SATCH AND ME

Stosh is back in a new time-travel baseball adventure. This time, his vintage baseball cards carry him and his elderly friend Flip Valentini to 1942 to use a radar gun to determine if Satchel Paige really threw the wickedest, speediest fastball in baseball history. They meet up with Satch on the way to the Negro League World Series. As they travel, they enjoy Satch’s eccentricities and unique personality, as well as the camaraderie and competitive spirit among the enormously talented ballplayers. But they are also witness to the humiliation, pain and hopelessness of segregation. The trip also results in a life-changing alteration of Flip’s personal history. Stosh is a terrific narrator, a thoroughly modern kid who understands that the past has much to teach us. Gutman has again crafted a delightful mix of humor, magic and history surrounded by the sheer joy of baseball. (Fiction. 8-12)