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The Batboy |  | Author: Mike Lupica
Publisher: Philomel
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $7.20
as of 9/6/2010 21:05 CDT details
You Save: $10.79 (60%)
New (36) Used (18) from $7.20
Seller: READERS
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 34061
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Pages: 247
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 039925000X
EAN: 9780399250002
ASIN: 039925000X
Publication Date: March 9, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
It is every baseball kids 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 couldnt 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 Bishoponce 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. Mike Lupica, king of the sports novel, delivers his most powerful and kid-friendly to date.
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| Customer Reviews:
Dream summer job provides a new start for more than the Batboy August 13, 2010
Nadine M. White
Mike Lupica's book Batboy focuses on baseball and family. Both Brian and his mom are working through Brian's father's abrupt departure for Japanese baseball and a divorce. Brian snags a dream job as the Detroit Tiger's batboy for the summer, and also is playing his regular school league team - more than enough to take his mind off these events. Then Brian's idol, Hank Bishop, gets re-signed to the Tigers team, slightly shy of his 500th home run. He is in career repair mode from a steroids use charge and a hinted at divorce. Both, though they do not realize it, have entered recovery.
Both Brian and Hank can't seem to get to first base communicating at work. Both have serious mid-summer slumps to contend with. Hank, in fact is nearing dismissal from the team.
Figuring his batting slump is due to not being able to practice for his league play, Brian and his fellow batboy Finn stay after a game, and hit ball after ball in the batting cage to find out what his swing needs. Out of the dark, Hank Bishop shows up, unasked for, but with freely given advice and suggestions that by the end of practice look to be connecting Brian's swing with the ball. Out in the parking lot, Hank meets Brian's Mom and gets invited to dinner. Brian notices for the first time in a long time, his Mom is interested in baseball or is it in Hank?
In a nice move to fix Hank's slump, Lupica makes great use of all the DVDs and sports footage ever stared at by any baseball fan or player anywhere. Brian, in the midst of viewing Hank's old games spots a critical change in Hank's batting stance. Hank brushes off Brian's efforts to communicate, until Brian finally blurts out what he saw. Hank, man enough to recognize a fan can spot something useful, views the footage after dinner and stays to look at more games and more games and more games with his biggest fan.
The rush toward the end of the season is given in fine detail and includes a visit from Brian's Dad. When his Dad focuses on baseball business matters and ignores being with his son, Brian comes to understand the difference between his Dad and Hank - one truly is focused only on the game. Hank, Brian's new friend and his Mom's new date, relates to both the game and the people who play it and knows why both are important. The final games are a nice "I am moving on and it is OK now" ending for Brian, Hank and his mother.
Game descriptions: Very Good - a real sense of being there - particularly showing how many variables actually contribute to a good or bad game.
Grade level appeal: 3rd grade on up, but especially for those in middle school sports
Read Aloud/Read and Share: Excellent for parents to share both sports and personal talk in the course of reading about the game.
Reading Skills: Great for extra reading practice.
The Batboy: What a book! August 9, 2010
James Cole (Cincinnati, OH)
Thjs book always kept you on your toes. You could guess what would happen, but there was still so much tension in the air. I also like how they built Hank's character. I was hoping for a different ending. Hank and Liz would marry and Brian's dad would be his hero.
THE BATBOY is sure to appeal to any reader who loves baseball June 14, 2010
Kidsreads.com (New York, NY)
Brian Dudley has every baseball kid's summer dream job: he is batboy for his hometown's major league team, the Detroit Tigers. Even more exciting, his hero, Hank Bishop, is returning to the sport after a 50-game suspension to play for the Tigers. This could be the year Bishop hits his 500th home run --- the elusive goal for all hitters that almost guarantees a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame --- and Brian will be on the field to see it. But Bishop seems to dislike Brian from the very start. Will Bishop be able to make a comeback after the steroids scandal that nearly ended his career?
THE BATBOY deals with one of the most difficult subjects to hit major league baseball in recent years: whether it is possible to redeem a player both suspected of and suspended for steroid use. What connects a contemporary hitter like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez to Hank Aaron, one of baseball's all-time home run champions? The statistic --- or, as author Mike Lupica puts it, "the numbers that not only held the sport together, but connected one season to another, one era to another." Many fans feel that the recent drug scandals have forever marred those statistics, making for comparisons that measure not the players' talent but the substances they used to assist it. Lupica slyly slips in trivia about the use of tobacco and amphetamines in the past; one of Brian's duties as batboy is to make highly caffeinated coffee, which many of the players use to give themselves focus and speed on the field.
But Lupica's question here goes far beyond the ethics of performance-enhancing drugs. In a recent interview about the book on "Good Morning America," he said, "It takes no talent to get knocked down, it's how you get back up that's a measure of your character, your spirit and your heart." Brian is a competent baseball player --- he plays on his league's summer all-star team --- but he isn't a major league talent. His true mark of character is his passion for baseball, his willingness to work hard, and his unwavering belief in Hank Bishop, even when Bishop is mean or in a long hitting slump.
Brian has troubles of his own, including a father who previously pitched in the majors but could never seem to love his family as much as he did baseball. Brian's loyalty to the game is in part an attempt to remain connected with his father, who blazes through town as a talent scout, but doesn't take the time to stay or watch him play. Brian describes his father as someone who "still seemed to think that a high-five was the same as a hug, no matter how long it had been since you'd seen your son." He is desperately in need of a hero, and though he doesn't know it yet, Bishop is desperately in need of someone who still thinks he can be one.
With its insider lingo and the ultimate dream of every young fan --- getting to work alongside one's favorite team --- THE BATBOY is sure to appeal to any reader who loves baseball. Lupica describes all the scuttle work batboys are supposed to do --- keeping the equipment ready, stocking snacks, shining shoes, cleaning up after the team, even running errands for some of the players --- reminding us that this is an actual job. It is these kinds of details, along with his careful pacing and the slow, almost painful way the two main characters come to respect and understand one another, that make THE BATBOY more than just a sports fantasy.
This is what they mean when they say that a sport builds character: it can provide us with the playing field upon which people can relate to one another, a place to explore the redemptive and restorative aspects of the human heart.
THE BATBOY is sure to appeal to any reader who loves baseball June 10, 2010
Teenreads.com (New York, NY)
Brian Dudley has every baseball kid's summer dream job: he is batboy for his hometown's major league team, the Detroit Tigers. Even more exciting, his hero, Hank Bishop, is returning to the sport after a 50-game suspension to play for the Tigers. This could be the year Bishop hits his 500th home run --- the elusive goal for all hitters that almost guarantees a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame --- and Brian will be on the field to see it. But Bishop seems to dislike Brian from the very start. Will Bishop be able to make a comeback after the steroids scandal that nearly ended his career?
THE BATBOY deals with one of the most difficult subjects to hit major league baseball in recent years: whether it is possible to redeem a player both suspected of and suspended for steroid use. What connects a contemporary hitter like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez to Hank Aaron, one of baseball's all-time home run champions? The statistic --- or, as author Mike Lupica puts it, "the numbers that not only held the sport together, but connected one season to another, one era to another." Many fans feel that the recent drug scandals have forever marred those statistics, making for comparisons that measure not the players' talent but the substances they used to assist it. Lupica slyly slips in trivia about the use of tobacco and amphetamines in the past; one of Brian's duties as batboy is to make highly caffeinated coffee, which many of the players use to give themselves focus and speed on the field.
But Lupica's question here goes far beyond the ethics of performance-enhancing drugs. In a recent interview about the book on "Good Morning America," he said, "It takes no talent to get knocked down, it's how you get back up that's a measure of your character, your spirit and your heart." Brian is a competent baseball player --- he plays on his league's summer all-star team --- but he isn't a major league talent. His true mark of character is his passion for baseball, his willingness to work hard, and his unwavering belief in Hank Bishop, even when Bishop is mean or in a long hitting slump.
Brian has troubles of his own, including a father who previously pitched in the majors but could never seem to love his family as much as he did baseball. Brian's loyalty to the game is in part an attempt to remain connected with his father, who blazes through town as a talent scout, but doesn't take the time to stay or watch him play. Brian describes his father as someone who "still seemed to think that a high-five was the same as a hug, no matter how long it had been since you'd seen your son." He is desperately in need of a hero, and though he doesn't know it yet, Bishop is desperately in need of someone who still thinks he can be one.
With its insider lingo and the ultimate dream of every young fan --- getting to work alongside one's favorite team --- THE BATBOY is sure to appeal to any reader who loves baseball. Lupica describes all the scuttle work batboys are supposed to do --- keeping the equipment ready, stocking snacks, shining shoes, cleaning up after the team, even running errands for some of the players --- reminding us that this is an actual job. It is these kinds of details, along with his careful pacing and the slow, almost painful way the two main characters come to respect and understand one another, that make THE BATBOY more than just a sports fantasy.
This is what they mean when they say that a sport builds character: it can provide us with the playing field upon which people can relate to one another, a place to explore the redemptive and restorative aspects of the human heart.
This Bat Boy Knows his Stuff! April 2, 2010
G. Glover (Albuquerque)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
The Batboy by Mike Lupica was written in 2010 about a 14 year old boy who is the son of a former major league baseball player. The main character is also the bat boy for the Detroit Tigers.
This is a youth book which is geared toward 10 years of age and up. I am a grandpa myself and loved this book and will save it for my own grandsons who will undoubtedly enjoy reading this and others written by Lupica in just a couple of years.
The bat boy deals with the problems of idolizing his father as well as other star athletes, but understands that these idols can be entirely different when they are not at the center of attention while in their own element. Throughout the story, Brian, learns about current problems in professional sports such as steroids, role models or not, as well as the love of the game of baseball.
He too is a baseball player on his town team while also holding down a full time job as batboy of the Tigers. He juggles both responsibilities to the best of his abilities, keeps his grades up in school, responds to his single mother like he knows he should, and hopes for a happy ending to this years' baseball season. Will the aging star of the Tigers get his 500th homerun of the season? Will his town team make it into the State Championship Series?
You've got to read this book to find the answers!
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