Southpaw

Winning Season #6

by Rich Wallace

Jimmy Fleming throws left, bats right and left, and is hoping to become Hudson City’s newest pitcher. But while he makes the team, things don’t go just the way he’d hoped. His teammates aren’t too welcoming, and his time on the mound is less than stellar. It doesn’t help that his dad is applying more and more pressure on him to be a star pitcher. Before long, Jimmy is wishing he’d never come to Hudson City. But Jimmy isn’t one to give up, and just when the season hits a low point, Jimmy’s pitches—and his attitude—begin to find their mark.

Genres: Sports, Realistic Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Davidv42 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a really good book with a lot of baseball and I would reccomend it to anyone that likes sports or a fun ending.

[Nicholas Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read “Southpaw” by Rich Wallace. The book is about a baseball player and his dad that moves from Philadelphia to a new city, Hudson City. The boy’s name is Jimmy. Jimmy lived with both his parents in a small town in Pennsylvania where he had made a lot of friends. After his parents’ divorce, he and his parents agreed that he needed to live with his father even though he wanted to stay by his friends. It takes time for Jimmy to like the new city. Jimmy tries out for the middle school baseball team and makes the roster, as a pitcher. In his first game, as a pitcher, he doesn’t pitch well, and his team loses the first game of the season. Jimmy was really frustrated. They play well, but just can’t seem to close out any of the first four games of the year. This results in four straight losses to open the season. In the next game of the season, Jimmy gets another chance to redeem himself. He does a very good job pitching, and helps his team pick up their first win of the season. Now the players think that they can win, even after the first four losses.



Jimmy is the main character in the story. His only true friend in Hudson City, is Ramiro. Jimmy is a very sensitive kid. As a reader, I know what Jimmy is thinking about, and how he is feeling, especially towards his dad. Jimmy feels his dad is hounding him about how he is pitching and what he should do different. The author describes his characters well, and tells us everything we need to know about the person.



The setting takes place in the small town of Hudson City, where Jimmy moves to after his parents get a divorce. Hudson City is a small town with alot of people that love sports and always go to the games. Everyone knows everyone in this small town, except Jimmy, who always feels left out. On the weekends,his dad takes him back to Pennsylvania to see his mom and spend time with her so she doesn’t get lonely by herself.



The author’s message in the story is that in life and in sports everyone goes through rough times, and struggles with situations they are faced with. If we can keep working hard and living out each day for everything it is worth, the situation will turn around, maybe not always in the way you want, but the situation will get better if we allow it too.



I would recommend this book to anyone. This book gives more of a meaning then just being a sports book. This book is very easy to understand, and it makes you wonder what is going to happen next. Anyone at any age looking for a book to read would appreciate this book.

[Trevor Wetzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Southpaw” by Rich Wallace is about a middle school baseball player that moves to a new city with his dad. The boys name is Jimmy Fleming. Jimmy lived with both of his parents in a small farm-town in Pennsylvania. After his parents’ divorce, he and his parents agreed that he needed to live with his father. Jimmy’s dad moved to Jersey City, along with Jimmy. It takes Jimmy a while to adapt to the newer, bigger city. Jimmy tries out for the middle school baseball team and makes the roster as a relief pitcher. Jimmy is ecstatic about making the team but, after giving up the loss in the first game of the season, starts to feel discouraged. Jimmy’s team plays tough in each of the first four games but comes up short in all of them, starting their season off with an 0-4 record. But, in the fifth game of the season Jimmy is called in to pitch and he shuts down the best team in the league and sparks a rally that results in the team’s first victory. The story ends with the team having momentum onto the rest of the season.

Jimmy is the main character of the story. The author really writes about Jimmy’s thoughts well. As the reader, you always know what Jimmy is thinking. JImmy’s dad also plays a big role in the story but, isn’t described as well as Jimmy. The author does a decent job with developing his characters.

The setting is only described well at the beginning of the story, during the tryouts. The weather is explained well because it is raining. The time period of the story would be during the present. Jersey City is described well and explains the atmosphere of it.

I would recommend this book to any reader that enjoys baseball and can read at a chapter book level. The book does not use challenging words and is very easy to understand. This book could be enjoyed by anybody.

[Jayden C · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I'm reviewing is called Southpaw by Rich Wallace. The Lexile range of this book is 700. It’s about a kid who plays baseball. His name is Jimmy, his parents are divorced and he lives in hudson city new york. He tries out for the baseball team and ends up making it as a pitcher. Their team loses there first 4 games all in close games but at the end they end up getting a win and that changes momentum for them.

I think the theme of this book is about not quitting even when you're not that good because they end up losing the first 4 games but because they were all close games they didn’t get discouraged and ended up winning their fifth game of the season. The theme developed in this book by how upset they were after their losses. The first game of the season they lost a close game and were really upset and then the coach kept telling them not to be on themselves about a close loss because they had a lot of losses but they were all close. Some things that provoked action and revealed the main character Jimmy is when on pg.52 Jimmy’s dad gets mad at Jimmy for not putting the cap back on the pen. Jimmy says “Who cares?” Jimmy also feels like his Dad was just saying that because he blew the game.

If you're into sports I recommend this book for you especially if you like baseball. Some things I liked about this book are that it showed what life was like outside of baseball for Jimmy. Also another thing is when Jimmy would lose a game it would show what his dad had to say about the loss and how he performed. What I didn't like about this book or the author in general is the books are so predictable. I knew they were gonna win their last game of the season after they lost the first game of the season. The ending was pretty good I guess because they didn’t give up and they ended up winning and Jimmy pitched in the clutch and got them the win. My favorite part of the book was when Jimmy won them the game at the end of their season. Some connections I can make with Jimmy is that I play baseball too and I also play in the infield.

[Noah Gilbert]

ehhhhhh kinda mid

[Meshach]

SOUTHPAW
Meshach Epperley
p.4 Rick Wallace





In the story Southpaw written by Rich Wallace, Jimmy Fleming is a left hand pitcher , and can hit off his right hand and left hand .He wants to become the newest MLB pitcher for the team named houston city . moving from Pennsylvania , his wish was to have a good life, make good money, meet new friends , as well as just wanting to play the sport that he loves.
As he joined the team things get pretty bad he didn't want for his moving to another team to be like that. jimmy's team mates are jerks because when he got there they were all hating on him since he was new ,his team sucks . jimmy's dad is giving him a lot of pressure to become the star pitcher. He is depressed that he left Pennsylvania . But jimmy isn't one to give up on things when they go bad.Just as Jimmy thought thing we're going to go back it was his time to get on the plate and pitch. He became to be the best pitcher in the league for 3 years straight.

[Alex Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southpaw by Rich Wallace is about a boy named Jimmy who moved to Southpaw, New Jersey from Pennsylvania and was trying out for the baseball team. He was nervous, scared, and excited. Jimmy was afraid he was not good enough to play on this new team. Jimmy lived with his dad and his dad would always give him encouraging thoughts because some of the other boys trying out for the team would make fun of him because he was from a the country. Jimmy made the team and became good friends with Ramiro who played relief pitcher, just as Jimmy. Open day came and the team wanted to win. They played their hardest and with all the blood sweat and tears in the 7th inning, they came out with a victory.
I enjoyed Southpaw. It was about one of my favorite sports, baseball. It teaches a great lesson about not showing your fear and you have to be a team player in order to win. You cannot do it all on your own. The story can be hard to follow if you never played or experience baseball, therefore; I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys baseball or any other sport.
This book is great for kids and adults. Everyone can relate to this book because most people have experienced a time in their life where they were faced with a victory or loss.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Southpaw (winning season) is a fiction novel by Rich Wallace. Jimmy was a normal average kid who likes to play baseball. Jimmy said if he stepped on the first base line it would give him bad luck! Deeper into the season Jimmy started to struggle a bit. In this game vs. Union City Jimmy struggled and coach came out to the mound looked disgusted with Jimmy. In the next Inning Jimmy was mostly throughing strikes in a row and his team won 5-4. And in that season won the championship. And I thought this brought out the meaning of baseball in Jimmy and his teammates and others; and just a fantastic story!

[Christopher Almaguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southpaw by Rich Wallace is about a middle school kid named Jimmy Fleming and how he is the new kid at his middle school in Hudson City from Pennsylvania. His parents got divorced and he had to choose between staying with his mother in Pennsylvania but he went with his father to Hudson City. He tries out for his middle school baseball team and makes at as the reliever which is a pitcher that pitches after the first person that pitches. But at the first game "Flem" messes up big time and he feels that he is not part of the team no more. Will Flem still play bad or will he snap out of it? I would recommend this book to people who like baseball and sports.

[Bailey H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book 4 stats because it talks about Baseball my favorite sport. I didnt say its amazing because the ending of the book wasnt that good but its alright. It would of been a great story if the ending of the book they won the champion ship or somthing. this book is good for sportminship and trying to improve. I hope other people read this book

[Zach Allender · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the book was good because it related to me and was about my favorite sport. Although it was good it seemed to be just like any other sports book, the good guy wins and the bad guy loses. Despite that, I would recommend this book because it is applicable to many people and provides many life lessons

[Jesse B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book better than average so that is why I gave this book four stars. I liked the fact that this book is really realistic. Flem is a lot like a real teenage kid so I can relate to him. He is a lot like some of my friends. That is why I gave it four stars.

[Anthony Velez]

This book was a very good booki prefer it to anyone from the age of 7-13 because if you like baseball this is your book. It is filled with action and also its about a boy named jimmy who has been a pitcher for 4 years and has to try to adapt to a new position to fit in.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a baseball fan I really liked this book. I was able to relate to it because the kid in the story is about my age.

[Michael 11-12 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 reasons why I like this book.

1.It had a lot of details.

2.Kept me reading.

3.It planted a picture in my mind of the setting.

[Griff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot

[Tyler]

own