"[A] wildly entertaining yarn...
The story lopes along on the strength of its delightful and articulately brusque dialogue and Jack's far-fetched innovations (his 'convolutionary secrets' include the hit-and-run and suicide squeeze plays)...A good child's-eye introduction to baseball's segregated past." —Booklist
"The Desperado Who Stole Baseball has it all—rich baseball lore, a rollicking Western adventure, and storytelling gold.
A terrific book." —Mike Lupica,
author of Heat and The Big Field
|
A 2010 Booklist "Top 10 Sports Books for Youth" selection
A 2009 Junior Library Guild
selection
|
In the very big inning...
The gruff-and-tumble founders of Dillontown, California, were a scrappy bunch. From fistfighting misfits and cattle rustlers to gold-digging drunkards and cardsharp
hustlers. And that's just the women.
The men were all that, plus they smelled bad.
(excerpt from The Desperado Who Stole Baseball) |
This is the magical book that reveals the secret behind Dillontown and Cruz de la Cruz.
• Who is Cruz? Where did he come from?
• What does outlaw Billy the Kid have to do with all of this?
• How did a runaway slave shape Cruz's thinking and the values of a whole town?
• Who was the man behind the ban that kept African Americans out of baseball?
Order The Desperado Who Stole Baseball here.
(The paperback edition includes some special features like the final scoresheet
for the Chicago White Stockings vs. the Dillontown 9, as well as lit circle discussion questions.)
Order audio books from Recorded Books here. |
