THROWING HEAT
Jack has a sizzling fastball, but does he have what it takes to pitch his team to victory?
Last season, Jack’s could always rely on his fast pitches to strike out his opponents. But now he’s playing in a new league where the distance to the catcher’s mitt is a lot greater, and he can’t get seem to get into the strike zone. Then Finn, a baseball coach at a local college, shows Jack some new pitches and tells him about Steve Dalkowski who never made it out of the minor leagues because he wouldn’t throw other pitches. At first Jack doesn’t listen to the coach’s advice, but with the season on the line, he realizes that Finn was right. Is it too late to change his game plan?
Author Fred Bowen continues his Sports Story series with play-by-play action that’s sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats! An afterword provides the real stories of pitching phenomes Steve Dalkowski and Sandy Koufax and their Major League Baseball careers.
TOUCHDOWN TROUBLE
Sam loves football. Most of all he loves the feeling he gets when his team, the Cowboys, are working together—moving closer and closer to the end zone.
After an important game, Sam’s pride in his football team begins to fade. The Cowboys beat the Giants in the final play with a touchdown by Sam. But later, Sam and his teammates realize that the winning touchdown was scored illegally. Now the team is divided about what to do. It is only when Sam’s father tells the Cowboys about a famous football game—and similar dilemma—that that Sam knows what to do. But will his teammates agree?
Author Fred Bowen continues his Sports Story series with play-by-play action that’s sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats! An afterword tells the real story of the 1940 Cornell-Dartmouth football game, the only college sporting event ever to be decided after the completion of the game.
TRUDY'S BIG SWIM
On the morning of August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle stood in her bathing suit on the beach at Cape Gris-Nez, France, and faced the churning waves of the English Channel. Twenty-one miles across the perilous waterway, the English coastline beckoned. Lyrical text, stunning illustrations and fascinating back matter put the reader right alongside Ederle in her bid to be the first woman to swim the Channel—and contextualizes her record-smashing victory as a defining moment in sports history. Time line, bibliography, source notes.
WHAT WERE THE NEGRO LEAGUES?
This baseball league that was made up of African American players and run by African American owners ushered in the biggest change in the history of baseball.
In America during the early twentieth century, no part was safe from segregation, not even the country’s national pastime, baseball. Despite their exodus from the Major Leagues because of the color of their skin, African American men still found a way to participate in the sport they loved. Author Varian Johnson shines a spotlight on the players, coaches, owners, and teams that dominated the Negro Leagues during the 1930s and 40s. Readers will learn about how phenomenal players like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and of course, Jackie Robinson greatly changed the sport of baseball.
WHO IS DAVID BECKHAM?
Whether you call it football or soccer, there’s no disputing that David Beckham is one of the best players in the history of the game!
Whenever a young David Beckham was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d always answer with the same response: I want to be a footballer. This English native got his wish when he joined the Manchester United team in 1991. Since then, he has been crossing, bending, and free-kicking his way to stardom. In his twenty-year career as a professional soccer player, he has won nineteen major trophies, and appeared at three FIFA World Cup tournaments.
David Beckham has become an international cultural icon for his soccer skills, his charity work, and his fashionable wife and family. Young soccer fans are in for a treat with this Who HQ book.
WHO IS DEREK JETER?
When Derek Jeter was eight years old, he announced that he was going to play baseball for the New York Yankees. Jeter earned the attention of major league scouts in high school and was drafted to the New York Yankees in 1992. Named Rookie of the Year, he helped the Yankees win the World Series five times, and became team captain in 2003. With his good looks, easygoing personality, and sense of humor, Derek has always been a fan favorite. Retiring from baseball in 2014, Derek Jeter leaves behind a legacy.
WHO WAS JESSE OWENS?
At the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, track and field star Jesse Owens ran himself straight into international glory by winning four gold medals. But the life of Jesse Owens is much more than a sports story. Born in rural Alabama under the oppressive Jim Crow laws, Owens’s family suffered many hardships. As a boy he worked several jobs like delivering groceries and working in a shoe repair shop to make ends meet. But Owens defied the odds to become a sensational student athlete, eventually running track for Ohio State. He was chosen to compete in the Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany where Adolf Hitler was promoting the idea of “Aryan superiority.” Owens’s winning streak at the games humiliated Hitler and crushed the myth of racial supremacy once and for all.
WHO WAS KOBE BRYANT?
Told in a new Who HQ NOW format for trending topics, this Who Was? biography details NBA superstar Kobe Bryant’s legendary career and the impact of his legacy on the sports world and beyond.
Kobe Bryant was just an eighteen-year-old high-school basketball player when he decided to enter the National Basketball Association’s draft. Though he was the thirteenth overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets, he would never play a single game for them. Instead, Kobe was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he would spend his entire twenty-season career, winning five championships and numerous awards. Author Ellen Labreque takes readers through each exciting moment, from his iconic dunks to his 81-point game–all the milestones that span Kobe Bryant’s legendary career and legacy.