
Striking Out
Mass Market
HarperCollins · Paperback · April 20, 1995
Up until now, Billy Baggs's life has been loaded with nevers.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Readers interested in a teenager balancing baseball ambitions with family farm duties
- Themes
- Family duty versus personal ambition, Grief and survivor guilt, Daily life on a small dairy farm
- Genres
- Baseball & Softball, YA Stories About Boys & Men
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genre: Baseball & Softball.
High HeatCarl Deuker71% match
Curveball: the Year I Lost My GripJordan Sonnenblick66% match
Golden ArmCarl Deuker66% match
Painting the BlackCarl Deuker62% match
Game ChangeJoseph Monninger62% matchAlso shares YA Stories About Boys & Men
Mexican WhiteboyMatt de la Peña61% match
Meet Me Under the LightsCassie Miller61% match
The GiftBob Moseley61% match
For younger readers: The Batboy, Travel Team, Heat
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
Up until now, Billy Baggs's life has been loaded with nevers. Never been to a movie. Never played baseball with a real team. Never got over feeling guilty for the loss of his brother. But change is in the air. Billy discovers he has a natural talent for baseball, especially as a pitcher. Maybe, just maybe, there's more in store for him than life on the farm. But can Billy convince his father of that? Or is he destined to spend the rest of his life pitching nothing but hay?
Continue reading
Teenager Billy Baggs is desperately needed on his family's struggling dairy farm, but he's also an extraordinarily gifted natural baseball player. How he struggles to reconcile his father's desire to keep him on the farm with his coach's interest in getting him on the field is at the heart of this ‘meaty story.… The complex characters grow and change in profoundly real ways.''K. ‘[With] flashes of humor, a wealth of lovingly recounted details evokes the difficult daily life on a small dairy farm.''Publishers Weekly. 1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) 1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library) 1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)
Where it sits
| Baseball & Softball | 100% |
|---|---|
| YA Stories About Boys & Men | 53% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Parent-Child Stories
- Stepfamily Stories
- Baseball & Softball
- Basketball Stories
Show all 8 publisher categories
- Football Stories
- Water Sports
- Horse Stories
- Friendship
- Authors
- Will Weaver
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- April 20, 1995
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- Family duty versus personal ambition · Grief and survivor guilt · Daily life on a small dairy farm
- Reading lane
- Parent-Child Stories