Baseball Great

Josh feels like he's starting to make it big! Jaden, the school reporter, says he's going to take the baseball team to number one. Then his dad pulls him off the field and signs him up with Coach Rocky Valentine's youth championship team, the Titans. He says Josh has what it takes to be a baseball great—and the Titans will help him get there.

Now Josh is gulping down Rocky's "Super Stax" milkshakes to build muscle and trying to fit in with his new teammates—older, tougher kids who can suddenly become violent. All Josh really wants to do is play ball, but as he gets in deeper with the Titans, there are questions he's just got to ask. As Josh and his new friend Jaden investigate their suspicions, they find themselves in a dangerous struggle with a desperate man who doesn't want them to expose the nasty secrets they uncover.

Pulsing with action, baseball great offers a baseball story attuned to today's headlines, a totally involving, character-driven, sports-centered thriller.

Publishers Weekly

Green (Football Genius) wades into John Feinstein territory with this fast-paced story about two middle-schoolers who put themselves in peril to probe steroid use on a youth baseball team. Josh LeBlanc's father is a pitcher who never made it to the big leagues. After he's cut from the farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays, he projects his unfulfilled dream on Josh, yanking him from the school baseball squad to play for the Titans, a travel team run by Rocky Valentine, a winning-is-everything caricature who supplements his income by selling milk additives that will reputedly help players bulk up. When Josh is also slipped some "gym candy," he talks over his suspicions with school reporter Jaden, and together they investigate with exciting, if predictable, results. A subplot about a bully who thinks Josh is moving in on his girlfriend adds nothing, and Josh's mother is basically relegated to serving meals. But most kids will not notice, focused instead on the action-heavy, high-testosterone plot that has Josh in near-constant motion. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)

Tim Green has written twelve previous thrillers and the nonfiction New York Times bestseller The Dark Side of the Game. He played eight years in the NFL and is a member of the New York State Bar. Today he is a featured commentator on NPR and Fox Sports. He lives with his wife and five children in upstate New York. For more information about the author, visit his website timgreenbooks.com.