"Look!" said one of Brother's playmates. "They're going to have tryouts for the school football team!" Now, Brother was a pretty good backyard football player, so when his friends asked, "Are you going out for the team?" Brother answered, "Sure. Why not?" But when he went out for the team, he found that the other bears who were trying out came in three sizes-big, bigger, and colossal. Brother was a pretty good runner, but it wasn't so easy to run with the ball when much bigger and older bears were trying to stop him. Brother was a pretty good passer, but it wasn't so easy to pass the ball when Too-tall Grizzly tried to block it. And Brother was a good pass-catcher too, but it wasn't easy to catch a pass in a crowd when everybody in the crowd was at least a head taller than he was. Brother got pretty discouraged. But Coach Bruin liked the way Brother Bear did his best. "Brother, you're just not big and strong enough yet for the school team. But I like your spirit. How would you like to be Water Bear? You'll be helping, and you'll get to ride on the team bus." Brother said yes. Before long it was baseball season. And once more Coach Bruin posted a tryout sign. "Are you going to try out?" Brother's playmates asked. Brother Bear was a good sandlot baseball player. He was a good fielder, an excellent base runner, and he usually got his share of hits. "I guess so," he said. "I don't think you're quite ready yet, Brother," said Coach Bruin. "But how would you like to be Bat Bear?" "Okay," said Brother. Being Bat Bear would be all right, but it wouldn't be like being part of the team. The same thing happened with basketball. Brother was the smallest one at the tryouts and every time he tried to take a shot—you guessed it—there was Too-tall, ready to block it. "I still like your spirit," said the coach. "How would you like to be Manager?" Now, that sounded pretty impressive, so Brother took the job. But being manager turned out to mean taking care of all the dirty uni

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