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Screammates #4
Field of Screams
Three Strikes and you're out-forever!
No one goes near Carterville Stadium. People say it's haunted. But Josh Thompson is new in town and hasn't heard the terrifying tales. One night he heads out to the creepy old baseball field... and steps right into major-league mayhem!
First Josh spies a ghoulish ghost!
Then the spooky spirit follows him home!
Now Josh and his pals are up against a team of evil zombies- and it's time to play ball!
Can Josh and his friends slug their way out of the bone-chilling ballpark? Or will they be trapped forever in the dugout of doom?
No one goes near Carterville Stadium. People say it's haunted. But Josh Thompson is new in town and hasn't heard the terrifying tales. One night he heads out to the creepy old baseball field... and steps right into major-league mayhem!
First Josh spies a ghoulish ghost!
Then the spooky spirit follows him home!
Now Josh and his pals are up against a team of evil zombies- and it's time to play ball!
Can Josh and his friends slug their way out of the bone-chilling ballpark? Or will they be trapped forever in the dugout of doom?
78 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 18, 2021
After its first three books about soccer, football, and basketball, the fourth (and final) Screammates episode, Field of Screams, takes on the sport of baseball...and a curse seventy years in the making. Eleven-year-old Josh Thompson isn't hopeful that he'll make friends in Carterville, his new hometown. Because of his father's job, his family has had to move three times in two years, and Josh always seems to make a bad first impression on other kids. He gets nervous, doesn't know what to say or do, and from then on he's a local laughingstock. Exploring Carterville by himself one day, Josh gets knocked off his bike by a baseball batted by a kid named Zack Flannigan. It's not an ideal first meeting, but Josh loves baseball, and asks to play with Zack and the group of kids he's with. One botched tryout later—Josh never did perform well under pressure—Zack scoffs and sends him away. But Josh refuses to leave, so Zack tells him to go to old Carterville Stadium this evening for a second tryout. The other kids look spooked at the mere mention of the place, but how else can Josh prove himself? He agrees to meet them there at eight o'clock.
Carterville Stadium is accessible only by an unlit, rutted path, and as Josh works his way down it, his sense of foreboding grows. The stadium is weed-choked, the outer walls crumbling; obviously no one has played ball here for years. Then Josh hears a growling, disembodied voice, whispering a ragged plea in his ear for "help." Just when Josh is at the breaking point, one of the kids from earlier, a blonde girl named Amanda, shows up. No one else is coming, she tells Josh; getting him to show up at this haunted stadium was Zack's idea of a joke. Wait...haunted? Amanda tells Josh the story of Red Muldoon, a semipro pitcher for the Carterville Cubs. In the final inning of the 1927 league title game, he gave up the winning home run to Bugsy McGee of the Visalia Vultures. The Cubs were one out from victory, and the town never forgave him. Fans lost interest in the team, so the Cubs went defunct and Red eventually died in disgrace. Legend says his spirit lingers at the stadium to this day, looking for vindication. When a skeletal arm suddenly reaches for Josh out of the darkness, he and Amanda race home in panic. No kid wants to deal with a ghost.
Red Muldoon...so that's why Zack and the others kept calling Josh a "Muldoon" every time he messed up at his tryout. They were calling him a loser...a label Josh has struggled to shake for years. Why won't new kids ever give him a chance? But self-pity takes a backseat when the ghost follows him home, repeating his plea for help and backing it up with terrifying supernatural threats. Red isn't so scary when he's in human form; he's just a little old man craving redemption for the game he lost seventy years ago, and he insists Josh help him get it. Fearful for his own life, Josh agrees. He confronts Zack the next day while the gang is playing baseball, and requests another tryout. Except for Amanda, none of the Carterville kids want Josh around, but after Red flashes a few supernatural signs, even Zack is cowed into helping Muldoon get his rematch against the Visalia Vultures. Bugsy McGee and the Vultures are rotting corpses by now, and they rise from their graves to mock Red yet again for his loss in 1927. But when Red challenges them to a baseball game, with Josh, Zack, Amanda, and the other kids as Red's teammates, Bugsy can't resist another opportunity to beat Red. The stakes this time? Josh and Zack's lives. Bugsy is a nasty zombie who would just as soon kill them without playing first, so the only way for Josh and Zack to survive is to take the field at Carterville Stadium and win one for "the Muldoon." Can Josh overcome his nerves and play well in the clutch? Will Red overcome his own demons, and out-duel Bugsy when everything is on the line? With disturbing paranormal illusions popping up all through the game, winning won't be easy, but if Red loses this time, the consequences will be even more dire than in '27.
Field of Screams isn't perfectly logical—why does Red resort to his ghostly tricks in the rematch with the Vultures only a few times, and never when his own team needs it most?—but it's a pretty good story. Ghosts of past failures never stop haunting us until we stand up to them, and Josh and Red are kindred spirits in that regard. Red can't challenge Bugsy's Vultures without a team, and though Josh and the Carterville kids are a longshot to keep pace with a bunch of former semipros—even moldering ones—they are Red's only chance to prove he isn't a loser, so he can rest in peace after decades of post-mortem regret. Confronting the past isn't easy, but Josh and Red both have to try.
Combining horror and sports in a series for kids seems like a winning concept, but Screammates lasted only four books, from 1997 through '98. I'm not sure why; three of the books are pretty good, comparable to Betsy Haynes's Bone Chillers and even some of R.L. Stine's original Goosebumps. Jason Vega's scrawled interior illustrations aren't appealing, but Frank Morris's cover art isn't bad; I particularly like his work for Field of Screams. Of the four Screammates books, Haunted Cleats is clearly best. Next comes Monster Jam, with Field of Screams barely behind it. The only dud is Aliens in the Endzone. Screammates never gained enough traction with young readers to justify a prolonged run, but kids who love sports and scary stories will have fun with the series. I'll remember these books somewhat fondly.
Carterville Stadium is accessible only by an unlit, rutted path, and as Josh works his way down it, his sense of foreboding grows. The stadium is weed-choked, the outer walls crumbling; obviously no one has played ball here for years. Then Josh hears a growling, disembodied voice, whispering a ragged plea in his ear for "help." Just when Josh is at the breaking point, one of the kids from earlier, a blonde girl named Amanda, shows up. No one else is coming, she tells Josh; getting him to show up at this haunted stadium was Zack's idea of a joke. Wait...haunted? Amanda tells Josh the story of Red Muldoon, a semipro pitcher for the Carterville Cubs. In the final inning of the 1927 league title game, he gave up the winning home run to Bugsy McGee of the Visalia Vultures. The Cubs were one out from victory, and the town never forgave him. Fans lost interest in the team, so the Cubs went defunct and Red eventually died in disgrace. Legend says his spirit lingers at the stadium to this day, looking for vindication. When a skeletal arm suddenly reaches for Josh out of the darkness, he and Amanda race home in panic. No kid wants to deal with a ghost.
Red Muldoon...so that's why Zack and the others kept calling Josh a "Muldoon" every time he messed up at his tryout. They were calling him a loser...a label Josh has struggled to shake for years. Why won't new kids ever give him a chance? But self-pity takes a backseat when the ghost follows him home, repeating his plea for help and backing it up with terrifying supernatural threats. Red isn't so scary when he's in human form; he's just a little old man craving redemption for the game he lost seventy years ago, and he insists Josh help him get it. Fearful for his own life, Josh agrees. He confronts Zack the next day while the gang is playing baseball, and requests another tryout. Except for Amanda, none of the Carterville kids want Josh around, but after Red flashes a few supernatural signs, even Zack is cowed into helping Muldoon get his rematch against the Visalia Vultures. Bugsy McGee and the Vultures are rotting corpses by now, and they rise from their graves to mock Red yet again for his loss in 1927. But when Red challenges them to a baseball game, with Josh, Zack, Amanda, and the other kids as Red's teammates, Bugsy can't resist another opportunity to beat Red. The stakes this time? Josh and Zack's lives. Bugsy is a nasty zombie who would just as soon kill them without playing first, so the only way for Josh and Zack to survive is to take the field at Carterville Stadium and win one for "the Muldoon." Can Josh overcome his nerves and play well in the clutch? Will Red overcome his own demons, and out-duel Bugsy when everything is on the line? With disturbing paranormal illusions popping up all through the game, winning won't be easy, but if Red loses this time, the consequences will be even more dire than in '27.
Field of Screams isn't perfectly logical—why does Red resort to his ghostly tricks in the rematch with the Vultures only a few times, and never when his own team needs it most?—but it's a pretty good story. Ghosts of past failures never stop haunting us until we stand up to them, and Josh and Red are kindred spirits in that regard. Red can't challenge Bugsy's Vultures without a team, and though Josh and the Carterville kids are a longshot to keep pace with a bunch of former semipros—even moldering ones—they are Red's only chance to prove he isn't a loser, so he can rest in peace after decades of post-mortem regret. Confronting the past isn't easy, but Josh and Red both have to try.
Combining horror and sports in a series for kids seems like a winning concept, but Screammates lasted only four books, from 1997 through '98. I'm not sure why; three of the books are pretty good, comparable to Betsy Haynes's Bone Chillers and even some of R.L. Stine's original Goosebumps. Jason Vega's scrawled interior illustrations aren't appealing, but Frank Morris's cover art isn't bad; I particularly like his work for Field of Screams. Of the four Screammates books, Haunted Cleats is clearly best. Next comes Monster Jam, with Field of Screams barely behind it. The only dud is Aliens in the Endzone. Screammates never gained enough traction with young readers to justify a prolonged run, but kids who love sports and scary stories will have fun with the series. I'll remember these books somewhat fondly.
April 17, 2021
Not bad 👍🏻
June 29, 2010
I didn’t like this book. I thought it was boring, and moved way to fast. Out of nowhere Josh is in this you think it’s a dream but it turns out real thing. It was annoying and pointless. I do think that younger boys would like this because it has to deal with sports.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews