Doc Altenheimer owned a piece of land on the edge of Dillontown in the foothills near San Diego California. At it's biggest, Dillontown had been a town of 5,000. Now it was a sleepy burb of only 500 people.
Recently a developer had offered the doc a lot of money to buy his land and turn it into a development with new homes a nice park, and a golf course. Ol' Doc Altenheimer had lived in Dillontown most of his life and he thought that selling the land and building new houses may be just what the town needed to prosper again. But not everyone in town felt the same way.
Some folks wanted the developer to go look for land somewhere else. That's the way Tom felt too. Tom Gallagher had lived in Dillontown all 12 and a half years of his life. Every Sunday he would visit Doc in the morning and read him the Major League box scores in the newspaper and the two would talk baseball.
Baseball was important in Dillontown. Lucky Strike Park was an old baseball field on Doc's property that had been there for over 100 years. The park was leased to the city for a dollar a year and the whole community had watched their kids playing here since the early 1900's. One of those kids was Dante Del Gato, a major league legend who had played here before becoming a hitting phenom for the San Diego Padres.
Tom wanted Doc to change his mind but he didn't quite know how to say so. He had written a speech to let the old man know how he felt but when he heard Doc talk about his plans, Tom didn't have the heart to say anything, or so he thought.
That evening at the town meeting, Doc announced his plans but it wasn't what anybody expected. He said he wanted to settle what would happen to his land in a baseball game. Tom and his Wildcats would play the Lakeview Vikings from down the hill. If the Dillontown Wildcats won, he wouldn't sell. If they lost, the developer got the land. It seems that during their morning conversation, Tom had said that his rag-tag Wildcats could beat the all-star Vikings and that statement had given old man Altenheimer the idea.
Tom loved the game of baseball and he liked to swap stories with Doc but he wasn't much of a player. He was the guy you picked last in baseball and he knew it. How had he become the center of a baseball game he and his friends were almost sure to lose? The fate of Lucky Strike Park and a six million dollar land deal were now in the hands of a group of twelve year olds and Tom couldn't see any way they could possibly win.
Then the stranger rode in from the east.
What Do I Think?
Once upon a time I loved the game of baseball as much as Tom does -which is a lot- and once upon a time I played about as well as Tom does -which isn't very well. Then I found a bunch of guys who played baseball every day after school and I accidentally discovered a secret to getting much better at baseball. It's the same one talked about in the Boy Who Saved Baseball. What's the secret? Accurate repetition. Does it sound boring? It isn't, especially the way author John H. Ritter explains it. The practice drills the coaches use in the book are fun for the Wildcats and they sound like they would be fun in real life too.
Is this just a book about how to play baseball? No way. The Boy Who Saved Baseball Is a big story about kids who decide to accept a huge challenge with a very short time to get it right. The stakes are really high and losing doesn't just mean you let down your team, losing changes your community forever. It's a great big story about friendships, fighting for something you believe in, respecting nature, facing your fears, the power of community, the magic of summer nights, faith, horses, betrayal, redemption, tolerance, crushes, stargazing, winning and losing, death, good carne asada and the educational value of video games.
There are two John H. Ritters that write this book. The practical John H. Ritter writes a straight ahead story about a scrappy group of kids taking on a tough challenge. The magical Ritter wraps heavy prose and metaphor around the practical story creating a sense of mystery. The practical Ritter takes the middle of the summer days to teach you baseball fundamentals, the magical one uses the early morning to reflect on the past, and the evenings to discuss future possibilities. One talks about bat speed versus bat size, the other talks of 100 year old prophesies and spirit dreams. Fortunately for readers, both of them tell a good story.
You can tell Mr. Ritter loves baseball. His passion and understanding of the game infuses the pages and his descriptions of the final game is like World Series play-by-play. Like every short book with a big cast, some of the kids on the team don't get much to say, but Ritter still manages to give each a distinct personality. Tom and the Wildcats are likable kids easy to root for. While the villains are cliched, the rest of the adult cast is well rounded with a few surprising secrets and mysteries.
I love this book and it's funky vibe. I first read The Boy Who Saved Baseball a few years ago and rereading it for this review hasn't changed my opinion. If Rod Serling had written middle grade baseball fiction, I think it would have felt something like this, a great underdog story with supernatural elements. If you love baseball, give this one a tryout.
John H. Ritter's website.
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