"Lucy's father is a minor league baseball player, a professional pitcher hoping to get called up to the majors, and Lucy inherited his passion for the game. But she's never played pitcher. She worries her skills would be compared to her dad's and she'd never measure up. And his pitching may mean big things for his career and their family, but it's also what keeps him away from home so much of the year. Sometimes, Lucy isn't sure what would be worse:...

"Gene Ionescu, a gay trans man in his third year in the minors with the Beaverton Beavers, is a solid shortstop, but he's no one's idea of a major league prospect. He's just happy to be here, though, getting underpaid six months of the year to play the sport he's loved since childhood--a game that favors underdogs and optimists. He likes to keep his hopes in the day, inning by inning and game by game. But his plans go awry when Luis Estrada--Gene's...

When Luis joins his new baseball team, the Manatees, things seem pretty hopeless at first. Some of his new teammates ... are mean to him or to each other. His new coach doesn't tell the players everything to do like his old coach did. And some of the Manatees seem more interested in goofing off than in sportsmanship or working hard. Then Coach Joe makes Luis team captain. Will Luis rise to the challenge? Can he get the Manatees to balance working...

"At one time Ring Lardner's baseball articles reached millions of readers through hundreds of newspapers throughout America, and admirers of his writing included F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edmond Wilson. He was as familiar to Americans in the 1920s as Charles Lindbergh, Calvin Coolidge, and Babe Ruth. His articles about the players he knew, his World Series coverage, his poems, parodies, and jokes were unlike any other baseball reporting ever written,...