June 1, 2015
Gr 3-6-Cartoon illustrations and well-chosen facts enliven this slim collection of kid-friendly trivia. There are sections on equipment, stadiums, pitching, and hitting, along with interesting historical facts and records. The book highlights Babe Ruth's home run record, along with the detail that "he once missed a bunch of games because of indigestion. He'd eaten a dozen hot dogs and guzzled eight sodas between games." Baseball's rise in global popularity is described; currently, there are 103 players from the Dominican Republic on U.S. teams. Sylvester visually depicts the odds of making it to baseball's major leagues through a bustling double-page illustration of ballplayers-boys and girls-throwing, catching, and hitting baseballs, paired with text that notes that 11 million kids play baseball in North America but that only about 800 will make it to the major leagues. Sylvester also discusses how the cost of new stadiums and player salaries is passed along to the fans in the form of higher ticket prices, relying on a double-page illustration of a fan in 1950 and a modern-day devotee, each loaded down with snacks with labeled prices (a hot dog that once cost 30 cents, for instance, now goes for six dollars). A trivia quiz, with answers, rounds out this book. VERDICT Baseball fans will welcome this relevant, well-done title, and the whimsical graphics will broaden the audience.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA
Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2015
Grades 4-7 Baseball fans love their stats and trivia, and this guide satisfies that craving. It begins with the basics of the sport, from the makeup of a baseball (which includes 1,107 feet of yarn) and the differences in players' gloves to the evolution of bats and the quirkiness of some major league fields. Sylvester also explains how to make sense of pitching and hitting stats. With an emphasis on the math involved in baseball, the numbers continue as the author gives the history of the sport and makes numerous comparisons about past and present baseball facts, such as the height of the pitching mound, the size of players, and players' ever-growing salaries. He also touches upon the increasing diversity in baseballexcept when it comes to womenand dubious stats due to performance-enhancing drugs and cheating. Colorful charts, graphs, and digital illustrations keep the text lively, but it's the wealth of fun facts that will keep readers' attention. A hit for sports enthusiasts and STEM collections alike.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
May 1, 2015
Even confirmed students of the sport will have something to learn from this fannish assemblage of baseball facts and trivia. In no particular order, Sylvester describes different types of bats and gloves, playing-field layout and dimensions, what's inside a baseball, where select foreign-born major leaguers come from, what player salaries have looked like down the years, what tickets and concessions cost in 1950 and today, plus a few records, trends, and feats. Along with players renowned (Babe Ruth) and less so (Mario Mendoza), he also drops names of prominent announcers, umpires, and women in the sport. Nor does he neglect scandals, drug use, home run records with asterisks, or a tally of the foreign substances (including pee) that pitchers have used. Cartoon illustrations mix uniformed figures (some of them recognizable) with easy-to-understand diagrams and infographics. The book bobbles a bit. The author never does get around to the basic rules of play and leaves explanations for some of the items on a sample line of season batting stats (BB, SL, OPS) until a later page. Moreover, though many of his tantalizing facts and anecdotes will leave readers hot to know more, he closes with a mix of review and trivia questions rather than, as he puts it, a "really boring" list of "websites you should go visit, et cetera." Still, as well as a browser's delight, a wide-angled, if fragmentary and heavily pixelated, overview of the sport as it was and is today. (Nonfiction. 8-11)
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