Odd Ball: Hilarious, Unusual, & Bizarre Baseball Moments

by Timothy Tocher, Stacy Curtis (Illustrator)

Adjust your helmet and step up to the plate to meet some of the oddest players, fans, managers, and mascots of America’s favorite pastime—all told through comic strips! Some of the moments in these stories are silly, while others are surprising, funny, or maybe even a little gruesome. Each captures a real moment that helped to make baseball the fascinating sport it is today. Batter up!

Genres: Nonfiction, Sports

64 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2011

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was indeed odd.

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice combination of text and graphic novel. The book describes very unusual baseball players (example: a guy with 6 fingers on each hand and 6 toes on each foot, another guy with only one hand) as well offbeat things that have happened in baseball games (the ball hitting a flying seagull and bouncing off it, thereby causing the guy trying to catch the ball to miss). A lot of the situations are funny and the drawings emphasize the humor. This is going to be a good book for readers at a late 3rd grade level or higher and will be good for kids who are reluctant readers. Should appeal to both boys and girls.

[Terry]

We were shocked when our 9-year-old picked out this book, and even more amazed that she stuck with it since she knew nothing about the sport. We also read the book and found it filled with fun, information. The combo text/graphic novel style will appeal to readers of all skill levels. Young readers probably won't even notice that there is more text in the boxes than on the other pages.

To read our full review, go to the Reading Tub.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cute little book, told in the form of single-page comics for each story, is great for both kids and adults who want to learn about some of the goofy things that have happened in the game of baseball. There are also some legitimately moving moments portrayed, such as the baseball careers of Jim Abbott and Bert Shepard, but the emphasis of the book is on humorous events, even though some of them were physically painful at the time. The stories range from humorous abuse of rules to mascots running wild.
Even if you're not a huge fan of baseball, the book is a funny study of human nature.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty interesting, fun facts. However, I felt that everyone looked white.

There's even a Barack Obama bobblehead in this and I can't tell that he's African American. What really made me realize this was when they were retelling a story that happened in 2009 (recent enough for me to know the players) involving Shin-Soo Choo and Coco Crisp. I understand that it's a B&W drawing and you don't want extreme racial caricatures, but I think they could have done a better job with shading or something.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool chapter book, where the chapters are labeled as separate "innings." Some very fun facts and trivia about baseball with some black and white comic illustrations to accompany.