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Peach Street Mudders
The Catcher's Mask: A Peach Street Mudders Story
After Rudy buys a catcher's mask at a local yard sale, his game begins to improve dramatically, yet in deciding to do some research about the previous owner, Rudy learns something odd and so soon begins to think that a spirit may be helping him with his game. Reprint.
- GenresSports
64 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
1 person is currently reading
15 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 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 8, 2014
I enjoyed reading "The Catcher's Mask" by Matt Christopher. I liked how Rudy was worried about Zero taking his place as catcher. He started doing bad in the baseball season but at the end of the book he was doing really well and winning the game for his team.
In the start of this book Rudy isn't doing well. The book starts in the beginning of the season. Then his coach gives him a Yogi Barret face mask. This gives Rudy the courage to do better. For the next three games he does really good. Then on the last game Rudy knows what the team is doing so right when the batter squares to bunt Rudy yells "Bunt!" Then his whole team runs for the ball. Rudy picks up the ball and tags the guy that was running home. He then throws the ball to second base, and the second baseman throws the ball to first base and gets a triple play. This wins the game for the team.
I would recommend "Catcher's Mask" to fifth and up. I say this because I feel that kids this age could really relate to Rudy and all the challenges he faces in this book. If a 30 year old man read this book I don’t think he would have enjoyed it as much.
In the start of this book Rudy isn't doing well. The book starts in the beginning of the season. Then his coach gives him a Yogi Barret face mask. This gives Rudy the courage to do better. For the next three games he does really good. Then on the last game Rudy knows what the team is doing so right when the batter squares to bunt Rudy yells "Bunt!" Then his whole team runs for the ball. Rudy picks up the ball and tags the guy that was running home. He then throws the ball to second base, and the second baseman throws the ball to first base and gets a triple play. This wins the game for the team.
I would recommend "Catcher's Mask" to fifth and up. I say this because I feel that kids this age could really relate to Rudy and all the challenges he faces in this book. If a 30 year old man read this book I don’t think he would have enjoyed it as much.
December 5, 2013
This book is great for sports enthusiasts who want a story as well as learning about certain sports. However, some of the terminology will be over the students' head unless the students understand sports terminology or are in middle school.
April 19, 2018
The Catcher's Mask has simple tight sentences, and well thought out illustrations. But, after the first few pages, and beginning plotline, the story centers on a single baseball game.
Matt Christopher goes to great lengths to write each play made in the game and use appropriate sports terminology. This felt a little jarring, to go from story to mechanics of baseball only.
The last few pages made me smile how well Matt Christopher tied the beginning plot line with the extremely creative ending plot line. I enjoyed the ending a lot.
Although the book's illustrations portray children playing baseball, in my opinion, the story seemed to hint at older characters.
I think The Catcher's Mask would be enjoyed by high interst/low reading level (teens) who love baseball.
Matt Christopher goes to great lengths to write each play made in the game and use appropriate sports terminology. This felt a little jarring, to go from story to mechanics of baseball only.
The last few pages made me smile how well Matt Christopher tied the beginning plot line with the extremely creative ending plot line. I enjoyed the ending a lot.
Although the book's illustrations portray children playing baseball, in my opinion, the story seemed to hint at older characters.
I think The Catcher's Mask would be enjoyed by high interst/low reading level (teens) who love baseball.
December 3, 2014
This is a great book. It's about a boy named Rudy and he loves playing baseball. He plays catcher and his team is not doing so well. His catchers mask is not really good. One day he went to a garage sale and found a catchers mask. On the mask it said Y.B. Rudy went and looked up those letters. The persons name was Yogi Bear. When Rudy was wearing his new mask he played a lot better. His team kept winning games when he wore that mask. It's a really good book and people that like sports should read this book.
February 8, 2012
This book is very good,it's about a boy named Rudy he is a catcher and has not been playing very well because of the lousy mask he has been using. Then one day he was walking home and saw a old fashion catchers mask in a box at a yard sale, he tried it on and it had fit him perfectly. The man running the yard sale trough in a book. I think anyone who is baseball fan like me should read this book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews