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Travel Team
Out of Control
What happens when a parent goes too far, gets too invested in the team? One prominent parent is on his third son to play for the team, and this one looks like the son who will break through and realize his fathers MLB dream. Except his third son is totally burned out on baseball. His hearts not in it and his dad cant accept it. Dad loses his cool. Will he take the team down with him?
120 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 2012
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16 people want to read
About the author
Rick Jasper
5 books6 followersRick Jasper is a former middle-school teacher and a long-time magazine editor and writer. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, he currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 23, 2019
As an adult that coached youth sports over 10 seasons and three different sports and both genders, I have experienced the rabid parent phenomenon many times. Once, when I was forced to referee a soccer game a parent came screaming onto the field over a call that I did not make. The girl had tripped over her own feet, something that was clear to me from six feet away, but impossible to discern from the sidelines. I gave up the coaching/refereeing when I received an email invitation from the parent soccer organization to attend a workshop on how to deal with being physically assaulted by a parent.
Carlos “Trip” Costas is a talented shortstop on the Las Vegas Roadrunners baseball team and his father Julio is a former professional baseball aspirant and a celebrity musician with significant wealth. Trip’s mother is several wives ago in Julio’s life, so Trip’s only parent present is his father. The problem is that Julio is overbearing in his pressure on Trip, even to the point that he goes out on the field during a game.
The situation reaches a head when Trip decides that baseball is not fun anymore and asks the coach to bench him. Julio is a major financial backer of the team and there are significant expenses when they travel to tournaments. Julio threatens to pull his financial support if the coach does not pressure Trip to play.
There is a climactic point where Trip stays at the house of a female friend rather than go home. Ultimately, there is a confrontation between Julio, Trip and the management of the Roadrunners. It is resolved and there is a big game at the end.
Older books of adolescent sports fiction largely left all non-relative females out of the lives of the teenage male stars. Jasper is quite the opposite in that he has females being the best friends and confidants of his male stars. That is a positive aspect, but the story has so many negative aspects of the parent-child relationship that it has a sour feel to it. None of the other adults in the story ever stand up to Julio, telling him to tone it down or asking him to leave the field.
Carlos “Trip” Costas is a talented shortstop on the Las Vegas Roadrunners baseball team and his father Julio is a former professional baseball aspirant and a celebrity musician with significant wealth. Trip’s mother is several wives ago in Julio’s life, so Trip’s only parent present is his father. The problem is that Julio is overbearing in his pressure on Trip, even to the point that he goes out on the field during a game.
The situation reaches a head when Trip decides that baseball is not fun anymore and asks the coach to bench him. Julio is a major financial backer of the team and there are significant expenses when they travel to tournaments. Julio threatens to pull his financial support if the coach does not pressure Trip to play.
There is a climactic point where Trip stays at the house of a female friend rather than go home. Ultimately, there is a confrontation between Julio, Trip and the management of the Roadrunners. It is resolved and there is a big game at the end.
Older books of adolescent sports fiction largely left all non-relative females out of the lives of the teenage male stars. Jasper is quite the opposite in that he has females being the best friends and confidants of his male stars. That is a positive aspect, but the story has so many negative aspects of the parent-child relationship that it has a sour feel to it. None of the other adults in the story ever stand up to Julio, telling him to tone it down or asking him to leave the field.
April 4, 2012
From April 2012 SLJ
Gr 6–10—This hi/lo series focuses on individual members of an elite travel team of 17-and-under baseball players from Las Vegas. In Forced Out, Zack's team gets the funding to play in a New York tournament that will have a lot of major-league-scout representation. However, when a new kid who's mediocre at best—but whose father is a multimillionaire—suddenly joins the team, Zack realizes that the coach might have compromised his standards for the travel money that Dustin's dad is promising. How can Zack support his coach and still be a good friend to the catcher, who is being forced out of his position by Dustin? In Power Hitter, Sammy Perez is one of the team's best hitters. When Coach signs the team up for a wooden-bat tournament, Sammy believes he will never be noticed by an MLB scout—his hits just are not as dramatic with wood—and he sees his dreams of supporting his family slipping away. His father tells him of a performance-enhancing drug that doesn't show up on tests, and Sammy is tempted to try them for that extra edge. Shortstop Trip Costas takes center stage in Out of Control. His father has lived out his baseball dreams through his sons, but Trip is tired of his father directing his life and wants to take a break. Only the wisdom of Coach Harris and others allows him to separate his frustration with his father from his feelings for the game. These authors pack a lot of drama and sports action into about 100 pages. The characters might be just a little too good to be true, but the tone is not didactic, and students will appreciate the real-life issues and ethical dilemmas that the players face.—
Gr 6–10—This hi/lo series focuses on individual members of an elite travel team of 17-and-under baseball players from Las Vegas. In Forced Out, Zack's team gets the funding to play in a New York tournament that will have a lot of major-league-scout representation. However, when a new kid who's mediocre at best—but whose father is a multimillionaire—suddenly joins the team, Zack realizes that the coach might have compromised his standards for the travel money that Dustin's dad is promising. How can Zack support his coach and still be a good friend to the catcher, who is being forced out of his position by Dustin? In Power Hitter, Sammy Perez is one of the team's best hitters. When Coach signs the team up for a wooden-bat tournament, Sammy believes he will never be noticed by an MLB scout—his hits just are not as dramatic with wood—and he sees his dreams of supporting his family slipping away. His father tells him of a performance-enhancing drug that doesn't show up on tests, and Sammy is tempted to try them for that extra edge. Shortstop Trip Costas takes center stage in Out of Control. His father has lived out his baseball dreams through his sons, but Trip is tired of his father directing his life and wants to take a break. Only the wisdom of Coach Harris and others allows him to separate his frustration with his father from his feelings for the game. These authors pack a lot of drama and sports action into about 100 pages. The characters might be just a little too good to be true, but the tone is not didactic, and students will appreciate the real-life issues and ethical dilemmas that the players face.—
September 24, 2012
trip is an 18 year old boy with talent in baseball and his dad was forcing him to play and living his dream through him. trip got worn out and did not want to play anymore but if he stoped his dad would not fund the team any more.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews