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Zusatztext "a heartfelt story" Informationen zum Autor Mike Lupica is the author of multiple bestselling books for young readers, including the Home Team series, QB 1 , Heat , Travel Team , Million-Dollar Throw , and The Underdogs . He has carved out a niche as the sporting world's finest storyteller. Mike lives in Connecticut with his wife and their four children. When not writing novels, he writes for Daily News (New York) and is an award-winning sports commentator. You can visit Mike Lupica at MikeLupicaBooks.com. Klappentext Can a young baseball star maintain his love of the game after the loss of his brother? Find out in this start to the Home Team series about a small town with high hopes, from New York Times bestselling author and sportswriting legend Mike Lupica.Jack Callahan is the star of his baseball team and seventh grade is supposed to be his year. Undefeated season. Records shattered. Little League World Series. The works. That is, until he up and quits. Jack's best friend Gus can't understand how Jack could leave a game that means more to them than anything else. But Jack is done. It's a year of change. Jack's brother has passed away, and though his family and friends and the whole town of Walton thinks baseball is just the thing he needs to move on, Jack feels it's anything but. In comes Cassie Bennett, star softball player, and the only person who seems to think Jack shouldn't play if he doesn't want to. As Jack and Cassie's friendship deepens, their circle expands to include Teddy, a guy who's been bullied because of his weight. Time spent with these new friends unlocks something within Jack, and with their help and the support of his family and his old friends, Jack discovers sometimes it's more than just the love of the game that keeps us moving forward?and he might just be able to find his way back to The Only Game , after all.The Only Game ONE After what had been the longest year of Jack Callahan’s life, it was baseball season again. It had always been the best season for him. It was like Christmas came in the spring and lasted all the way through summer. It was the first official day of baseball at Highland Park, the real center of town in Walton. The center of town and the center of baseball in the town. They had four Little League fields, all of them looking brand-new, as if the grass had been painted a perfect green and the dirt had been brought here from the big leagues for the batting box and pitcher’s mound and base paths. Even the white numbers set against the dark blue of the outfield walls looked as if they had been painted that morning. From the time he’d been old enough to play Little League, after he’d moved up from T-ball, this field or the one next to it or the two at the other end of Highland Park had felt like Jack’s home away from home. Always, no matter what else was going on, he’d felt happy here, and safe. Safe at home. When they’d arrived at the field, he’d pointed out to his best friend, Gus Morales, how new everything looked, and Gus had said, “Yeah, because the first day of baseball never gets old.” Gus’s family had come to the United States from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic when Gus—full name Gustavo Alberto Morales—was still a baby. Gus had always told Jack that baseball in the Dominican was even more serious than Jack had read or heard. Baseball was like the national religion of Gus’s country, and a really good ball field, like the ball fields at Highland Park, was like church. Gus told stories that his father had told him: stories about being so poor when he was a boy that he’d played ball in abandoned lots or in the street, using broom handles for bats and old milk cartons for gloves. Maybe that was why Gus loved baseba...
