128

Talk About It
Think of a time when you
were on a team. What did
you enjoy about being part
of a team?

Find out more about

team spirit at
www.macmillanmh.com

129
 An Aunt’s
Baseball
Vocabulary
enthralled
embarrassment
Dreams
by Danielle Martin
pennant
regulation Maybe it’s my love of baseball that connects
grouchy my great-aunt Helen and me. She has always kept
resemblance me enthralled with her stories of playing baseball
inscribed back in the 1940s. I would listen to these stories
postmarked over and over. She used to say, “Go after what you
want, Sarah. Don’t be ashamed of failing. Real
embarrassment comes from never trying.”
Word Parts
Inflectional Endings are
Aunt Helen should know. In 1943, she was
added to words to change one of the young women who tried out for
their form or tense. the All-American Girls Professional Baseball
-ed = past tense of verb League. This league was created to entertain
postmarked = past baseball fans because many of America’s young
tense of postmark
men were fighting in World War II.
Aunt Helen had heard rumors that a team
would play right in South Bend, Indiana. She
dreamed of what it would be like to win a
championship for her hometown! She imagined
a large pennant hanging at the baseball field,
and on this banner the name Helen Baker
would be there for all to see.
On the day of the tryouts, Aunt Helen
played baseball for hours with many
young women. For this new league, some
of the rules were different from the rules
for regular softball. They still used a
standard regulation softball, but the
bases and pitcher’s mound were placed
at longer distances, for example.
130
 Vocabulary and Comprehension

All the rules were explained by a

grouchy man in a suit. Aunt Helen
said that wearing a suit in the hot
sun was what put him in a bad
mood. But he had a resemblance
to Aunt Helen’s father. And if he
looked like her father, she thought,
he couldn’t be bad.
About a week later, Aunt Helen
collected the mail and found an
envelope with her name inscribed
in blue ink. The envelope was
Team members go over
postmarked from Chicago. The letter
the play book.
was from the leaders of the girls’ baseball
league, who were located in Chicago! Aunt
Helen tore it open and learned that she had Aunt Helen has spent the rest of
been invited to the league’s main tryouts! her life wondering what would have
But as the days went by, Aunt Helen happened if she had gone to those tryouts.
became worried about traveling to Because of this, she never missed another
Chicago alone. What if she went all that opportunity in her life. She learned that
way and failed? When the day of the every dream is worth chasing, even if you
tryouts came, she was too afraid to go. catch only a few of them.

Reread for Comprehension

Generate Questions
Make Inferences BSfb1ZcSaO\R
As you read, ask yourself what is >`W]`9\]eZSRUS 7\TS`S\QS
happening. Sometimes a writer does
not tell you everything. When you make
inferences, you use clues from the story
plus your own knowledge to understand
what is not directly stated.

Use the Inferences Chart as you reread

“An Aunt’s Baseball Dreams.”

131
 Comprehension
Genre
Realistic Fiction is an
invented story that could
have happened in real life.

Generate Questions
Make Inferences
As you read, use your
Inferences Chart.

BSfb1ZcSaO\R
>`W]`9\]eZSRUS 7\TS`S\QS

Read to Find Out

Why does Tía Lola’s plan
succeed?

132
 Main Selection

by Julia Alvarez
illustrated by Lester Coloma

M iguel and Juanita Guzmán have moved to Vermont from

New York City because their mother has taken a job at a
local college. Their mother’s aunt, Tía Lola, arrives for a
visit from the Dominican Republic. Tía Lola soon impresses
Miguel’s friends and Rudy, the owner of a local restaurant
and the coach of Miguel’s baseball team. At the restaurant,
Tía Lola also charms the difficult Colonel Charlebois who
owns the farmhouse that Miguel’s family rents.

133
 T he long, sweet, sunny days of summer come one after
another after another. Each one is like a piece of fancy candy
in a gold-and-blue wrapper.
Most nights, now that school is out, Tía Lola tells stories,
sometimes until very late. The beautiful cousin who never cut
her hair and carried it around in a wheelbarrow. The grandfather
whose eyes turned blue when he saw his first grandchild.
Some nights, for a break, they explore the old house.
In the attic, behind their own boxes, they find dusty trunks
full of yellowing letters and photographs. Miguel discovers
several faded photos of a group of boys all lined up in
old-fashioned baseball uniforms. Except for the funny caps
and knickers and knee socks, the boys in the photos could
be any of the boys on Miguel’s team. One photo of a boy
with a baseball glove in his hand is inscribed, Charlebois, ’34.
Miguel tries to imagine the grouchy old man at Rudy’s
Restaurant as the young boy with the friendly smile in
the photograph.
But he can’t see even a faint resemblance.

* * *
Since the team doesn’t have a good place for daily
practice, Miguel’s mother suggests they use the back pasture
behind the house. “But let me write Colonel Charlebois first,
just in case.”

134
 Their landlord lives in a big white house in the center
of town. He has already written them once this summer,
complaining about “the unseemly shape of the vegetation,”
after Tía Lola trimmed the hedges in front of the house in the
shapes of pineapples and parrots and palm trees.
“Can’t you just call him and ask him, Mami?” Miguel asks.
After all, the team is impatient to get started with practice.
A letter will take several days to be answered.
“You try calling him,” Miguel’s mother says, holding out the
phone. Miguel dials the number his mother reads from a card
tacked on the kitchen bulletin board. The phone rings once, twice.
A machine clicks on, and a cranky old voice speaks up: “This is
Colonel Charles Charlebois. I can’t be bothered coming to the
phone every time it rings. If you have a message, you can write me.”
“Let’s write that letter, shall we?” Mami says, taking the
phone back from Miguel.

Make Inferences
What inferences can you make
about Colonel Charlebois based
on his pre-recorded message?

135
 Two days later, Colonel Charlebois’s answer is in their
mailbox. It has not been postmarked. He must have driven out
and delivered it himself.
“I would be honored to have the team practice in my back
pasture,” he replies in a shaky hand as if he’d written the letter
while riding in a car over a bumpy road.
“Honored!” Miguel’s mother says, lifting her eyebrows. She
translates the letter for Tía Lola, who merely nods as if she’d
known all along that Colonel Charlebois is really a nice man.
And so every day Miguel’s friends come over, and the team
plays ball in the back field where only six months ago, Miguel
wrote a great big welcome to Tía Lola. Twice a week, Rudy
drops by to coach. They play all afternoon, and afterward when
they are hot and sweaty, Tía Lola invites them inside for cool,
refreshing smoothies, which she calls frío-fríos. As they slurp
and lick, she practices her English by telling them wonderful
stories about Dominican baseball players like Sammy Sosa and
the Alou brothers and Juan Marichal and Pedro and Ramón
Martínez. The way she tells the stories, it’s as if she knows these
players personally. Miguel and his friends are enthralled.
After a couple of weeks of practice, the team votes to make
Miguel the captain. José, who is visiting from New York, substitutes
for whoever is missing that day. Tía Lola is named manager.
“¿Y qué hace el manager?” Tía Lola wants to know what a
manager does.
“A manager makes us frío-fríos,” Captain Miguel says.
Every day, after practice, there are frío-fríos in a tall pitcher
in the icebox.
It is a happy summer—
Until Tía Lola decides to paint the house purple.

136
* * *
 Miguel and his friends have been playing ball in the back
field—their view of the house shielded by the maple trees.
As they walk back from practice, they look up.
“Holy cow!” Miguel cries out.
The front porch is the color of a bright bruise. Miguel can’t
help thinking of the deep, rich purple whose name he recently
learned from his father in New York. “Dioxazine,” he mutters to
himself. The rest of the house is still the same color as almost
every other house in town. “Regulation white,” Papi calls it
whenever he comes up to visit and drives through town.
In her high heels and a dress with flowers whose petals match
the color of the porch stands Tía Lola, painting broad purple strokes.
For a brief second, Miguel feels a flash of that old
embarrassment he used to feel about his crazy aunt.
“Awesome,” his friend Dean is saying.
“Cool!” Sam agrees.
They wave at Tía Lola, who waves back.
“¡Frío-fríos!” she calls out. Today she has chosen grape flavor
in honor of the new color of the house.

137
 By the time Miguel’s mother comes home from work, he
and his friends look like they have helped Tía Lola paint the
house: their mouths are purple smudges. When they open
their mouths to say hello, their tongues are a pinkish purple.
“Okay, what is going on?” Mami asks, glancing from Miguel
to Tía Lola. She looks as if she is about to cry, something she
has not done in a long time.
Tía Lola speaks up. Don’t the colors remind her of the
island? “La casita de tu niñez.” The house where Mami spent
her childhood.

138
 Miguel can see his mother’s face softening. Her eyes have a
faraway look. Suddenly, Mami is shaking her head and trying not
to laugh. “Colonel Charlebois is going to throw a fit. Actually,
he’s going to throw us out.”
“El coronel, no hay problema,” Tía Lola says, pointing to
herself and Miguel and his friends. Miguel’s mother looks from
face to face as if she doesn’t understand. Miguel and his friends
nod as if they understand exactly what Tía Lola is up to.

* * *
The next afternoon, when Miguel’s friends come inside from
practice, Tía Lola takes their measurements. She has bought
fabric with the money the team has collected and is making
them their uniforms.

When it is Miguel’s turn, he stands next to the mark that his

mother made on the door frame back in January. He is already
an inch taller!
“Tía Lola, what are you up to?” the team keeps asking. “Are
we going to lose our playing field if Colonel Charlebois takes
back his house?”
“No hay problema,” Tía Lola keeps saying. Her mouth curls
up like a fish hook that has caught a big smile.

* * *
“Are you going to work magic on him?” Miguel asks his aunt
that night.
“The magic of understanding,” Tía Lola says, winking. She
can look into a face and see straight to the heart.
She looks into Miguel’s eyes and smiles her special smile.

139
 As the house painting continues, several neighbors call.
“What’s happening to your house?” farmer Tom asks Miguel.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a purple house. Is that a New York
style or something?”
Their farming neighbors think of New York as a foreign country.
Whenever Miguel and his family do something odd, Tom and
Becky believe it is due to their having come from “the city.”
“I’ve never seen a purple house in my life,” Miguel admits.
“Neither have I,” José adds, “and I live in the city!”
“I’ve seen one!” Juanita speaks up, showing off.
“Where?” Miguel challenges.
“In my imagination.” She grins.
Miguel has been trying to imitate Tía Lola, looking for the
best in people. He stares straight into Juanita’s eyes, but all he
can see is his smart-alecky little sister.

140
 One afternoon, soon after José has returned to the city,
Miguel is coming down the stairs to join his teammates in the
back field. He pauses at the landing. The large window affords
a view of the surrounding farms and the quaint New England
town beyond.
A silver car Miguel doesn’t recognize is coming down the
dirt road to their house. Just before arriving at the farmhouse,
it turns in to an old logging road at the back of the property.
Behind a clump of ash trees, the car stops and the door opens.
Later, as he stands to bat, Miguel can make out a glint of silver
among the trees. Who could it be? he wonders. He thinks of telling
his mother about the stranger, but decides against it. She would
probably think an escaped convict was lurking in the woods and
not allow the team to practice in the back field anymore.
141
 The next afternoon, Miguel watches from behind the curtain
as the same silver car he saw in the woods yesterday comes
slowly up the drive. His friends have already left after their
baseball practice, and his mother is not home from work yet.
He can hear Tía Lola’s sewing machine humming away upstairs.
“Who is it?” Juanita is standing beside him, holding on to
her brother’s arm. All her smart-alecky confidence is gone.
“I think it’s him—Colonel Charlebois,” Miguel whispers.
Now that the car is so close, he can make out the old man
behind the wheel. The hood has a striking ornament: a little
silver batter, crouched, ready to swing. “I’m going to pretend
no one is home,” Miguel adds.
But Colonel Charlebois doesn’t come up to the door.
He sits in his car, gazing up at the purple-and-white house
for a few minutes, and then he drives away. Later that day,
a letter appears in the mailbox. “Unless the house is back to
its original white by the end of the month, you are welcome to
move out.”
“Welcome to move out?” Miguel repeats. He wrote
¡BIENVENIDA! to his Tía Lola when she moved in. It doesn’t
sound right to welcome someone to move out.
“We’ve got three weeks to paint the house back or
move,” their mother says in a teary voice at dinner. “I’m
disappointed, too,” she admits to Tía Lola. After all, she really
loves the new color. That flaking white paint made the place
look so blah and run-down. “But still, I don’t want to have to
move again,” Mami sighs.
142
 Tía Lola pats her niece’s hand. There is something else they
can try first.
“What’s that?” her niece asks.
They can invite el coronel over on Saturday.
“But that’s the day of our big game,” Miguel reminds his
aunt. They’ll be playing against another local team from the
next county over.
Tía Lola winks. She knows. “Pero tengo un plan.” She has a
plan. Miguel should tell his friends to come a little early so they
can change.
“Change what?” Miguel’s mother asks. “Change the color of
the house?”
Tía Lola shakes her head. Change a hard heart. She’ll need
more grape juice from the store.

Make Inferences
What can you infer about Tia
Lola’s character? Support
your answer.

143
 The day dawns sunny and warm. The cloudless sky stretches
on and on and on, endlessly blue with the glint of an airplane,
like a needle sewing a tiny tear in it. Every tree seems filled to
capacity with dark green rustling leaves. On the neighboring
farms, the corn is as tall as the boys who play baseball in the
fallow field nearby. Tía Lola’s garden looks like one of Papi’s
palettes. But now, after living in the country for seven months,
Miguel has his own new names for colors: zucchini green, squash
yellow, chili-pepper red, raspberry crimson. The eggplants are as
purple as the newly painted house. It is the full of summer. In a
few weeks, up in the mountains, the maples will begin to turn.
Miguel’s friends and their parents arrive early. The boys head
upstairs behind Tía Lola and Rudy. Their parents stay downstairs,
drinking grape smoothies and talking about how their gardens
are doing. At last, the silver car rolls into the driveway.
Slowly, Colonel Charlebois climbs out. He stands, a cane in
one hand, looking up at the house. One quarter of the house is
purple. The other three-quarters is still white. Which color will
the whole house end up being?
Miguel looks down at the old man from an upstairs window.
Suddenly, he feels a sense of panic. What if Tía Lola’s plan
doesn’t work? He doesn’t want to move from the house that has
finally become a home to him.
He feels his aunt’s hand on his shoulder. “No hay problema,
Miguelito,” she reassures him as if she can read his thoughts
even without looking into his eyes.
144
 Colonel Charlebois is still staring up at the house when the
front door opens. Out file nine boys in purple-and-white-striped
uniforms and purple baseball caps. They look as if the house
itself has sprouted them! Miguel leads the way, a baseball in his
hand. Behind them, Tía Lola and Rudy each hold the corner of a
pennant that reads: CHARLIE’S BOYS.
Colonel Charlebois gazes at each boy. It is difficult to tell
what is going through his mind. Suddenly, he drops his cane on
the front lawn and calls out, “Let’s play ball!” He stands, wobbly
and waiting and smiling. Miguel looks into the old man’s eyes
and sees a boy, legs apart, body bent forward, a gloved hand
held out in front of him.
He lifts his arm and throws the ball at that young boy—and
the old man catches it.

145
 Visiting With Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez wrote this story for her
ten-year-old nephew. Julia thought
back to when she was ten—the
year her family moved from the
Dominican Republic to the United
States. What did she remember
about growing up? Of course, she
remembered the tías—her wonderful
aunts, who had told her endless
stories about their childhood. The
story is set in Vermont, where Julia
now lives. She said moving to the
United States made her a writer, but
the memory of her tías kept her first
home alive.

Find out more about

Julia Alvarez at
www.macmillanmh.com

Author’s Purpose
Julia Alvarez wrote this selection to
entertain. What makes her character Tía
Lola so enjoyable to read about?

146
 Comprehension Check

Summarize
Summarize How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay.
Think about how baseball is important to all
the different elements of the story.

BSfb1ZcSaO\R
>`W]`9\]eZSRUS 7\TS`S\QS
Think and Compare
1. What does Tía Lola know about Colonel
Charlebois that leads her to believe that
he will not evict Miguel’s family? Use
your Inferences Chart to help you answer
the question. Generate Questions: Make
Inferences

2. Miguel sometimes feels brief embarrassment about the

things Tía Lola says and does. Why, however, do you think
Miguel so quickly realizes that Tía Lola has good solutions for
problems? Explain your answer. Evaluate

3. Tía Lola is extremely helpful to Miguel and his family. Do you

have a friend or relative who is helpful to you or your family?
Compare that person with Tía Lola. Synthesize

4. Tía Lola used baseball to bring people together. How do you

think sports can help bring a community together? Analyze

5. Read “An Aunt’s Baseball Dreams” on pages 130-131. How is

the author’s great-aunt Helen like Tía Lola? If Tía Lola were
to be offered a baseball tryout, do you think she would react
the same way Helen did? Why or why not? Reading/Writing
Across Texts

147
 Math
Genre
Nonfiction Articles present
facts and information about
different subjects.

Text Feature
Almanacs are reference ROGER MARIS
books compiled annually.
Charts in almanacs present Babe Ruth
information, such as
statistics, in a clear manner.

Content Vocabulary
statistics
data
triples
Baseball
By the Numbers
aseball fans love to read and Who hit the most triples in one
B discuss statistics. Statistics are
individual facts, or data, expressed
season? A Pittsburgh Pirate named
Owen Wilson set that record in 1912.
as numbers. You can compare these In 1927 Babe Ruth earned the one-
numbers to find out all kinds of season home run crown by hitting 60.
interesting information: who had the That record lasted until the end of
most hits in a particular world series the 1961 season, when Roger Maris
or who pitched the most strikeouts in rounded the bases after hitting his
a lifetime career. sixty-first homer. Maris’s record has
The most hits by a player in a been broken a number of times since
single season was 262 by Ichiro Suzuki then, but that is the nature of records;
of the Seattle Mariners in 2004. He they are challenges to be broken. Who
broke a record of 257 set by George will be the next to challenge the home
Sisler way back in 1920. run record?

148
 Math
Fact Finding
Reading an Almanac
Look at this segment of an almanac entry to discover who
won the National League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP)
Award from the years 1997-2000. When did Sammy Sosa
win? On what team did he play that year? In the year that
Chipper Jones won MVP, how many home runs did he hit?

National League’s Most Valuable Player Award Winners

Year Name Team Home Runs RBIs Avg.
1997 Larry Walker Colorado Rockies 49 130 .366
1998 Sammy Sosa Chicago Cubs 66 158 .308
1999 Chipper Jones Atlanta Braves 45 110 .319
2000 Jeff Kent San Francisco 33 125 .334
Giants
Almanacs provide statistics on many different subjects.

Connect and Compare

1. Look at the chart in the almanac entry. Find the player who
hit the fewest home runs during the year he was awarded the
National League’s Most Valuable Player Award. Reading a Chart

2. What are some ways that you like to present information? Why
are charts a useful way to present information? Evaluate

3. If Miguel in How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay gave Colonel

Charlebois a baseball almanac, how do you think the Colonel
would respond? Reading/Writing Across Texts

Math Activity
Research a major league baseball pitcher. Make a baseball
card that includes statistics showing wins versus losses over
his career.

Find out more about baseball at www.macmillanmh.com

149
 Writer’s Craft
Denotation and
Connotation
A word’s denotation is
its meaning. A word’s
connotation is the feeling
attached to the word. The
words smile and smirk
have similar definitions, but
smirk implies a negative
connotation. 526 Sunbury Street
Columbus, OH 43201
April 27, 2008
Mr. Stephen Merton
Merton’s Dry Cleaning
I stated 1132 Canfield Avenue
exactly why Columbus, OH 43201
I am writing
Dear Mr. Merton:
to Mr. Merton.
I am the captain of my sixth-grade baseball team, and I
am writing to ask for your support. For $500, you can sponsor
our team. This money will pay for our uniforms, equipment,
I used words
with good and a banner to hang at the league’s field. The banner and
connotations all our uniforms will say Merton’s Dry Cleaning. This is a
like “show off” great opportunity to advertise your business and help out the
to persuade community.
Mr. Merton.
My team chose Merton’s Dry Cleaning because we would
like to be called the Merton White Sox. Then, everyone who
sees us play will think of clean socks!
My teammates and I want to show off the name and photos
of a local business at all of our games. We hope that
name will be Merton’s Dry Cleaning.
Yours truly,
Amar Nandra
150
Amar Nandra
 Persuasive Writing

Your Turn
Imagine that you are on an athletic team and your team
needs money for uniforms and equipment. Write a
business letter to persuade a local business to help
support your team. As you choose persuasive
words for your letter, remember to keep in
mind the connotations of the words. Also
remember to capitalize proper nouns. Use
the Writer’s Checklist to check your writing.

Writer’s Checklist
Ideas and Content: Did I clearly explain my reason
for writing the letter?

Organization: Did I organize my writing in a logical

way?

Voice: Does my letter show that a real person wrote

it? Have I included words and phrases that reveal my
personality?

Word Choice: Did I use persuasive words

effectively? Do the persuasive words carry the
proper connotations?

Sentence Fluency: Do my sentences blend together

in a way that makes my letter pleasant to read?

Conventions: Did I capitalize all proper nouns? Did

I include all of the important parts of a business
letter? Did I check my spelling?

151
 Persuasive Writing

Your Turn
Imagine that you are on an athletic team and your team
needs money for uniforms and equipment. Write a
business letter to persuade a local business to help
support your team. As you choose persuasive
words for your letter, remember to keep in
mind the connotations of the words. Also
remember to capitalize proper nouns. Use
the Writer’s Checklist to check your writing.

Writer’s Checklist
Ideas and Content: Did I clearly explain my reason
for writing the letter?

Organization: Did I organize my writing in a logical

way?

Voice: Does my letter show that a real person wrote

it? Have I included words and phrases that reveal my
personality?

Word Choice: Did I use persuasive words

effectively? Do the persuasive words carry the
proper connotations?

Sentence Fluency: Do my sentences blend together

in a way that makes my letter pleasant to read?

Conventions: Did I capitalize all proper nouns? Did

I include all of the important parts of a business
letter? Did I check my spelling?

151