Power Hitter

Travel Team

by M.G. Higgins

Sammy Perez has to make it to the big leagues. After his teammate's career-ending injury, the Roadrunners decided to play in a wood bat tournament to protect their pitchers. And while Sammy used to be a hotheaded, hard-hitting, home-run machine, he's now stuck in the slump of his life. Sammy thinks the wood bats are causing the problem, but his dad suggests that maybe he's not strong enough. Is Sammy willing to break the law and sacrifice his health to get an edge by taking performance-enhancing drugs? Can Sammy break out of his slump in time to get noticed by major-league scouts?

128 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Wilton Smith]

In my book the main character Sammy Perez struggles with the desicion on whether he should take steroids or not. The reason he wants to take steroids is to boost his performance on the feild. From the duration his team entered the wood bat tournament till the end it was quite the emotional rollercoaster. This includes tough prediciments heartbreaks and life changing desicions. Dispite all the ups and downs in the end Sammy Perez made the right choice. This is why overall This is a great book to read. However not evryone would like this book. I would only recommend this book to someone who enjoys baseball or at least understands the concept. Also the main character in this book shows how hardwork and dedication pays off.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sammy Perez is a talented baseball player determined to sign a pro contract and elevate his family to a higher standard of living. His family has sacrificed a great deal to outfit him in his quest and he is playing on the Roadrunners, a team based in Las Vegas that travels to tournaments. Sammy has traditionally been a power hitter, but things have recently changed.
In order to get the players more accustomed to what they will be facing when they become professionals, it has been decided that the Roadrunners will play in a tournament where they will be using wooden bats rather than their usual aluminum. With a smaller hitting surface and a different weight balance, this creates adjustment problems for the hitters, none more so than Sammy.
When the story opens, Sammy is engaged is some serious self-pity, asking why the team cannot stay with aluminum as his hitting is really suffering. This creates problems between him and his teammates and coaches, for Sammy is concerned only with his performance rather than the overall benefit of the team. It is well known that there will be many pro scouts in the crowd during the tournament.
There are threads of the internal dynamics of a team, both in terms of skill level as well as socio-economic status. Unfortunately, the possibility of Sammy using performance enhancing drugs is raised, which is unfortunate, because the option is raised from a source that simply should not have done it.
Yet, the story ends well, for Sammy demonstrates other characteristics that impress the scouts and he does not have to rely on any form of cheating to do so. This makes it an excellent book for young people, pointing out that scouts are looking for character as well as skills. Character cannot be taught, while many of the skills can be developed by proper instruction.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

From April 2012 SLJ:
Gr 6-10:—This hi/lo series focuses on individual members of an elite travel team of 17-and-under baseball players from Las Vegas. In Forced Out, Zack's team gets the funding to play in a New York tournament that will have a lot of major-league-scout representation. However, when a new kid who's mediocre at best—but whose father is a multimillionaire—suddenly joins the team, Zack realizes that the coach might have compromised his standards for the travel money that Dustin's dad is promising. How can Zack support his coach and still be a good friend to the catcher, who is being forced out of his position by Dustin? In Power Hitter, Sammy Perez is one of the team's best hitters. When Coach signs the team up for a wooden-bat tournament, Sammy believes he will never be noticed by an MLB scout—his hits just are not as dramatic with wood—and he sees his dreams of supporting his family slipping away. His father tells him of a performance-enhancing drug that doesn't show up on tests, and Sammy is tempted to try them for that extra edge. Shortstop Trip Costas takes center stage in Out of Control. His father has lived out his baseball dreams through his sons, but Trip is tired of his father directing his life and wants to take a break. Only the wisdom of Coach Harris and others allows him to separate his frustration with his father from his feelings for the game. These authors pack a lot of drama and sports action into about 100 pages. The characters might be just a little too good to be true, but the tone is not didactic, and students will appreciate the real-life issues and ethical dilemmas that the players face.—

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a serious career-ending injury of one of their pitchers, the Roadrunners baseball team are giving up their aluminum bats for wood ones in an upcoming wood-only tournament. Problem is, Sammy Perez had achieved status as a home run power slugger with big-league potential thanks to aluminum. The wood bat doesn't seem to allow him the serious power-hitting the major league scouts are looking for. His father is encouraging him to look into performance-enhancing drugs which leaves Sammy at a crossroads: the question being: does the end really justify the means?

While this book delves into that ethics quandry mentioned above, it is a quick and easy read that will appeal to baseball fans and others (notably middle-school guys) who may fall into the proverbial "reluctant reader" category.

[Jalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is all about a player on a traveling baseball team in L.A that is a very good hitter, but he can only hit far. He is so used to batting with albacore aluminum bats, when there coach decides that they need practice with wooden maple bats, so he entered the team in a wooden tournament. Sammy can not hit with wood because he has no practice he does terrible all tournament long but soon becomes used to it so he is doing a little better. He has anger issues so every time something bad happens he is furious. He learns to hit better with wood and control his anger.

2ND REVIEW.

[Travis Reyhons]

Overall it was a good book. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that it was very predictable. It was obvious what was coming up next and what was going to happen.

[Bpleau · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good