Plunking Reggie Jackson

by James W. Bennett

"He wanted to see himself as a victim, but it was getting harder all the time."When Coley was a kid, his brother, Patrick, showed him how to "plunk" the life-size statue of Reggie Jackson that stands in the Burkes' backyard. If you nail the statue with a baseball in just the right place, it makes a loud gonging sound. It takes "mental toughness" -- a concept that Patrick mastered but that Coley is still trying to learn.

Now Patrick is dead, killed in a drunken boating accident, and Coley is struggling to live up to their father's idealized memory of him. Like Patrick, Coley is a star high school pitcher destined for the major leagues. But an ankle injury has sidelined him for most of the season. He's flunking English and could go ineligible for the play-offs. And he's started dating Bree Madison, a gorgeous sophomore whose mysterious past is causing Coley more problems every day.

When the pressures become more than Coley can handle, he and Bree run off to Florida. There, along the crystal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Coley tries to get his mind right and understand what "mental toughness" really means.

The master of sports fiction for teenagers, James W. Bennett weaves a powerful story of memories, relationships, and high school baseball in this stunningly realistic novel.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

208 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

Writer James Bennett draws heavily on personal experience in his novels for young adult readers. His high school-aged protagonists are often emotionally or intellectually confused individuals unable to summon the emotional strength to deal with the circumstances that confront them in school, at home, and in other social situations. Only the caring, compassionate support of others can provide Bennett's characters with a resilient lifeline to adulthood. "I would like my readers to recognize that the handicapped are not throw-away people," Bennett told Publishers Weekly interviewer Lynda Brill Comerford. "Within them lies enormous courage and a strong nourishing drive."

Reviews

[Neal Fandek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very, very good YA book that manages to convey the reality of pitching, the agony of teenage love and the lingering effects of grief simultaneously. No mean trick. And, because it's a YA book, it's a quick read. Which doesn't mean it's less profound than Serious Adult Literature for Serious People Only. Au contraire, I find some of the most insightful books today are YA novels.

I will read more by this author.

[Speak to the Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was by far the best book I've read so far by Bennett. To be fair, I think it also felt a bit less dated than some of his other sports novels, which helps. Much of the action was centered around non-sports related issues, and I think that helped me relate better to Coley.

Coley is perhaps the most relatable of Bennett's characters, as he struggles with multiple issues and the question of who he really wants to be. He feels like a much more typical senior in high school than many of Bennett's other characters. His emotional maturation felt a lot more natural because he seemed less unrealistically naive.

I did have a few qualms with plot developments/details. The first is Bennett's attachment to casual sex, smoking, and drinking for high schoolers. Although I think that's what the dramatized version of high school looks like, it's not necessarily the authentic one, and that makes the story fall out of reality. (However, this is just based on my personal experience of high school and may not be true for every one. And high school might look different from my experience, which happened nearly a decade after this book was published. Smoking is less popular now than it was a few decades ago, and laws about selling alcohol to minors have gotten stricter. FWIW, I read a study just the other day concluding that millenials engage in less casual sex than several generations prior due to different priorities and more sex education.)

Anyway, secondly, speaking of sex education, failure to use contraceptives - grrr. Really? I mean, I know high schoolers are impulsive and stupid, and teen pregnancy is an issue, but I just automatically start downgrading characters' intelligence and relatability levels when they don't use condoms/some other contraceptive.

And finally, I thought that the issue with Bree's family resolved itself much too easily. Threats only hold so much power, especially when wielded by teenagers. I at least felt that, even if it worked, Coley's confidence in his solution shouldn't have been so absolute and self-assured.

Despite my griping, I truly enjoyed this book and its message about identity, family, and grief. It was a strong portrait of a teenager facing difficult issues and taking responsibility of his own course in life.