Batter Up! | 36-24-42, READ! | Slam Dunk Books
Race Car Drivers: Start Your Engines!
Little boys love cars and speed. When you combine those two things into one sport, you come up with NASCAR driving! Read all about NASCAR's greatest stars, both past and present, inside!
Batter Up!
All Star! Honus Wagner and the Most Famous Baseball Card Ever
The Honus Wagner baseball card is the most valuable baseball card of all time! But he was born poor, ugly, bow-legged, and more suited to shoveling coal in his Pennsylvania mining town than becoming the greatest shortstop of all time. How could it happen? Did those strong arms and fast legs turn him into a Pittsburgh Pirate and one of the game's most unforgettable players?
It is every baseball kid's dream summer job: batboy for your hometown Major League team. Yet for fourteen year-old Brian, the job means more than just the chance to hang around his idols. Baseball was the job his father loved so much, in the end he couldn't leave it. Yet he could leave his family. Now Brian sees the job as the way to win back his father. There is no winning back some people, though. Just ask Hank Bishop-once the most popular player in baseball before he was banned for using steroids. Now he is making his comeback. And an unlikely friendship slowly develops between this man in need of a family and this boy in need of a father.
Playing shortstop is a way of life for Hutch. Not only is his hero, Derek Jeter, a shortstop, but so was his father, a former local legend turned pro. Which is why having to play second base feels like demotion to second team. Hutch is nothing if not a team player, but with the league championship on the line, just how far is Hutch willing to bend to be a good teammate?
The fate of the Dillontown team rests on the outcome of one baseball game, winner take all. And the fate of the game rests on one mysterious boy, Cruz de la Cruz, who rides into town and claims to know the secrets of Dante Del Gato, Dillontown's greatest hitter ever. Since he walked away from the game years ago, Del Gato hasn't spoken a word to anyone. But now he might be the team's only hope for saving their hometown.
In nine innings, this novel tells the stories of nine successive Schneider kids and their connection to Brooklyn and baseball. As in all family histories and all baseball games, there is glory and heartache, triumph and sacrifice.
Pedro Morales has always been content helping others look great. Pedro wants to make his father proud, and so he runs for class president, yet doing so means going one-on-one against Ned, easily the most popular boy in school. Pedro learns the hard way that being a good teammate doesn't mean that others will return the favor.
The Desperado Who Stole Baseball
For the villagers of Dillontown there is nothing more important than baseball. Home to the Dillontown Nine, they would give anything to join the ranks of professional ballplayers. Yet to make it, they will need to defeat the world champion Chicago White Stockings. Fortunately, they have two boys who know a little something about winning: one is young Jack Dillon and the other is a boy on the run, none other than Billy the Kid.
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch
Leroy Brown, aka Encyclopedia Brown, is Idaville's ten-year-old star detective. With an uncanny knack for trivia, he solves mysteries for the neighborhood kids through his own detective agency. But his dad also happens to be the chief of the Idaville police department, and every night around the dinner table, Encyclopedia helps him solve his most baffling crimes.
Alex Metcalf must be dreaming. What else would explain why heŐs playing baseball for the Oz Cyclones, with Dorothy as his captain, in the Ever After Baseball Tournament ? But Alex isnŐt dreaming. He is in a land where classic literary characters are baseball crazy and people from the real world donŐt exist. The tournament might be his only chance to get backŃchampions get a wish granted by the Wizard.
Newly orphaned after his father led the family's escape from Cuba, Michael's only family is his seventeen-year old brother Carlos. When someone wonders how a twelve-year-old boy could possibly throw with as much power as Michael does, his secret world is blown wide open, and he discovers that family can come from the most unexpected sources.
Babe Ruth is still regarded as perhaps the greatest baseball player ever to step on a diamond. Babe went on to shatter every home-run record on the books—back when fewer games were played in a season and a heavier ball was used!
As a kid, Jackie Robinson was a natural at football, basketball, and of course, baseball. In 1947 Jackie joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the long-time color barrier in major league baseball. Here is an inspiring sports biography, with black-and-white illustrations throughout.
Packed with fun facts and statistics sure to intrigue eager baseball fans, here is a 70th anniversary celebration of two baseball greats, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, and their still unbroken records.
36-24-42, READ!
Comeback Kids: Two Minute Drill
Chris Conlan is the golden-armed quarterback of the football team. Scott Parry is the new kid with the huge brain, but with feet that trip over themselves daily. These two boys may seem like an odd couple, but each has a secret that draws them together as friends, and proves that the will to succeed is even more important than raw talent.
Jim Thorpe, Original All-American
Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. He played professional football and Major League baseball, and won Olympic gold medals in track and field. But his life wasn't always quite so easy...
There's an extraordinary price for victory at Anooka High. An unlikely friendship between Kurt, a talented but emotionally damaged fullback, and Danny, a promising gymnast, is at the heart of an increasingly violent, steriod-inflused power struggle. When the unthinkable happens, they must look to each other for salvation.
Nate Brodie wins the chance to throw a pass through a target at a Patriots game for a million dollars. It's no secret that a million dollars would go a long way, so Nate is feeling A LOT of pressure. And that's right about when his golden arm begins to fail him...
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Marcus and Eddie are best friends. Marcus is black; Eddie is white. Stars of their school basketball team, they are true leaders who look past racial stereotypes and come out on top. But one night, and one wrong decision, will change their lives forever. Will their mistake cost them their friendship and their future?
Pedro Morales has always been content helping others look great. Pedro wants to make his father proud, and so he runs for class president, yet doing so means going one-on-one against Ned, easily the most popular boy in school. Pedro learns the hard way that being a good teammate doesn't mean that others will return the favor.
All Billy Raynor wants to do is shoot. After all, he is one of the best shooters in the league. But with his dad as his coach, and his parents newly separated, somehow everything's become complicated. But when his brother's piano recital falls on the same day as the championship game, it is Billy who teaches his dad the true meaning of being a team player.
There is something evil in the air; Bobby senses it. Bobby knows he should mind his own business, but World War II has just ended and Bobby's world seems to changing all around him. His buddies on the Edenville Owls, the local basketball team, are in need of a leader. Can they help each other off the court as well as on it?
Josh Cameron has it all: a World Championship ring with the Boston Celtics, an MVP award, a clean-cut image, and the adoration of millions. What he doesn't have is family. Until the day 12-year-old Molly Parker confronts him in a parking lot and claims to be his daughter. Josh cares about two things only: himself, and basketball. Yet this isn't just any 12-year-old. Mr. World Champion has finally met his match.
Rucker Park is a place where basketball's greatest pro players go up against street legends. Best friends Mackey and J.R. have waited their whole lives to win the basketball tournament here, but when the day of an important game arrives, J.R. is fatally stabbed. Now Mackey has a score to settle, but the killer is watching his every move.
Leading your travel team to the national championship may seem like a dream come true, but for Danny, being at the top just means the competition tries that much harder to knock him off. Now Danny's heading to Right Way basketball camp for the summer, and he knows that with the country's best players in attendance, he's going to need to take his game up a notch if he wants to match up.
Danny Walker may be the smallest kid on the basketball court, but no one plays with more heart or court sense. None of that matters, however, when he is cut from his local travel team. Danny's father knows Danny isn't the only kid who was cut for the wrong reason, and together they prove that the heart simply cannot be measured.
Will Tyler can fly on a football field. He may not be the biggest running back around, but no one can touch him when it comes to hitting the hole and finding the end zone. And no one can match his love of the game. When Will has a football in hand, he may as well be flying for real because life can't touch him - his dad isn't so defeated, his town isn't so poor, and everyone has something to cheer for. All of which does him no good if the football season is canceled...
