Batter Up!

by Jake Maddox, Sean Tiffany (Illustrator)

Caleb has always batted with the same wood bat until the other team accuses Caleb of cheating by tampering with the bat! Now Caleb is forced to use the aluminum bat. How is he supposed to help his team win when he keeps striking out?

Genres: Sports, Childrens, Fiction, Chapter Books

73 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Who is Jake Maddox? Athlete, author, world-traveler–or all three? He has surfed in Hawaii, scuba-dived in Australia, and climbed the mountains of Peru and Alaska. His books range from the most popular team sports to outdoor activities to survival adventures and even to auto racing. His exploits have inspired numerous writers to walk in his footsteps–literally! Each of his stories is stamped with teamwork, fair play, and a strong sense of self-worth and discipline. Always a team-player, Maddox realizes it takes more than one man (or woman) to create a book good enough for a young reader. He hopes the lessons learned on the court, field, or arena and the champion sprinter pace of his books can motivate kids to become better athletes and lifelong readers.

Reviews

[Max]

My book is Batter Up by Jake Maddox. This book is about a baseball game and how two rivalry teams are facing off against each other. This is a nonfiction book.
The main character in this book is Caleb. He has this special wood bat that he always uses until the other team accuses him of tampering with the bat and cheating. So he is forced to use the aluminum bat that everyone else uses but Caleb hates. The umpire takes Caleb's bat in to get checked. After Caleb strikes out many times with the aluminum bat they come back and say that is is good. But when Caleb is not looking the other team switches Caleb's bat with a corked bat and when Caleb goes to hit the ball the bat breaks and there is cork inside. So Caleb gets kicked out but when the umpire goes to check it he sees that it is not stamped and that the bat has initials for a kid from the other team. Caleb returns to the game and the kid that had the corked bat gets kicked out.
My Reflection is that I enjoyed reading it but it was pretty easy but I would recommend this book to any baseball fans that enjoy reading about baseball. It was very straightforward and easy to understand. It was believable and it wasn't too crazy but overall I really enjoyed reading this book and it was really fun because I like baseball and enjoy reading about baseball.

[Amanda B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think AI may have written this book. One passage on page 35 reads:

“Caleb came up to bat twice more in the game. But he struck out both times, and both times he didn’t look very good doing it.

The first time, he hit a wimpy little grounder that the first baseman scooped up. He stepped on the bag easily for the out.

The second time, Caleb hit a little pop up behind home plate. The Oilers’ catcher caught it without any trouble.”

Sooooo…Caleb didn’t strike out twice. He got out twice. AI? Poorly edited? Not edited at all?

I have beef with this book. Caleb was told by his coach not to use the wooden bat anymore, to only use aluminum bats. Then, because Caleb can’t immediately adjust to hitting off aluminum, he goes against his coach’s instructions and uses the wooden bat anyways. What is this even trying to teach? To go against authority for ego’s sake? Not sure I am ok with this message.

[Angela Lambkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What caused this catcher to steal, then hide evidence that he sidn’t own that bat?

I liked that one who wanted to make another player look back finally is caught red-handed but, in this case, with a stolen bat.
The moral of this story is not to do what this Oiler’s catcher tried to pull off to make another team’s player look bad.
I felt this particular ebook should have only four stars. Think about it in answer to why I have given it four stars.

[Cory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is a very good book if you like sports specifically baseball. It's very exciting and full of action.

[Dfinks · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really good

It was really good because of all of the excitement. Also I liked how the author made it interesting, and fun to read

[Cyrus · Rating 1 out of 5]

it sucks

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is about a kid named Caleb.Caleb likes to play baseball when he plays he usually uses a wood bat but now he has to use metal bat.he asks his coach if he could use his bat once because he is better with it his coach says yes. when he uses the bat he hits a home run when hes gets to home plate his bat is gone he looks over and the ump has it he says we are going to have this checked it might be corked.so they send it off and its not so they drop it off at the game.they play and when one of the other team player goes to bat and he hits a home run but when Caleb goes to hit he hits the ball and the bat breaks and there is cork in it. He gets kicked out but when they give him his bat it does not have the stamp so he looks at the kid on the other teams bat and it has his initials at the bottom so he got his bat back and the other kid got kicked out. and he gets back in the game.

I liked the book a lot.It was very good. I am looking forward to reading more of this series.think they should make more. It was great.

[Darnell Usry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story Batter Up is about a boy named Caleb who uses a wooden bat for baseball. He uses the wooden bat because he got the bat from a trip that he went on during summer vacation. He was playing in a league that allowed him to use his was wooden bat. He was also the best hitter in that league. Every coach that he played for tried to get him to uses a metal bat but Caleb would never use a metal bat and the coaches never regretted to let him use a wooden bat.
Another league wanted Caleb to play for them. This league was different because it was a travel team league. This league didn't allow Caleb to use his wooden bat cause this league didn't like kids using wooden bats. Caleb was brave enough to use his wooden bat. Caleb and his team were losing and it was up to Caleb to win the game since bases were loaded. Caleb almost got hit by the first pitch and the umpire called ball one. The second pitch went right over the plate a hit a foul ball.
The next paragraph is called *SPOILER ALERT* tampered with because*SPOILER ALERT* because after Caleb hit a home run, the coach of the other team got a hold of Caleb's bat and showed it to the umpire and the umpire told Caleb that his bat seemed to messed with because it was a different color at the top. Caleb told the umpire that he had gotten his bat from the bat company and there was no way is bat was "corked".
Caleb had a game against the same team the next day. Caleb didn't know what to expect when he got there. He didn't think he should've be ejected for the league. When he got to his teams dugout he was surprised to see his coach smiling. Then he noticed the catcher on the other team was using a black wooden bat.
Caleb's coach moved him up in the batting lineup since Caleb proved that he should've be able to use his wooden bat. Caleb had gotten his wooden bat back from the other coach. Caleb was up to bat next. He was confident. He took a couple of practice swings and noticed that something wasn't right. Then he went to bat and he made contact with the ball and he bat broke into a million pieces. The umpire noticed that the bat had a hole drilled into it and Caleb got ejected from the game. The Caleb noticed that the broken bat wasn't his cause it didn't have the sticker. Finally he realized that the black bat was his all along.

[Diana Pettis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is part of the choice library series from Fountas and Pinnell. Guided Reading Level P. Caleb makes a choice when playing baseball about what bat he is going to use. I have a student who is going to love reading this book.

[Round Lake Area Public Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is about Caleb’s love for baseball but also the love of his wood bat. This is a great story for beginning readers because of the simple text and the easy to understand dialogue that shows kids real situations that can happen. Overall a good sports story.

[Caden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its about the spuds baseball team his name is caleb. He used to be a really good baseball playerthat hits a homerun.

[10-11 Oscar · Rating 5 out of 5]

i liked this book because i like baseball and this book is about baseball.p.s i love the new york yankees

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this book Yesterday I liked It because he finds out that the opponet's catcher had his bat.

[Ben Schmoker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book because it shows when you do it your way you usally do better in anything

[Kendall Martino · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book.

[Jacob Carlson]

this book is about a kid and his grandpa is hurt and he has to stay and play baseball in the big game and at first he sucks but he got better

[Kelsie · Rating 3 out of 5]

BATTER UP! Is about baseball and hitting and how you can become better

[Kylie · Rating 1 out of 5]

i dont really like baseball

[Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT!!!!
By: Banks Lovett

Wow! This is an amazing book that was written by Jake Maddox. The book is called “ Batter Up!”. This book is realistic fiction and tells us about how a boy can use a wooden bat even though many people say aluminum is better. It tells us that even though many people say aluminum is better than a wooden bat, this kid Caleb proved to us that this might always not be true. Today, we will be talking about Caleb and his wooden bat.

In this paragraph I am going to be talking about the good stuff like the main events. At the very beginning of the book, the spuds were trailing 4-3 to the oilers and he was on deck with two outs and this decided the outcome of the game. The person in front of him was Taylor not so well at hitting got hit by the pitch which made Caleb go up to bat with two outs and the bases are loaded. Caleb unlike everyone else went to the dugout and pulled out his lucky wooden bat. The coach was confused and talked to Caleb about it but, Caleb still wanted to use the wooden bat so he allowed him to use it. When he stepped into the batter's box second time, he swung the bat and Bam!, he hit a homerun to win the game. His team went crazy and all of them including the ones on the bases hurried to home plate to give him a high five. Once all of that craziness was over, he looked for his bat, but he couldn’t find it until he saw the umpire behind the plate had it. The umpire told Caleb that it looks like his bat has been messed with also known as corked and that the umpire and the coach for the Oiler’s ( Dr. Dennis) told him that if they were him that they would put the bat away for the rest of the season. Now, we are in the middle of the story. Ever since he got in trouble and didn’t use the bat, he has been horrible and the team has been losing. As weeks go on he starts to get use to the bats, but he still missed his wooden bat and the aluminum bats he hated. As the season continued, he kept on getting lower and lower in the batting lineup. Now, it is the rematch vs the Oilers’ and we he came up to bat the catcher said hey cheater because of what had happened before. It then became the 9th inning and he was about to bat and he was about to decide the outcome again so, he ran into the dugout and got his wooden bat. When he went up to bat with two strikes and two balls, the pitcher threw the baseball straight down the middle and he swung and hit a homerun to win the game again. When he crossed home plate he ran to the Oilers’ dugout and coach Bergen was right behind him because the other team's coach (Dr. Dennis) was taking Caleb’s bat to check it out. Caleb didn’t like that because he was worried if they would do something to his bat, but the coach trusted him and believed that the Oilers’ coach wouldn’t do that or cheat. When he went to his next game the day after, the coach was smiling because he had great and that Caleb had got his bat back. It was then time for them to play the Oilers for a third time and when he was on defense he saw that the Oilers catcher was hitting with a wooden bat and that it was the same brand but black was the color of the bat. When Caleb went on deck, he started to swung his new bat but, he noticed that it was lighter and felt weird. He he went to bat he had heard a soft hit when he fouled the ball off which made him curious and suspicious. When he swung the bat to hit the ball for the second time, he hit the ball but broke the bat. When that happened the umpire immediately threw Caleb out of the game. As they were picking up the pieces of the bat, Caleb looked carefully at the pieces and before the coach could say something, Caleb said that it was not his. Dr. Dennis told the coach that he gave his bat to Davey, the Oilers catcher, and he then ran to the Oilers dugout and took the bat and look for a stamp and there was a stamp made by the slugger factory. Then the coach for the other team kicked Davey out of the game and off the team.

That book was awesome but there are some things that I liked and disliked about the book. Let’s start of with the bad things or the things I disliked. I didn’t like the fact that the grammar was easy and that the book was only 63 pages. I wish that they would let it be a little bit longer because once the book was over, I was a little bit upset because it was such a good book. I liked the fact that they built up the problem and that there was one player on the other team that cheated because this book basically told us to never cheat. My favorite portion of the book is when the catcher got kicked off the team for cheating because that told me to never cheat and if you do, that you will get caught or it will never help you. My least favorite part of the book is when Dr. Dennis sounded mean to the little boy and the coach but the coach said he was a honest man. One connection I can make from this book is that, in the hunger games book, everyone was going after Katniss Everdeen because she was good and in this book it seems that the catcher was just trying to kick Caleb out of the game because he was always the one to do something against Caleb.

Finally, this book was an awesome book and I read another one of his books and it was awesome also. It seems that Jake Maddox is a great author and likes to make most of his books kind of short. In a rating 1-5 I would give it a four and a half out because the text needs some stronger grammar and a little longer text. That is what I think about the book and I am sorry if I spoiled the book for you.