The Kid Who Only Hit Homers

by Matt Christopher

Sylvester loved baseball, but he wasn't what you'd call a good hitter. He had decided against joining the team, when he met George Baruth. He promised Sylvester he would help him become one of the best players ever. Before long he was hitting homers.

Genres: Sports, Fiction, Baseball, Childrens, Realistic Fiction, Young Adult, Middle Grade

151 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Matt 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.

Reviews

[Byron Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be very interesting, one person was so influential that he changed a boy's life. This boy was going to quit because he was not as good as the other kids and he got discouraged from all their awesome baseball skills. A character named Mr.Brauth who helps him train by practicing drills. Mr Brauth is actually an imaginary person, probably is his inner self and determiniation pushing him to get better. This boy actually he had it in him from the start. This book inspired me to never give up on my dreams and keep on going to become the best I can be. I was able to connect to this story because something similar happened in my life. I began playing with a travel baseball team that was two years older than me and felt discouraged when I saw all the big kids. I actually made the team and play with older kids, I have been able to hold my own and contribute to the team. With a positive attitude, working hard and practicing, anything is possible. So, really dreams can become true, dreams can become reality.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conversation with my son after reading the book...
N: Did Matt Christopher write other books about sports?
Me: He sure did. There's actually another one about Sylvester. Would you like to read it next?
N: Are you kidding? I love baseball, and I want to see if Sylvester sees someone like George Baruth again who can help him be the best baseball player. Do you think I'll be that good when I'm in junior high?
Me: No one is that good in junior high except in books.
N: Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe I can be that good in my mind. Ha, ha

[Kat V · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a weird and stupid story but if it gets any of my students reading I’m grateful for it. 3 stars

[Nicholas Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read “The Kid Who Only Hit Homers” by Matt Christopher. This book was very good. Sylvester Coddmyer III loved baseball, but he was not very good. He wanted to try out for the Hooper Redbirds baseball team, but he doesn’t think that he was good enough to play on the team. He didn’t sign up for the team that year. One day, a guy named George Baruth, meets Sylvester while he watched the first day of practice. He told Sylvester he would help him with his swing, and told him to try to get on the team. George helped Sylvester with his stance, and all of the sudden, he was hitting home runs. The coach allowed him on the team, and at his first practice he hit a bunch of home runs. The coach put him in the lineup in right field. He had the record for the most home runs in a game, the most consecutive home runs, and all with George Baruth at the games. A big magazine company wanted him to do an interview, and give him money because they thought he was the next big thing. A kid named Snooky Malone bugged him every day to tell his secret, but Sylvester didn’t have a secret. He turned down all that because he didn’t want the fame. Then, at the last game of the season, George Baruth had left to go home and wasn’t there. Sylvester didn’t hit a home run, but he hit two doubles in the gap in left field. He still could hit, but not home runs. The school gave him a trophy for best athlete in the school.


The author did a very good job describing Sylvester’s character and how dedicated he was to baseball. He loved to play it. He just thought he wasn’t very good. George Baruth was just on vacation in the city and wanted to help Sylvester. We don’t really ever know who George is, but you can tell he is someone that is a good baseball player, and that he was more into Sylvester’s head then anything.


The story took place in Hooper City. It’s a small town just like the one I live in. It’s summer time because they are playing baseball. Sylvester went to junior high, and he is the talk of the town.


The author’s message in this book is that you don’t need someone, real or imaginary to motivate people. You just have to love what you are doing and put in a little extra effort to get what you want. If you work hard things will go your way. You have to believe you can do it.

This is a great book. This book was very easy to understand and know what is going on. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good book to read. The book has a very good message, but you have to understand baseball.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to revisit one of my favorite books as a child by reading Matt Christopher's The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. Christopher wrote more than a hundred novels for children about a variety of sports, but he once said that this one was his favorite. He tells the story of Sylvester Coddmeyer III, a junior high kid from New York who decides to quit baseball when he realizes his skills are not up to par and he would probably only ride the bench for the Hooper Redbirds. Yet he then meets a mysterious man named George Baruth who sets him on a path toward greatness, despite the fact that only he can see or speak to the man. He rejoins the Redbirds and after this point he hits only home runs the rest of the season (until the last game, with Baruth having mysteriously disappeared from his life). Readers are left to wonder who Baruth is and whether he is real. But I do like the message near the end of the book about the value of staying humble and rejecting fame in favor of one's teammates and family, as this becomes one of the lessons that Baruth passes onto Sylvester. Elementary school students who love baseball, as I did when I was growing up, will enjoy this book for the chance to learn about the game and hopefully appreciate values such as these.

[Ricki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a good choice for a baseball fan who is a reluctant reader, but it is so dated.

[Spencer Messinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good lesson.

[Rahul Chandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

good nostalgia read from my childhood!

[William Kellett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read everything Matt Christopher wrote when I was younger. A while back I came across a copy of one my favorites, "The Kid Who Only Hit Homers."

With a wave of nostalgia I bought the used copy and read it again.

It was just as good as I remembered.

[Collin Jorgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book "The Kid Who Only Hit Homers" by Matt Christopher. I liked this book although sometimes it was confusing because I didn't if this guy named George Baruth existed.

In this book, this kid named Sylvester was awful at baseball. He couldn't hit, and he couldn't catch or anything! Then one day, a man named George Baruth spent a day at the park with him. He made Sylvester be able to hit good... really good. So one day, George told Syl to go to one the practices for his school. Syl went and he hit home runs, a lot of them. He went into the outfield and caught all the balls hit to him. He played some games and never struck out and all he did was hit home runs. The media wanted to do a story on him but couldn't get a good picture. So one day they showed up at his house to take a picture, and Syl said he wanted George to be in the picture with him. So after one of his games, he and George went to take a picture. After the picture was taken, George wasn't in it. Syl didn't know what was going on. He went home and went to his room. He went to his next game and still hit home runs. George Baruth was never there.. Ever.

I recommend this book to male Middle or High School students. It was kind of hard to understand, but they should get the concept.

[Christopher Guinto · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book because it was about sports. I would recommened this book to people who like baseball.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Christopher is one of the best writers of juvenile sports fiction, this book is not one of his best efforts. This is largely due to the poorly executed mysticism. While other books have demonstrated that the injection of mysticism and spirits into a sports book can work very well, this one fails.
Sylvester Coddmyer III is trying out for the local Little League team and he is doing very poorly. He fails in the field and at the plate. Understanding his ineptitude for the game, during the practice time the next day he is in the bleachers, watching the other kids going through their drills. Suddenly a man called George Baruth comes up to him and talks to Sylvester about giving it one more try.
Suddenly, the ball flies off his bat, hence the title, and Sylvester can catch fly balls he could only wave at before. He of course makes the team and they have a winning season. Sylvester also has ups and downs, generally up when Baruth is there and down when he is not.
Given this completely predictable situation, the success of the team in generally known beforehand along with how Sylvester will do. There is just no tension or excitement in the story.

[Devin Lenzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a boy named Sylvester or Sly for short who loves baseball but isn’t very good at hitting or at his position as right outfield. He plans on not signing up for the baseball time until he meets a guy named George Baruth who teaches him to be an incredible hitter and how to be an incredible outfielder. He shows up to practice to show the coaches what he can do, and they are surprised in how well he can play. The season starts and he hits every pitch that comes his way out of the fence. Game after game he continues to hit the ball out of the fence and starts to build publicity not only in the town but also in the state because he continues to have a perfect batting record. George the whole book continually guides him and gives him encouragement. When George leaves the town Sylvester can’t hit a homer and misses several balls while in the outfield.
This is a great book for 3rd-5th graders that are really into sports and are having a hard time finding books that enjoy them.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

My brother and I used to read loads of Matt Christopher books, certainly any one about baseball we could get our hands on. Something about this book's title made it stick out from the others, giving it a mythic quality shared by a few other fictional sports stories (like the movie Field of Dreams). Even the cover has a Vaseline-lens dreamy quality. All that's missing is the greatest sports myth of all: Babe Ruth's called home run.

Rereading it as an adult, it is clearly a kids book with little to offer an older reader other than nostalgia. What I remember is the mysterious George Baruth who helps Sylvester Coddmyer III become a better athlete. What I'd forgotten is the throwaway side character Snooky Malone, who loves astrology and basically pesters Sylvester. The author loves writing a play-by-play and even includes the final records of each team at book's end. A very simple book that would capture the adoration of young readers who dream of being a baseball star.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bedtime story book for my son for a little while. This is an odd little book. Nothing is really ever explained - this mysterious guy named George Baruth starts showing up to Sylvester's games, and all of a sudden Sylvester is hitting homers. It seems like Baruth is magically making Sylvester hit homers? But when Baruth isn't there, Sylvester isn't all that bad of a player. Maybe Baruth gives him a lot of self confidence? Also there is this weird subplot where Sylvester eats too much and gets sick, and Baruth gets irritated with him. What is that all about?
My son was pretty sure that George Baruth was the ghost of Babe Ruth, which seemed like a pretty astute observation for a 6 year old. But then this issue is never resolved. I am confused. Is Sylvester good at baseball or not? Who cares if he eats too much pie every now and then?

[Gentry.T]

The Kid Who Only Hit Homers is a great and interesting book. This book is about a boy who has never played baseball before but he really wants to. He gets help from a new friend so he can become a better baseball player. I think that his friends information helped him out a lot.
Sylvester, George, Snooky, The team, and his parents have a lot of cool experiences throughout the book. Sylvester has a record for hitting the most home runs. The audience is amazed when they find out that Sylvester has never played baseball his whole life, well until he joined the team.
Find out what other interesting things happen when you read The Kid Who Only Hit Homers.
I hope this reveiw gave you enough information that makes you want to read the book even more.

[Colton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had great lessons there was a little kid kid name Snooky he was about 4ft 2in he would bug sylvester but then sylvester wanted him to meet this guy named mr.baruth and he helped sylvester get better but he was only staying in town for the summer and every time he tried to tell snooky he should meet him they tried but he was never found by the two boys so they keep looking and he never meet him saw him at the baseball game he tried showing Snooky he was real then one day he never found mr. baruth but something he said caught syl he said "I'll be back some day and help you get even better at baseball" He knew he would come back he had a new bat glove and he was assigned as a captain of his baseball team.

[B.A. Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this one, recently—a favorite from my childhood—and found that, for the most part, it read as well as I remembered in elementary and middle school. It's baseball stats were out of date, even long before I read it for the first time, in the late 1990s but that's just an issue of semantics. Obviously the narrative is a love-letter to the Babe and the blue-collar 1920s to 50s "golden era" of baseball. The nostalgia did not go unnoticed, certainly much less than the "golly, gee willikers, Batman" jovial nature of the dialogue. For just under an hour of actual read time, The Kid Who Only Hit Homers was a distinct reminder of my origins as a reader.

[Jett Reiter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great book for readers who are interested in sports and more specifically, baseball. Sylvester Coddmyer is a young boy who wants to try out for little league. He isn't that great of a player but he tries his best. Then, a mysterious man comes up and gives and a bat that always hits homers. It shows how Sylvester plays throughout every game.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, light bed time read with my oldest during the little league spring season. The writing wasn’t the best for this genre, but the inning sequence descriptions were natural. Discussions of astrology and the paranormal were a bit odd, and it would have been nice to put a better bow on the story of the mystery man. But, overall not bad.

[Allie Bayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was written in 1986 aaaaand….it shows. It’s simply…not good. There is some magical realism that is never elaborated on or explained. All of the characters are very shallow, underdeveloped, and well, very 1986. It’s all very cheesy and rough. But we’ll see what my first grader thinks when he reads it; I know these are sports classics in their own right.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young kid loves baseball but doesn’t hit very well. Then he gets some other-worldly help, and starts hitting balls out of the park. Obviously this was written for young boys, but I liked it, too!

[Manny Stockman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

Many interesting stuff at the beginning, which makes the story start out strong. Over all, I think it was a good book, and I am looking forward to reading more of Matt Christopher's books.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I checked out the audio book from the library and I listened to it with my kids in the car. They liked it, but I wasn't a fan.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book I enjoyed as a kid

[Shari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Olivia read and rated it 3 stars. Sports fiction just isn't her thing.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute, quick read about a boy who loves baseball.

[Brigham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read with kids

[jaena yee · Rating 4 out of 5]

who is Mr. George Baruth?? hehe not gonna tell you if you've not read this book before, but if you've, i'm pretty sure you know who he is :))

[LBullerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was a 5-star book