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Baseball: A Ticket To The Bigs

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The Riptide is professional baseball’s newest team. It’s also the worst. The players are washed up, lazy, and should have retired a long time ago.

Tommy is the team’s biggest fan. He goes to every home game, watches the away games on TV, and even blogs about the Riptide. He knows everything there is know about baseball but is the worst player in his local Little League. So how did he end up on baseball’s biggest stage?

Will Panzell is the owner of the team. He’s also completely nuts. He lies, cheats, and schemes to sell tickets to Riptide games. His latest stunt is so bananas it has the whole world shocked, and it might just be crazy enough to work.

When Will and Tommy’s worlds collide, baseball may never be the same again.

278 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2013

2 people are currently reading
135 people want to read

About the author

Raymond Bean

59 books28 followers
Raymond Bean is a dad, a teacher, and the Amazon best-selling author of the Sweet Farts, Benji Franklin and School Is A Nightmare books. His books have ranked #1 in Children's Humor, Humorous Series, and Fantasy and Adventure. They often rank among Amazon's top 100 books for children.

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5 stars
16 (53%)
4 stars
8 (26%)
3 stars
3 (10%)
2 stars
2 (6%)
1 star
1 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Profile Image for Jon Barber.
295 reviews
June 17, 2018
Honestly, lovers of baseball will probably not love this book. It’s a light-hearted read that immediately reminds the reader of a cross between Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Bill Veeck. The best parts are when Raymond is writing about Tommy, his love of Riptide baseball, against all odds or all of the bullying and his trouble making friends. The rest borders on a bad kid’s movie about baseball. Too much shtick, not enough character building.
6 reviews5 followers
March 13, 2014
summary- Will Panzells father dies and will get all of his billions in money. Wills dad loved baseball so to make his dad proud he built a baseball stadium. Will made the stadium so nice that when he was done building it he was broke and still had to get some players. With will being broke is manager Morgan had a small amount of money to spend on player so they got the worst player ever. Will had to pay back a man money or lose the team so he did a lot of stupid stuff like shocking the player on the field of moving the fence in or out. he put out a raffle for whoever gets a leather baseball card gets to play left field for the Riptide. Tommy a huge fan won the raffle and boosted tickets sales and boosted the team. Because of what Tommy did for the team Will made him Manager for the next season.

main character-
Will Panzell- Head coach of Long Island Riptide, dad is dead, had billions, breaks a lot of Major League Baseball rules, very funny.

setting- Long Island

conflict- Will is broke and has to pay back millions in loans by the end of the season.

resolution of conflict- Will puts out a raffle and whoever wins gets to play left field.

main idea- having fun in baseball

opinion- I think this book was strait up funny. It kept me on the edge of my seat and I always wondered what was going to happen next.

recommendation- I would recommend this book to just about anybody even if they don't like baseball.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Martin Tiller.
Author 22 books7 followers
January 7, 2014
Willy Wonka meets every sports lovers dreams

This a funny, light hearted story about boy who loves baseball and an eccentric billionaire. There are obvious nods to Charlie and the Chocolate factory in the book, but they fit the narrative well.

The book is a chapter book written for kids, but adults will be able to relate to ball players who feel over the hill.

As a teacher I would recommend this book for any beginning fluent reader who likes baseball or sports. The chapters are short and the story moves quickly, which will help a lot of reluctant readers.

If you're an adult who enjoys baseball I would recommend this for a short and fun read about the sport.
Profile Image for Michael.
407 reviews10 followers
May 4, 2015
Okay story that will hold the interest of many 8-12 year old males with an interest in baseball, but for anyone that truly enjoys the sport it doesn't quite measure up. Don't get me wrong, the book is a good read for a specific audience (8-12 year old males), and it will hold their interest and keep them interested in reading, but for others, not so much. Yes, it was a fantasy, but one that could be improved upon.
831 reviews10 followers
June 14, 2016
Fantastic baseball adventure.

Raymond Bean Baseball: A ticket to the bugs. For me a great funny story. Read it because there was no game on the radio. Yet I got a winning game. Thank you for a winning read.
1 review
August 3, 2015
Great book

I really enjoyed the book it had a deranged head coach. Named will pazell as head coach and fun police morgan st. John.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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