Willie & Me

Baseball Card Adventures #12

by Dan Gutman

With more than 1.5 million books sold, the Baseball Card Adventures series brings the greatest players in history to life. Featuring black-and-white photographs and stats throughout, plus back matter separating fact from fiction, Willie & Me is the perfect mix of history and action for every young baseball fan. Stosh thought he was finished traveling back in time. But then Ralph Branca shows up in his room one night, begging for Stosh's help. In 1951, Branca pitched a ball to Bobby Thomson that would become the "Shot Heard Round the World," a home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants and changed the lives of Branca and Thomson forever. Branca says the Giants were cheating, and he needs Stosh to use his power with baseball cards to go back in time and set things right. Stosh is determined to help, but he quickly learns that you can't change just one little thing in history. If he erases the "Shot Heard Round the World," he may forever alter the life of a young rookie named Willie Mays. With wisdom from all the players he has helped before—plus the surprise return of some familiar faces—Stosh uses his power to travel in time using baseball cards one last time in a fabulous finale to the adventure of a lifetime. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in the English Language Arts

Genres: Sports, Baseball, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Middle Grade

176 pages, Hardcover

First published March 3, 2015

About the author

The author of over 80 books in a little over a decade of writing, Dan Gutman has written on topics from computers to baseball. Beginning his freelance career as a nonfiction author dealing mostly with sports for adults and young readers, Gutman has concentrated on juvenile fiction since 1995. His most popular titles include the time-travel sports book Honus and Me and its sequels, and a clutch of baseball books, including The Green Monster from Left Field. From hopeful and very youthful presidential candidates to stunt men, nothing is off limits in Gutman's fertile imagination. As he noted on his author Web site, since writing his first novel, They Came from Centerfield, in 1994, he has been hooked on fiction. "It was fun to write, kids loved it, and I discovered how incredibly rewarding it is to take a blank page and turn it into a WORLD."

Gutman was born in New York City in 1955, but moved to Newark, New Jersey the following year and spent his youth there.

Reviews

[Dominic]

This is a great book about a kid named Joe Stosh and his journey traviling back in time through baseball cards. I would recommend this book to baseball fanatics and people who just want to know more about baseball. I am not the biggest baseball fan but for me it still was an amazing book and adventure. My favorite part of this book is when Stosh travls to 1941 and gets caught by the New York giants baseball manager.

[Alex Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book because of the detail. Also, the events in the story were very interesting and they really hook you into the book. Like his coach Flip, he later found in the past playing for the Dodgers.
I also like that he has to be careful about what he does and says because he may change history or maybe even somebody else's life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is into baseball and or time travel.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun story of time travel through baseball cards. It’ll bring out the kid in any baseball fan.

[Jordan Alba · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was pretty good but I'm not really into baseball that's why it's not a 5 star but if you like baseball i would recommend

[Tyler º_º · Rating 4 out of 5]

******SPOILERS******* DON'T READ IF YOU HAVN'T READ THIS BOOK!!!


I loved this book, I can't beleive that after all this time of Stosh the time travler he fanaly completed his mission without failing. This book would have been pretty boaring if he just stoped the "Shot hear 'round the world" and then that's it, so I am glad that there was a little side effect of Willy Mays, it mayed the book WAY better. I read every book in the series so it was kind of sad when Flip, a great character, died.

[Cindy Mitchell *Kiss the Book* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gutman, Dan Willie and Me, 157pgs. Harper, 2016. $5.99. Language:G (1 swears, 0 “f”); Mature content: PG; Violence: PG;

Joe Stoshack is a normal 14 year old boy everybody calls “Stosh.” Stosh has friends from the past. Stosh has a weird power, when he sleeps with a baseball card he goes back to the time period that player was in. In this book, a player named Ralph Blanca appears in his room. Ralph asks Santosh to make the famous shot heard around the world never happen, but Thomson the man who hit the ball didn’t want this changed. Stosh reacted by going for himself to watch but then found out the Giants were cheating.

Willie and Me is a great book with a lot of feeling and adventure. I loved this book because of his abilities and I love the ideas and would read it again any day. This author has made me fall in love with this series and I will probably end up reading all of his other books too.

EL - ADVISABLE Student Reviewer AR
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2017...

[Martin Ewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the last book in the series
Joe gets a birthday present a Bobby Thompson and Ralph Branca baseball card .Ralph shows up in joes room begging for joe to stop the shot heard around the world joe plans to help Ralph but then Bobby Thompson comes the next night begging to not stop his home run to win the Pennet. Joe go’s back in time he finds that the giants cheat and try’s to stop them from winning he stops the giants from winning but when he finds out he ruined willie mays life willed played mlb for 1 year and worked at a laundry mat for 19 years and no one knows who he is so joe god back in time to try to fix’s what he did he fix’s it but then flip dies and joe retires from card traveling


😀 after all the book is pretty good and it was a great series .

[David Rough · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my least favorite of the Baseball Card Adventures. I found past baseball players coming into the future without any real explanation rather strange. The plot was weak and did not have much to do with Willie Mayes. I was looking forward to knowing more about Willie as Gutman does such a nice job of weaving fiction together with lots of solid baseball history. It seemed to me that Gutman got away from his normal approach to his storytelling in this series, and I failed to appreciate the deviation. It still had some interesting insights into baseball's "Shot heard round the world."

[Mamiko · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the title says Willie, Willie May plays a very small part of this novel. This is the last volume of this series (yet the first one I read in this series), so the protagonist had learned all the lessons throughout the series and reviewed them with each player (which I hadn't read yet then). This motivated me to go back to the earlier volumes, and since then, I've read several. It's a fun story, especially for children who love baseball (my son being one of them), that also teaches history.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, an enjoyable series. I did some some inconsistencies with the series (those available on Audible+) - for instance Stosh discovered he didn't have to have the exact players card but the year he needed to go to. I am also disappointed that it took to book 12 to have the butterfly effect even mentioned as history had been changed. This story was okay and a bit of a low note for the series especially the ending one.

How did this book find me? It is part of a series I've been reading on Audible+.

[Josh Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last of the Baseball Card Adventure Series (which I have enjoyed for the most part as someone who loves baseball, baseball cards and history). A good retrospective of the "Shot Heard Round the World" with some interesting twists. I think Gutman made a good choice to close the series here -- I think he had gone as far as he could with it. Simple, fun reads, even if by the end of the series it was starting to drag a bit.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This boox was another time travel into baseball with Joe stoshstack. One of my favorite parts was when Joe had to go back in time and save Willie and at the end all the famous baseball players he meet came to him for one last time.

[Esther Keller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never read this series. My son and I really enjoyed it. He loved the twists and turns. I loved the historical bits. So there’s a lot here to enjoy.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book in the series, in my opinion.

[Toby Karren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read and get into. Enjoyed learning about Ralph Branca and Willie Mayes.

[Erica (Cheekymama2) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mason and I read this book together. I enjoyed learning more about baseball and history!

[Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was about how a boy named Joey Stoshack and he could travel through time with baseball cards. There was a man named Ralph he was a pitcher for the Dodger.He wanted stosh to go back in time to change history. So he did he went back to the game to try and stop Bobby Thomson from hitting the shot heard around the world. When he got there he hopped a few fences then went to Leo Dorchers room where he would find where they stole the signs to win the pennant. Stosh found the telescope then he took the glass out of it. Stosh heard the door open so he tried to hide but Leo saw him. Leo grabbed him and put him in a closet. Then Willie Mays walked into the closet and untied stosh. Willie said that he didn't want to have the game end on him. Stosh said that it wouldn't and went back to present day. Stosh looked on the computer and saw that Bobby Thomson did not hit the home run and that the Dodgers beat the Giants to win the pennant. But he also saw that Willie Mays had gone to the plate and struck out. that meant that he didn't go to the hall of fame and didn't play for a lot of years. So he went back in time to change history again. Then he gave Leo a camera so he could cheat. He went back home and saw that the Giant won and that Willie had made it to the hall of fame. Bobby Thomson had hit the shot heard around the world. But Then he had heard that flip his best friend had passed.
This story was a great story. It never got boring and it had a lot of twists. right, when you thought that it couldent get better it got better. This story was a great story and I would read it again

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, I have a confession to make. I have a long-running love for children's serial fiction, aimed at kids roughly between first and fifth grade. It all started when I was six and discovered Ann M. Martin's Baby-Sitters Club Little Sisters books and has only snowballed from there. I only found out about Dan Gutman's Baseball Card Adventures a couple of years ago and have enjoyed every installment, but I always wondered why Willie Mays was not covered when so many lesser-known baseball players are. As Stosh himself says late in the book, even people who don't know anything about baseball know about Willie Mays. He's up there with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson. I thought at first it was because Mays is still alive, while the other greats in the series have all passed away. Now it's clear that Gutman was saving the best for last, because this is the final installment in the Baseball Card Adventures books. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's probably better to end the series on a high note rather than let it go with ghostwriter after ghostwriter until the wheels completely fall off, a la Sweet Valley High and Baby-Sitters Club. On the other, I really, really love this series and recommend it to kids looking for sports fiction all the time, and I'm sad to see it come to a close.

Stosh thought that after his last adventure with Ted Williams, he was done traveling through time... until Ralph Branca, former pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, arrives in his room one night. He claims that the famous "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in the National League playoffs against the Giants (the famous "And the Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" call) was the result of cheating, and wants Stosh to go back in time and prevent the cheating from happening. Given Stosh's track record with changing history, you'd think Branca would know better than to ask this of him. Anyway, Stosh agrees, and this time, he's actually successful! The only trouble is, now Willie Mays, one of the greatest baseball players of all time, is an unknown due to the changes in the game.

This was a great way to end the series, and I especially liked the very last chapter - kind of brought a tear to my eye. I do have to wonder how Gutman was able to use Mays and Branca in the ways he did in this book, given that both men are still alive and there are no acknowledgments given to either player. Neither man is portrayed in a negative light, but it does strike me as odd that he was able to fictionalize to this extent, in a series as well-known as this one is, the lives of people who are still living without any objection.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Willie & Me” by Dan Gutman is a fun imaginative children’s story that presents a lot of baseball history and lore in a fun fashion. The great breezy style that gives a young boy’s perspective on both baseball and life is combined with the fantastical concept of time travel and gives a unique look at the larger-than-life baseball personalities of the past. Certain lesser-known facts are adroitly worked into the story, even as a lesson is provided about the rapidly expanding ripples that can be caused by a single change. I think this is a great way to learn about America’s beloved game, and, although I would have liked to have gotten more in-depth exposure to the great Willie Mays as well as some of the other characters in the story, I enjoyed sharing Stosh’s exciting adventures and scary experiences. Theoretically, this is the last book in the series and there were cameo appearances by the subjects of previous books, but I hope that the author finds more seminal events to chronicle that both educate and entertain.

This addition to the ‘Baseball Card Adventure’ series continues the adventures of Joey (Stosh) Stoshack who uses his time travel talent to experience firsthand baseball’s ‘Shot Heard ‘Round the World’. The fateful interaction between Brooklyn Dodgers’ pitcher Ralph Branca and New York Giants’ hitter Boby Thomson clinched the pennant in 1951. As Stosh discovers, there are multiple famous names in baseball who are affected by this game-changing encounter, including the remarkable Willie Mays, and just because one CAN do something, doesn’t necessarily mean it SHOULD be done.

© Night Owl Reviews

I received a copy of this title in return for an honest review.

[AMY · Rating 4 out of 5]

153 pages. Great time travel story + baseball. I was a bit surprised to see the statement on page 17-18 "You think Bill Gates never bent the rules a little to get ahead? Or Donald Trump? Or that guy who started Facebook, what's his name?" Considering this was probably written before the election process started it might have meant something different then, but could stir up some strong feelings now. The context was Stosh's dad wants him to go back in time and get some baseball cards signed so they will be very valuable in their current time period. His dad was trying to convince Stosh that other people in current times "bend the rules" and he should, too. I wonder if any of the three named know what has been put into a children's book? Hmmmm...This time Stosh travels back to see a game in 1951 when Bobby Thompson hits a ball thrown by Ralph Branca known as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" because it helped the New York Giants win the NL pennant and changed many players lives in the process. He meets several players from both the Dodgers and Giants and has to make a decision whether he will involved when he learns the Giants are cheating. Great moral dilemma and problem solving. I really liked this story. Boys will probably like it more than girls. Good, fast moving plot. Highly recommended for Gr. 4-5.

[Kate Schwarz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good Baseball Card Adventure Series book--and the last one. This book is definitely best appreciated if you've read all or most of the other books in the series, as the ball players Stosh visits in the other 8-ish books visit him and remind him of the lessons they taught him in the final chapter. It's still good if it's the first one you pick up, but better if it's not.

I was fascinated that the Giants cheating scandal took 40 years to uncover the fact that the Giants stole signs from the Dodgers in order to predict which pitch was coming. Stosh stumbles along them carrying it out, and a nervous rookie Willie May stumbles across Stosh when he's being punished for catching the Giant higher-ups. It's an interesting, funny little what-if (fiction) story that Gutman creates regarding Willie Mays, but I like it a lot. I like it because the kids reading it are very much rookies--they're even pre-rookies!--so they are filled with nerves and jitters and straight-up fear like Mays was (as he writes in his autobiography as well) but Mays and hopefully some of our rookies will get over their nerves and have the guts to step up to the plate, whatever plate they choose in life.

[Nick McCarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book there are three main characters: Stosh, Flip, and Willie Mays. Stosh is a small town boy from Louisville that loves baseball. He also is known for his special power that allows him to travel back in time with baseball cards. Throughout this book series he has meet many famous big leaguer and in his final adventure he meets the late great Willie Mays. Willie Mays is one of the fastest baseball players ever and Stosh is interested by his skills. Also while he's back in time Stosh is left at a crossroads and doesn't know if he should alter history or not. Thankfully he does but he does get to meet many great players. Two things that I like about this book are that it deals with baseball. Who doesn't love America's past time. Another thing that I like is he gets to meet some really cool players that died long ago so it helps you understand the history of baseball itself. One thing that I didn't like was that he travels back in time with magical powers, but there also wouldn't be a book if he couldn't do that so I understand. I would suggest this book to anyone looking for a great read and people who love baseball.

[Kylee Copeland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was called Willie and Me by Dan Gutman. It was about a boy named Joe who can travel back in time using baseball cards. Every single book in this series he travels back in time to change something in baseball history. This time he goes back to 1951 to prevent the "Shot Heard Round the World" from happening. Joe faces many obstacles in this book like, getting tied up to a chair in the baseball clubhouse by the other teams manager, or getting chased by a police officer in 1951. This book is fiction because time travel isn't possible and none of the characters are real. I rated this book a 5 out of 5 stars because I could visualize the whole story in my head.

[Yapha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This final book in Gutman's Baseball Card Adventure series takes Stosh on a final journey to the past and lets him look over all his done as well as ties the series into a neat package. When Stosh gets both the pitcher and batter baseball cards from "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" in the race for the pennant in 1951, he decides to take a trip back in time to see it for himself. Unsure of if and/or how he should interfere, he learns more about the Butterfly Effect -- that minor changes to history can have major consequences in the present. This book will make the most sense to those who have read the rest of the series. For baseball enthusiasts, grades 3-6.

[Jacob Blanck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished all the Baseball Card Adventures!

At about more than three stars, this book was a good book to end this series. Another homer in this one but there we're some rumors about the famous home run call (or so!) and a little much to be worried about Joe Stoshack' s friend, Flip who owned a baseball card shop in Louisville. If you have read the other books from this series (especially Babe & Me), I suggest you reading this after you finish all the other.

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad to see this wonderful series come to an end. I started reading the series with my son when he was younger and we loved it because it brought baseball history to life. Thank you to Dan Gutman for such a wonderful set of books!!

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

I have read all the books in the series and all of them were great. From these books I have learned a lot more about baseball history, and Stosh.

[Alex Fritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an amazing finish to the series.

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favs. Great closing to end the series.

[Dante]

short book and great story