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The Counterfeit Tackle
Identical twins learn to accept the fact that they have different interests and abilities
- GenresSports
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
6 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Matt Christopher
467 books142 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 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 11, 2023
Cute
This a a fun book that I enjoyed. I used to read lots of stories like this when I was a wee one. It was fun to revisit this type of young adult book.
This a a fun book that I enjoyed. I used to read lots of stories like this when I was a wee one. It was fun to revisit this type of young adult book.
March 14, 2018
The Counterfeit Tackle by Matt Christopher is a good book about a group of kids who are all on a football team. They are super close and do everything together. They have their first football game of the season which is pretty exciting. The games are pretty wild. Buzz loves his friend's mom's cookies and eats a ton after football games, but she does something to them that he does not like too much. They all become super close being on the football team and start to see the real bond.
This book was alright. It was most definitely not my favorite. The author I feel like didn't have a lot of football knowledge. He sometimes said stuff that was wrong, but when he was correct he made sure he explained what he was talking about. Which is good for a reader that doesn't know that much about the sport. I can relate to these people because I play football. I love football it is my favorite sport. Also, I have developed a strong relationship with a lot of people from playing the sport. Here and when I lived in California. Sometimes I felt like the book kinda just got super boring and had some unnecessary parts in it. Like when they are in the Football games it just kinda gets boring for me and find myself dozing off then have to go back and reread what I just read. I feel like the author always had it go for the team that we were on. Every time we would score then we pick it off. Like it just got boring a little bit.
I feel like what Matt Christopher was trying to get out of this book is really just things can be hard but we are the ones who chose if we quit or continue to keep on trying. Like they were in their first game they were down and Buzz was like come on guys we can do this we will come back. He had faith in his guys that they would come through and get the dub. Well they did and after the team was like man I didn't think we were going to do it, but they thanked him for giving them that confidence.
This book was alright. It was most definitely not my favorite. The author I feel like didn't have a lot of football knowledge. He sometimes said stuff that was wrong, but when he was correct he made sure he explained what he was talking about. Which is good for a reader that doesn't know that much about the sport. I can relate to these people because I play football. I love football it is my favorite sport. Also, I have developed a strong relationship with a lot of people from playing the sport. Here and when I lived in California. Sometimes I felt like the book kinda just got super boring and had some unnecessary parts in it. Like when they are in the Football games it just kinda gets boring for me and find myself dozing off then have to go back and reread what I just read. I feel like the author always had it go for the team that we were on. Every time we would score then we pick it off. Like it just got boring a little bit.
I feel like what Matt Christopher was trying to get out of this book is really just things can be hard but we are the ones who chose if we quit or continue to keep on trying. Like they were in their first game they were down and Buzz was like come on guys we can do this we will come back. He had faith in his guys that they would come through and get the dub. Well they did and after the team was like man I didn't think we were going to do it, but they thanked him for giving them that confidence.
February 26, 2011
For the record: my kids enjoyed this a lot and lobbied for 4 stars (or even 5!) I can see why other readers would find the book more exciting than I did; but I'm afraid that, not being a football fan, the author's usual shall we say "lovingly detailed" play-by-play descriptions of games were like reading a foreign language for me. The basic plot: when Buzz wants to skip his high school football match to attend a big pro game the same day, he asks his identical twin Corky to play in his place. Despite some close calls, nobody suspects it's really Corky under Buzz's helmet. Corky (whose main hobby is chess before this) enjoys being part of a team even if he has a lot to learn about football. I wasn't convinced by the premise that football players are "friendlier" than other young folk like chess players.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews