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At the Plate With ... Ichiro
After playing the sport he loved in his home country of Japan for 17 years, Ichiro left in 2000 and joined the Seattle Mariners. Would Ichiro succeed in the world's most challenging baseball league? Includes black-and-white photos and players' statistics.
125 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2003
About the author
Matt Christopher
470 books144 followersMatt Christopher is the writer young readers turn to when they're looking for fast-paced, action-packed sports novels. He is the best-selling author of more than one hundred sports books for young readers.
Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.
"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.
Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.
After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.
I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.
Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.
I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.
Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."
Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.
Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.
"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.
Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.
After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.
I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.
Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.
I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.
Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."
Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 1, 2014
Page:112
Bibliographical Info:
Stout, Glenn, and Matt Christopher. At the Plate With-- Ichiro.
Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. Print.
This is an account of Ichiro Suzuki's career. As a baseball fan, I enjoyed his story as well as the information provided. It starts with Ichiro's career in Japan. He was a well known player. He was too well known. People followed him into the bathroom. He was just tired of it. Ichiro was an all around player. He played pitcher, outfield, and he hit well. He decided to test his skill in the U.S.A, a place where no one knew him. In his American beginning, he had a rough start, intentionally. He hit predictable short balls and some thought maybe the American players pitched too fast for him. Lies. It was the preseason. He took it easy. He had a meeting with the coach where he almost got kicked off the time. Ichiro told him that if he wanted him to play well, he would. In the next game he was on fire.He did everything right. His seasons lead him to the all-star team. Where he conducted a perfect throw. A very hard, long, accurate throw to third base to get a vital out. Ichiro was one of the first Japanese players to really show they could make it in America.
This book gave a lot of useful information. I read a lot of things that would have been difficult to find normally online. I found personal facts about Ichiro as well as a general history on Japanese baseball and some other well known Japanese players who went to the U.S.A. It is an easy read and it is easy to digest the information. It is simple and enjoyable. It is more for baseball fans but even if you are a fan of the Japanese, it is still a good read. I recommend it.
Bibliographical Info:
Stout, Glenn, and Matt Christopher. At the Plate With-- Ichiro.
Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. Print.
This is an account of Ichiro Suzuki's career. As a baseball fan, I enjoyed his story as well as the information provided. It starts with Ichiro's career in Japan. He was a well known player. He was too well known. People followed him into the bathroom. He was just tired of it. Ichiro was an all around player. He played pitcher, outfield, and he hit well. He decided to test his skill in the U.S.A, a place where no one knew him. In his American beginning, he had a rough start, intentionally. He hit predictable short balls and some thought maybe the American players pitched too fast for him. Lies. It was the preseason. He took it easy. He had a meeting with the coach where he almost got kicked off the time. Ichiro told him that if he wanted him to play well, he would. In the next game he was on fire.He did everything right. His seasons lead him to the all-star team. Where he conducted a perfect throw. A very hard, long, accurate throw to third base to get a vital out. Ichiro was one of the first Japanese players to really show they could make it in America.
This book gave a lot of useful information. I read a lot of things that would have been difficult to find normally online. I found personal facts about Ichiro as well as a general history on Japanese baseball and some other well known Japanese players who went to the U.S.A. It is an easy read and it is easy to digest the information. It is simple and enjoyable. It is more for baseball fans but even if you are a fan of the Japanese, it is still a good read. I recommend it.
March 20, 2020
Great content -- read it to my son and he loved it. Add the story of his all-star game speech and he will become your all-time favorite baseball personality.
January 2, 2023
he's going to have to update this, since he retired in 2019.
November 3, 2010
First, I look for the athlete's book and when I keep looking the shelf of the library, I found one baseball player and that was Ichiro! who is Japanese most famous baseball player. So I find this book really interesting. This was really a basic information about him. But this book really written well about Ichiro. The Ichiro from the age of kids to now. Reading this book, I found out what do Ichiro did to be a star baseball player and some difficulty being a star and also going to the major league and play.Also this book contains his characteristic and he hates to be famous which is funny. However he is the one of the coolest person in the world.
August 19, 2014
My dad would be very proud of Alice picking this chapter book about a Japanese baseball player from the library. He loved sports series books and collected the Chip Hilton books. Alice liked the pictures, but only made it through the first chapter as a read-aloud book, too encyclopedic without enough narrative :)
February 3, 2009
great player loved the book
February 13, 2010
This is all about Ichiro's career, from his time in Japan until a few years in the US.
May 18, 2017
I had to a project on this book and I'm glad I did I enjoyed learning about Ichiro
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews