Baseball Great (Baseball Great Series #1)

by Tim Green

Overview

Josh feels like he's starting to make it big! Jaden, the school reporter, says he's going to take the baseball team to number one. Then his dad pulls him off the field and signs him up with Coach Rocky Valentine's youth championship team, the Titans. He says Josh has what it takes to be a baseball great—and the Titans will help him get there.

Now Josh is gulping down Rocky's "Super Stax" milkshakes to build muscle and trying to fit in with his new teammates—older, tougher kids who can suddenly become violent. All Josh really wants to do is play ball, but as he gets in deeper with the Titans, there are questions he's just got to ask. As Josh and his new friend Jaden investigate their suspicions, they find themselves in a dangerous struggle with a desperate man who doesn't want them to expose the nasty secrets they uncover.

Pulsing with action, baseball great offers a baseball story attuned to today's headlines, a totally involving, character-driven, sports-centered thriller.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061626883
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/23/2010
Series:	Baseball Great Series , #1
Pages:	250
Sales rank:	19,049
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Tim Green, for many years a star defensive end with the Atlanta Falcons, is a man of many talents. He's the author of such gripping books for adults as the New York Times bestselling The Dark Side of the Game and American Outrage. Tim graduated covaledictorian from Syracuse University and was a first-round draft pick. He later earned his law degree with honors, and he has also worked as an NFL commentator for FOX Sports and NPR.

His first book for young readers, Football Genius, inspired in part by his players and his own kids, became a New York Times bestseller and was followed by Football Hero, Football Champ, The Big Time, and Deep Zone. He drew on his experiences playing and coaching Little League for Rivals and Pinch Hit and two more New York Times bestsellers: Baseball Great and Best of the Best.

Bestselling author Jon Scieszka called Tim Green's Unstoppable, a book about a boy's struggle with cancer that debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, "Absolutely heroic. And something every guy should read."

Tim Green lives with his wife, Illyssa, and their five children in upstate New York.

Read an Excerpt

Baseball Great

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By Tim Green
HarperCollins
Copyright © 2009

Tim Green
All right reserved.


ISBN: 978-0-06-162686-9

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Chapter One Josh wondered why every time something really good happened, something else had to spoil it. It had been like this since he could remember, like biting into a ruby red apple only to find a brown worm crawling through the crisp, white fruit. For the first time since he'd moved to his new neighborhood, he had been recognized, and his unusual talent had been appreciated. So why was it that that same fame had kicked up the muddy rumor that got a high school kid looking to bash his teeth in?

For the moment, though, riding the school bus, he was safe. The school newspaper in Josh's backpack filled his whole body with an electric current of joy and pride, so much so that his cheeks burned. He sat alone in the very front seat and kept his eyes ahead, ignoring the stares and whispers as the other kids got off at the earlier stops. When Jaden Neidermeyer, the new girl from Texas who'd written the article, got off at her stop, Josh stared hard at his sneakers. He just couldn't look.

After she left, he glanced around and carefully parted the lips of his backpack's zipper. Without removing the newspaper, he stole another glance at the headline, baseball great, and the picture of him with a bat and the caption underneath: "Grant Middle's best hope for its first-ever citywide championship, Josh LeBlanc."

The bus ground to a halt at his stop and Josh got off.

As the bus rumbled away, Josh saw Bart Wilson standing on the next corner. The tenth grader pitched his cigarette into the gutter and started toward him with long strides. Josh gasped, turned, and ran without looking back. A car blared its horn. Brakes squealed. Josh leaped back, his heart galloping fast, like the tenth grader now heading his way, even faster. Josh circled the car-the driver yelling at him through the window-and dashed across the street and down the far sidewalk.

He rounded the corner at Murphy's bar and sprinted up the block, ducking behind a wrecked station wagon at Calhoon's Body Shop, peeking through the broken web of glass back toward the corner. Breathing hard, he slipped the straps of the backpack he carried around his shoulders and fastened it tight. Two men in hooded sweatshirts and jeans jackets burst out of Murphy's and got into a pickup truck; otherwise, Josh saw no one. Still, he scooted up the side street, checking behind him and dodging from one parked car to another for cover.

When he saw his home, a narrow, red two-story place with a steep roof and a sagging front porch, he breathed deep, and his heart began to slow. The previous owner had three pit bulls, and so a chain-link fence surrounded the house and its tiny front and back lawns, separating them from the close-packed neighbors on either side. The driveway ran tight to the house, and like the single, detached garage, it was just outside the fence. Josh lifted the latch, but as he pulled open the front gate, a hand appeared from nowhere, slamming it shut. The latch clanked home, and the hand spun Josh around.

"What you running from?" asked Bart Wilson, the tenth-grade smoker.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Baseball Great by Tim Green Copyright © 2009 by Tim Green. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

The first book in a fantastic sports adventure series centered around 12-year-old Josh, the star of his school baseball team. Tim Green uses humor and relatable middle school dramas to hook readers.

Seven Foot Monster

Green delivers a fast-paced story, told in short chapters that build to the exciting climax. Add this to other novels that feature the temptations of steroids for young athletes, including Carl Deuker’s Gym Candy (2007) and John Coy’s Crackback (2005).

Booklist

Football Genius, Tim Green's debut as a young adult novelist, scored a touchdown. Now the former NFL star and Fox commentator returns with an inspiring baseball story about a young man coping with problems on and off the diamond. For our money, one of the best active young reader authors.

Green (Football Genius) wades into John Feinstein territory with this fast-paced story about two middle-schoolers who put themselves in peril to probe steroid use on a youth baseball team. Josh LeBlanc's father is a pitcher who never made it to the big leagues. After he's cut from the farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays, he projects his unfulfilled dream on Josh, yanking him from the school baseball squad to play for the Titans, a travel team run by Rocky Valentine, a winning-is-everything caricature who supplements his income by selling milk additives that will reputedly help players bulk up. When Josh is also slipped some "gym candy," he talks over his suspicions with school reporter Jaden, and together they investigate with exciting, if predictable, results. A subplot about a bully who thinks Josh is moving in on his girlfriend adds nothing, and Josh's mother is basically relegated to serving meals. But most kids will not notice, focused instead on the action-heavy, high-testosterone plot that has Josh in near-constant motion. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Seventh grade baseball star Josh feels trapped by his father's failed attempts to be a major league player when his father pulls him from his new school team to try out for the championship Titans, a ninth grade ball club fueled by coach-distributed supplements and steroids. Involuntarily retired from a professional farm team, Josh's father has been offered a job by a local businessman who is promoting youth baseball to get big company endorsements. His father believes that playing with a nationally recognized team will give talented Josh the shot at the majors that he missed. When his super teammates pressure Josh to use "gym candy," his two school friends help him craft a successful plan to expose the operation. The businessman goes to jail, but with Nike endorsements the father continues the team, and Josh is tapped to be part of a national company promotion. Like Heat by Mike Lupica (Philomel, 2006/VOYA April 2006), this feel-good story manages an involving plot filled with strong, appealing characters who face danger and find support from responsible adults. Centered on the headline issue of steroids and crafted with short, fast-paced chapters, it is a great middle school choice for both boys and girls whether they are reluctant or enthusiastic readers. Reviewer: Lucy Schall

VOYA - Lucy Schall

Twelve-year-old Josh has the potential to be a baseball "great." Or so his angry, controlling father believes, as he is fired from his job on a farm team and his career is gone; Josh just wants to play for his school and make friends. Enrolled by his father in a traveling team of 14-year-olds, Josh is cruelly hazed and pushed by thuggish coach Rocky to lift heavy weights and practice till he is aching and exhausted. With schoolwork suffering, Josh comes through for the team, but soon discovers that Rocky is feeding steroids to the older boys. So far, it is a vivid, though depressing, picture of exploitation of young players by a greedy entrepreneur and an obsessed parent. When Josh and his friend Jaden (school reporter) decide to frustrate Rocky's drug business without help from adults or the police, the story becomes less credible. As tension mounts, readers may stop to ask some questions; among others, what school would allow a young girl to be alone there at night? Could naive seventh-graders hope to escape a dedicated drug lord? Resolution comes much too easily without making the point that these pre-teens might very well have been killed. Dad is suddenly transformed, as a Nike representative materializes to offer money and ad appearances. Can readers believe that Josh will really go to college one day as his mother so staunchly insists? Baseball fans will probably keep turning the pages anyway, but follow-up discussion of issues raised would be a much-needed reality check. Reviewer: Barbara L. Talcroft

Children's Literature - Barbara L. Talcroft

Gr 5-7

Twelve-year-old Josh LeBlanc's father has come to the end of a baseball career that never made it to the majors. Josh is also a talented player, and the family's dreams of glory settle on him. His angry, controlling father pulls him off the middle school team to have him try out for a traveling youth team sponsored by a suspicious character named Rocky Valentine, who is also Mr. LeBlanc's new employer. While the competition is fierce, Josh eventually makes the team, but his doubts about Rocky Valentine continue to grow. With the help of a girl he likes, aspiring journalist Jaden Neidermeyer, Josh uncovers evidence that Rocky is dealing in illegal steroids. It appears that Jaden's father, a doctor, is supplying Rocky with the drugs, but eventually everything is straightened out. Rocky is apprehended, Dr. Neidermeyer is cleared, and, in a deus ex machina, a Nike Youth Baseball representative shows up out of the blue and offers to sponsor Josh's team, to put his dad on the payroll, and to sign Josh up to appear in Nike ads. While the resolution might strike even less-sophisticated readers as wildly implausible, issues of peer and family pressure are well handled, and the short, punchy chapters and crisp dialogue are likely to hold the attention of young baseball fans.-Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT

School Library Journal

Josh is a hugely talented player who loves baseball and is destined for greatness. His father, who never made it to the majors, takes a job with an independent youth baseball team, pulling Josh from his school team to join him. Josh wants to please his father, but all is not as it should be on the new team. Winning is everything and the coach pushes his players to be ever bigger, stronger and fiercer, insisting on tortuous weight training and surreptitiously passing along "gym candy." The third-person narration filled with crisp dialogue brings immediacy to Josh's painful practice sessions, the excitement of his games and his confusion at the flux of middle-school dynamics. Although several of the characters are somewhat one-dimensional, Josh and his friends are well developed and likable. Green carefully constructs the dilemmas and decisions they face as they come to terms with the steroid issues, so that the rather histrionic finale comes across as both plausible and satisfying. A cut above the usual baseball novel. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews

The first book in a fantastic sports adventure series centered around 12-year-old Josh, the star of his school baseball team. Tim Green uses humor and relatable middle school dramas to hook readers.

Brightly