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Baseball Pals
Jimmie learns an important lesson about the misuse of power when he is elected captain of his baseball team and makes decisions that are not in the team's best interests
117 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
21 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Matt Christopher
467 books141 followersMatt Christopher is the writer young readers turn to when they're looking for fast-paced, action-packed sports novels. He is the best-selling author of more than one hundred sports books for young readers.
Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.
"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.
Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.
After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.
I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.
Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.
I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.
Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."
Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.
Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.
"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.
Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.
After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.
I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.
Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.
I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.
Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."
Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 13, 2020
Jimmie has just been elected captain of his youth baseball team and they are preparing for the summer schedule. He is in the process of recruiting enough players to field a team as well as determining who will play what position. His best friend Paul is known to be one of the best pitchers in the youth league, but Jimmie makes the decision that he will be the pitcher. Since they will be playing only one game a week, there is little need to have a second pitcher.
Unfortunately, while Jimmie throws hard and has a curve with some significant bend in it, he lacks control, often unable to locate the strike zone. His decision to be the pitcher over Paul leads to some dissension and causes Paul to join another team. As they play practice games in preparation for the season, it becomes clear to all that if Jimmie continues to pitch, they will win very few games.
Eventually, Jimmie realizes that he has to make a choice, stick with his selfish plan and lose games and friends, or to swallow some pride and ask Paul to come back and pitch for his team. He chooses the latter and it turns out that Jimmie is a much better player in the field than on the mound.
The lesson here is a good one for young people in sports. Everyone wants to be the star player, but not everyone has the skills. All teams need players to fill specific roles, even though there may be less glamour in them. Team sports require players to be subservient to their roles and that is the lesson here.
Unfortunately, while Jimmie throws hard and has a curve with some significant bend in it, he lacks control, often unable to locate the strike zone. His decision to be the pitcher over Paul leads to some dissension and causes Paul to join another team. As they play practice games in preparation for the season, it becomes clear to all that if Jimmie continues to pitch, they will win very few games.
Eventually, Jimmie realizes that he has to make a choice, stick with his selfish plan and lose games and friends, or to swallow some pride and ask Paul to come back and pitch for his team. He chooses the latter and it turns out that Jimmie is a much better player in the field than on the mound.
The lesson here is a good one for young people in sports. Everyone wants to be the star player, but not everyone has the skills. All teams need players to fill specific roles, even though there may be less glamour in them. Team sports require players to be subservient to their roles and that is the lesson here.
October 2, 2025
My kids loved this book. I was always trying to get my son to read and this is the book that made him a reader!
September 14, 2020
It is a good book
July 27, 2009
This was my first Matt Christopher book and I was pleasently pleased by the story and the clear writing style the author uses. For readers who want a story based on factual sports themes, then this author is for you. This book follows Jimmie, the captain of a baseball team. Jimmie wants to be the star pitcher but the problem is, his best friend already is plus Jimmie isn't really that good of a pitcher. Does Jimmie swallow his pride and ask his best friend to come back to the team? A great story for any baseball lover.
June 14, 2016
This is a really cool book about baseball. Real pitchers would relate themselves to the main character.
Read
May 21, 2009JEAR3-Chr
Read
September 14, 2018I think this is a great book because it is sad but then it gets happier as the book goes on. So what happens is this guy is bossy and he does not let people play the positions they want to. So then the guy wants to be the pitcher left to the to the red rockets.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews