hoke, amazed that a man his age was still able to throw as hard as he did.