Alan M. Gratz – författare

1845: Felix Schneider, an immigrant from Germany, cheers the New York Knickerbockers as they play Three-Out, All-Out.

1908: Walter Snider, batboy for the Brooklyn Superbas, arranges a team tryout for a black pitcher by pretending he is Cuban.

1945: Kat Snider of Brooklyn plays for the Grand Rapids Chicks in the All-American Girls Baseball League.

1981: Michael Flint fi nds himself pitching a perfect game during the Little League season at Prospect Park.

And there are fi ve more Schneiders to meet.

In nine innings, this novel tells the stories of nine successive Schneider kids and their connection to Brooklyn and baseball. As in all family histories and all baseball games, there is glory and heartache, triumph and sacrifi ce. And it ain?t over till it?s over.

Denmark, Tennessee, stinks. The smell hits Horatio Wilkes the moment he pulls into town to visit his best friend, Hamilton Prince. And it?s not just the paper plant and the polluted river that?s stinking up Denmark: Hamilton?s father has been poisoned and the killer is still at large. Why? Because nobody believes that Rex Prince was murdered. Nobody except Horatio and Hamilton. Now they need to find the killer, but it won?t be easy. It seems like everyone in Denmark is a suspect. Motive, means, opportunity? they all have them. But who among them has committed murder most foul?

The Wizard of Oz meets America''s favorite pastime! Alex Metcalf must be dreaming. What else would explain why he''s playing baseball for the Oz Cyclones, with Dorothy as his captain, in the Ever After Baseball Tournament? But Alex isn''t dreaming; he''s just from the real world. And winning the tournament might be his only chance to get back there, because the champions get a wish granted by the Wizard. Too bad Ever After''s most notorious criminal, the Big Bad Wolf, is also after the wishes. And anyone who gets in his way gets eaten! From beloved baseball author Alan Gratz comes a novel in which classic literary characters are baseball crazy, and one real-world boy must face his fears and discover the surprising truth about himself.

Tokyo, 1890. Toyo is caught up in the competitive world of boarding school, and must prove himself to make the team in a new sport called besuboru. But he grieves for his uncle, a samurai who sacrificed himself for his beliefs, at a time when most of Japan is eager to shed ancient traditions. It?s only when his father decides to teach him the way of the samurai that Toyo grows to better understand his uncle and father. And to his surprise, the warrior training guides him to excel at baseball, a sport his father despises as yet another modern Western menace. Toyo searches desperately for a way to prove there is a place for his family?s samurai values in modern Japan. Baseball might just be the answer, but will his father ever accept a ?Western? game that stands for everything he despises?