Charles Albert Bender invented the slider. He was a World Series-winning pitcher and the first Minnesotan inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He grew up poor on a farm where he worked in the fields. He lived far away from his home and family while attending an Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania. Charles Albert Bender worked hard all his life and defined his success by the amount of effort he put into something. His story is a Minnesota Native American life.
Baseball
This Train is Being Held
Told in two voices, ballet dancer and private school student Isabelle Warren and poet and baseball star Alex Rosario grow closer after meeting on a subway, bonding over their parents’ expectations and their own dreams.
There’s No Base Like Home
Sophia Garcia, thirteen, wants to excel at softball like her older sister, Ellie, and make her family proud, but when she is chosen for a different team and position than Ellie, she must learn to succeed by being herself.
Step Up To The Plate, Maria Singh
Nine-year-old Maria Singh learns to play softball just like her heroes in the All-American Girls’ League, while her parents and neighbors are struggling through World War II, working for India’s independence, and trying to stay on their farmland.
Growing Up Pedro
Before Pedro Martínez pitched the Red Sox to a World Series championship, before he was named to the All-Star team eight times, before he won the Cy Young three times, he was a kid from a place called Manoguayabo in the Dominican Republic. Pedro loved baseball more than anything, and his older brother Ramon was the best pitcher he’d ever seen. He’d dream of the day he and his brother could play together in the major leagues, and here, Matt Tavares tells the story of how that dream came true.
Béisbol!
Presents profiles of fourteen Latino baseball players who, from 1900 through the 1960s, were pioneers of the sport in their home countries and the United States.
Mr. Zinger’s Hat
When Mr. Zinger’s hat flies in and interrupts Leo’s playing, the two of them construct a story as to how exactly the hat took off.
Keeping Score
In Brooklyn in 1951, a die-hard Giants fan teaches nine-year-old Maggie, who is a “Bums” (Dodgers) fan, how to keep score which creates a special friendship between them.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 3.
Take Me Out to the Yakyu
A little boy’s grandfathers, one in America and one in Japan, teach him about baseball and its rich, varying cultural traditions.
Out In Left Field
Eleven-year-old Donald thinks nothing could be worse than missing a pop fly in a baseball game that most of his Montana town was watching, but through the end of 1947 and beginning of 1948, he suffers one humiliation after another.