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SCOTTY, BENNY, HARMONY AND THE BEAST ALL WENT TO MR. MERLES YARD TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE FENCE.
"Hello?" Said Mr. Mertle.
"Um, we— we— we brought your dog home." Said Scotty.
"Hercules? How'd he get out?" Mr. Mertle asked.
"Well, what happened was, we hit a baseball into your yard. We tried to get it back." Benny speaks up.
"So you're the ones that've been making all that racket." Mr. Mertle said.
"Yes, sir. Were really sorry if we were bothering you but that ball means a lot." Harmony says being sincere.
"You get it?"
"Um yes." Said Harmony passing the ball to the older man.
"Well first time that anybody ever got the best of old Hercules. Why didn't you just knock on the door? I'd have gotten it for you." Said Mr. Mertle. Then all the guys were hitting Squints and Harmony was happy Scotty got avenged.
"We got the ball back didn't we?" He tried to reason.
"We almost died!" Said Harmony. Then Mr. Mertle was laughing. "Thanks for bringing him home. Come on in." Harmony, Scotty, and Benny all went inside.
"Your in trouble aren't you son?" Said Mr. Mertle asking Scotty.
"Yeah well uh that was my stepdads ball. I took it without asking. It was signed by Babe Ruth."
"George signed this?" Asked Mr. Mertle.
"George Herman Ruth? Yeah." Said Harmony.
"Wow you know you baseball. But son I take it back, your not in trouble. You're dead where you stand." Mr. Mertle says to Harmony and Scotty. They all look down on the ground disappointed.
"Hold on. Hold on." Said Mr. Mertle as he walked over to a trophy case and picked up a baseball.
"Here. I'll trade ya." Said Mr. Mertle.
"That's really nice of you, but the ball is really signed by Babe Ruth." Said Harmony.
"So is this one. And the rest of the 1927 yankees. " Benny and Harmony had their eyes wide they stepped forward and looked at the ball.
"Oh man. Murderers Row!" Said Harmony picking up the ball.
"Lou Gehrig!" Said Benny.
"Babe Ruth." Said Scotty pointing at the name.
"But why would you trade? That ones all chewed up." Scotty said pointing at the other ball.
"I got a lot of good stuff. Look at that stuff. Besides, you need it more than I do." Said Mr. Mertle.
"You knew Babe Ruth?" Said Scotty looking at the older man.
"George? I sure did. And he knew me. He was almost as a great hitter as I was. I would've broken his record, too but—"
"You went blind." Harmony said sadly.
"Yep. I used to crowd the plate so the strike zone almost disappeared. Pitches hated that. Thats the way I played 100% all the time. BASEBALL WAS LIFE. And I was good at it, real good." Mr. Mertle tells the kids.
"So is Benny!" Harmony said. Benny only smiled sheepishly. Mr. Mertle smiled knowing that the girl knew her best friend or lover.
"Then one day a high fast one, and pow- lights went out." They all stood in silence for a few seconds then benny spoke up.
"I don't think we can take this ball."
"I'll tell you what. You guys come by here once a week and talk baseball with me, I will call it an even trade." Mr. Mertle said. And they all looked at each other and smiled.
Scotty shook his hand and said "deal."
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EVEN THOUGH BILL LOVED THE MURDERERS ROW BALL. He was still plenty mad about me having swiped his Babe Ruth autographed ball and ruining it. So I didn't feel too bad when he grounded me for a week- instead of the rest of my life.
"Wow." Bill said looking at the ball.
Things worked out with me and him, and from then on I didn't have any trouble. Just calling Dad all the time. We all lived together the neighborhood for a couple of more years, mostly through junior high school, and every summer was great, but none of them ever came close to the first one. When one guy would move away, we never replaced him on the team with anyone else. We just kept the game going like he was still there. It was weird that Benny had said that Babe Ruth was like Hercules of baseball, and the beast name ended up being Hercules. None of us could figure out what that meant, but we were all amazed by it. I kept in touch with those guys over the years.
And I found out that Yeah-Yeah parents shipped him out to military school. After the army, he became one of the pioneer developers of bungee jumping. Of course we all know why.
Bertram, well... Bertram got really into the 60s and no one ever saw him again.
Timmy and Tommy became an art architect and a contractor. They started out small designing playground equipment and prefabricated tree houses, but they became multi millionaires when they invented mini malls.
Squints grew up and married Wendy Peffercorn. They have nine kids. They bought Vincents drugstore and they still own it to this day.
Hamilton Porter became a professional wrestler. Do you know him as a Great Hambino.
DeNunez Play triple-A Ball, be he never got to the majors. He owns his own Business now, and he coaches a Little League team that his sons plays on, called the heaters.
Hercules lived to be 199 years old, in doggy years.
I was the last one to move away. But when I did the Sandlot was still there. After Benny and Harmony both pickled the Beast their reputation spread all over town. From then on Harmony was known for Harmony "bolt" Royal, and Benny, Benny "the jet" Rodriguez.
And the nickname stuck with them for the rest of their lives. They both got Married when they were 21 and had a baby girl named Ophelia Rodriguez. Benny got into the big leagues while Harmony became a model for softball, she did play whenever she could with Benny, when he wasn't in big games.
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"BENNY WHATS MY NICKNAME? BECAUSE YOU GOT 'THE JET'." Harmony asked her boyfriend.
"𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒃𝒐𝒍𝒕?"
"𝒊 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕."
"𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒉 𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒐." Said Benny as he kissed his soulmate and it never got old.
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"IT IS THE CLUTCH SITUATION OF THE SEASON. THEY SAY JETS LOST A STEP OR TWO. BUT I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED TO SEE SOME FIREWORKS HERE."
"Come on Benny." Harmony whispered.
"And there he goes! He's stealing home! They don't see him! I don't believe it! He's stealing home!" Older Scotty says. And he made it home.
"Safe! Safe!"
Harmony was over the moon. She saw her husband getting carried by his teammates on their shoulders until he asked them to put him down. He made eye contact with his Wife and she ran down the bleachers and him running towards her.
"Oh my! Ben! You did it!" Harmony said hugging her Husband. Then Kissing him for a while.
"Honey congratulate your daddy." Harmony said to her Daughter Ophelia.
"You did amazing daddy!" Said 2 year old Ophelia.
"Thank you 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐋𝐘." Benny said carrying his daughter.