Baseball Turnaround: #53

by Matt Christopher

Sandy Comstock once made a mistake - a bad one - but he's paid the price and now he just wants to get on with his life. Only one person stands in his way:Perry Warden, the boy who tempted Sandy to break the law in the first place. Convinced that Perry is spreading rumors about him to his new baseball teammates, Sandy face a tough decision. Should he run from the rumors, or come out with the truth about his past.

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Matt 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.

Reviews

[Ryder C]

The title of my book is Baseball Turnaround and is by Matt Christopher. The lexile range of this book is 700L. The book is about Sandy Comstock and his team turning their season around. He moves to a new school and wants to beat his old team. He gets pushed over, gets bullied at school, and things start terrible for Sandy. At the end of the book it gets better.
The theme of this book is definitely sportsmanship and being a team player. At the beginning Sandy gets pushed over by a teammate and the cops show up at his house a day later and ask what happened. Toward the end Sandy’s team starts winning more games and his teammates become nicer to him. Once the cops show up to his house is kinda a turning point in the story. On page 16 the cops show up to his house. On page 28 is when the court date is.
Overall I didn’t think this was a great book like all the other sports books I’ve read. I would rate this book a 4/10. I didn’t like the book because I feel like the events in the book would never happen to a person in real life. It was kinda predictable which I don’t like. The book was easy to understand and read, even if you're not into sports you would understand this book. The ending I don’t like because once again it was predictable I knew the outcome before I got to the end. My favorite part was the court date about when he gets beat up (pushed over). I couldn’t make connections with this book because none of this would happen in real life. The author's writing style is pretty basic. On page 44 it says “The next day, Saturday, the Dolphins had their first scheduled game.

[MizziQ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a neat, simple story about a boys struggle to be liked yet keep his secret kept about him being arrested. It spent a lot of time on his feelings and how he felt about lying, yet STILL no one liking hime. He later realizes that it was that he was trying so hard to keep his secret, that he neglected to be kind. He neglected to be friends, just trying to keep his secret. He also had a boy who got him in trouble with the law that he must come to terms with before he can come to any closure over the ordeal. It is a short book but it does go at a fast pace and is worth a read, but not NECCECARILY your money.

[Dan Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book looking for another sports related author to recommend to my reluctant readers. The story flows easily, is engaging, and short enough to appeal to those who don't care to read a lot. I'll have to give more of his offerings a try and see what I can do to put a few in my classroom library.

[DatBoi]

It's a very good book.