The Big Field [Mass Market Paperback]

Mike Lupica (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Playing shortstop is a way of life for Hutch?not only is his hero, Derek Jeter, a shortstop, but so was his father, a former local legend turned pro. Which is why having to play second base feels like demotion to second team. Yet that?s where Hutch ends up after Darryl ?D-Will? Williams, the best shortstop prospect since A-Rod, joins the team. But Hutch is nothing if not a team player, and he?s cool with playing in D-Will?s shadow?until, that is, the two shortstops in Hutch?s life betray him in a way he never could have imagined. With the league championship on the line, just how far is Hutch willing to bend to be a good teammate?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For Hutch, shortstop has always been home. It's where his father once played professionally, before injuries relegated him to watching games on TV instead of playing them. And it's where Hutch himself has always played and starred. Until now. The arrival of Darryl "D-Will" Williams, the top shortstop prospect from Florida since A-Rod, means Hutch is displaced, in more ways than one. Second base feels like second fiddle, and when he sees his father giving fielding tips to D-Will--the same father who can't be bothered to show up to watch his son play--Hutch feels betrayed. With the summer league championship on the line, just how far is Hutch willing to bend to be a good teammate?

Mike Lupica returns to the big field for the first time since his #1 New York Times bestseller Heat and delivers a feel-good home run, showing how love of the game is a language fathers and sons speak from the heart.

Q&A with Mike Lupica

Q: Where did the idea for The Big Field come from?

A: If it has one starting point, it was when Alex Rodriguez came to the Yankees and left shortstop to play third base. It wasn't so much that Rodriguez was the best all-around player in baseball at the time. It was that I knew he'd always thought of himself as a shortstop. I'm not sure he still doesn't think of himself as a shortstop. And suddenly he was a third baseman. Hutch isn't the best player in this book; Darryl Williams is. But Hutch had been a shortstop his whole life, it defined him as a ballplayer, and now because of the presence of Darryl on their American Legion team, he has to go to second base. It's the starting off point in a book that is ultimately about fathers and sons. But it's about a player having to leave his best position for the good of his team.

Q: In The Big Field, the emotional heart of the story is Keith "Hutch" Hutchinson's relationship with his father, a washed-up ballplayer and former boy phenomenon who never advanced past the minor leagues and who completely soured on the game, setting the stage for a distant relationship with his son. Why did you decide to focus on the father-son dynamic in this novel?

A: Sometimes with fathers and sons, when they can't communicate, they fall back on sports. It is like some universal language for fathers and sons. But at the start of The Big Field, Hutch and his dad don't even have that. And their journey, both of them, and I think it's a great journey, is finding that language again, finding a bond they never really lost. And finding each other.

Q: Can you offer any advice for aspiring sports writers?

A: Read the best guys, in books and newspapers and magazines. And then find ways to write. Write for the school paper, write anywhere you can, but write. I believe strongly that if you have the talent and the spirit, somebody will find you.

Q: When writing a young character do you find yourself looking back to yourself at that age? Or your children?

A: I look back to myself, and remember how important sports were to me, the fellowship, just the sheer fun of having a game with my buddies even if it wasn't organized. I tell people all the time that I still go to games thinking I might see something I've never seen before. I still have that feeling. But more than that, I see sports through the eyes of my children, too. See what they think is good, or cool, or worth watching. See what excites them. They've made me smarter about sports, they really have. But then that always happens when you hang around smart people.

Q: Have you started working on your next book? Can you give us a sneak peak?

A: My next book is already finished. It's about a young foster child, and his love for baseball. He's a catcher. And I think you're going to like him. The book is called "Safe at Home." The book I'm writing right now is my first soccer book. That's all I'm going to tell you!

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Lupica offers another heartwarming, action-packed, sports-savvy novel. -- School Library Journal --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Puffin; Reprint edition (February 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142419109
• ISBN-13: 978-0142419106
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Sports & Activities > Sports > General
  • #48 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Sports & Activities > Sports > Baseball
  • #97 in Books > Children's Books > Sports & Games > Sports > Baseball

More About the Author

Mike Lupica is one of the most prominent sports writers in America. His longevity at the top of his field is based on his experience and insider's knowledge, coupled with a provocative presentation that takes an uncompromising look at the tumultuous world of professional sports. Today he is a syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News, which includes his popular "Shooting from the Lip" column, which appears every Sunday. He began his newspaper career covering the New York Knicks for the New York Post at age 23. He became the youngest columnist ever at a New York paper with the New York Daily News, which he joined in 1977. For more than 30 years, Lupica has added magazines, novels, sports biographies, other non-fiction books on sports, as well as television to his professional resume. For the past fifteen years, he has been a TV anchor for ESPN's The Sports Reporters. He also hosted his own program, The Mike Lupica Show on ESPN2. In 1987, Lupica launched "The Sporting Life" column in Esquire magazine. He has published articles in other magazines, including Sport, World Tennis, Tennis, Golf Digest, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, ESPN: The Magazine, Men's Journal and Parade. He has received numerous honors, including the 2003 Jim Murray Award from the National Football Foundation. Mike Lupica co-wrote autobiographies with Reggie Jackson and Bill Parcells, collaborated with noted author and screenwriter, William Goldman on Wait Till Next Year, and wrote The Summer of '98, Mad as Hell: How Sports Got Away from the Fans and How We Get It Back and Shooting From the Lip, a collection of columns. In addition, he has written a number of novels, including Dead Air, Extra Credits, Limited Partner, Jump, Full Court Press, Red Zone, Too Far and national bestsellers Wild Pitch and Bump and Run. Dead Air was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best First Mystery and became a CBS television move, "Money, Power, Murder" to which Lupica contributed the teleplay. Over the years he has been a regular on the CBS Morning News, Good Morning America and The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. On the radio, he has made frequent appearances on Imus in the Morning since the early 1980s. His previous young adult novels, Travel Team, Heat, Miracle on 49th Street, and the summer hit for 2007, Summer Ball, have shot up the New York Times bestseller list. Lupica is also what he describes as a "serial Little League coach," a youth basketball coach, and a soccer coach for his four children, three sons and a daughter. He and his family live in Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "FOR EVERY KID WHO LOVES BASEBALL & EVERY ADULT WHO STILL DREAMS!", March 5, 2008

By 

Rick Shaq Goldstein "*SHAQ*" (Danville, Ca, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Big Field (Hardcover)

Keith "Hutch" Hutchinson is a 14 year old boy who lives in Florida, but you'd be more accurate to say he lives in a world of baseball. Hutch eats, sleeps, drinks and plays baseball. And he prides himself on being "OLD-SCHOOL"! Nowadays kids wear two batting gloves at a time, Hutch doesn't wear any, and he also wears his red stirrup socks high, all strictly "OLD-SCHOOL". Other kids perform dances that would shame Terrell Owens after a good play or big hit. When Hutch hits a homerun he quickly runs around the bases so as not to embarrass the other team. Hutch is definitely "OLD-SCHOOL"! "Hutch knew he loved baseball more than anybody he knew, on his current team, or any team he'd ever played on, loved the history of it, loved the stats and the numbers and the way they connected the old days to right now." (NOTE: Take Hutch's name out and put my name in when I was 14 and you wouldn't have to change a word!") This story is built around the Boynton Beach Post 226 Cardinals American Legion Team and their quest for the opportunity to play for the state championship, which would enable them to play on "THE-BIG-FIELD" at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, where the St. Louis Cardinals and Florida Marlins play their spring training games.

There are a number of sub-plots in this wonderfully written homage to young American boys whose dreams of playing baseball invade every thought they possess. I know how accurate the author's descriptions are since my entire childhood through adulthood was filled with these very same dreams. Hutch, until this summer season was always the star shortstop on every team he played on, but the Cardinals had a player by the name of Darryl Williams, that played shortstop, and batted like the almighty himself had created him specifically for this task, and every motion at bat or in the field were almost an effortless success. For the good of the team, Hutch moved to second base despite the fact that shortstop was his pre-ordained position. Carl Hutchinson, Hutch's Father, had been the greatest boyhood shortstop in the town's history. Carl had signed a big league contract out of high school and played minor league ball in the Atlanta Braves farm system, but he never made it to the big leagues and the reason was an untold story in the family. Because of this there seemed to be an unspoken wall between Father and son. As circumstances present themselves during the Cardinal's run at the championship, Hutch feels pangs of alienation with his Father, and one of the greatest lines in the book, which I believe every Father and every son have probably said, thought, or felt, a number of times during their lifetime: "BEFORE HUTCH WALKED OUT THE FRONT DOOR HE LEANED AGAINST IT, CLOSED HIS EYES, AND WISHED HE COULD HAVE SPENT JUST ONE DAY WITH HIS DAD WHEN HIS DAD WAS YOUNG."

This book is almost prose to anyone that not only played baseball but "LOVED" baseball. Another wonderful thing about this book is that I highly recommend it to kids from ten-years-old to kids of one-hundred-years-old. It is a perfect gift for a Father to give to a son, and a perfect gift for a son to give a Father.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For the love of the game, October 13, 2008

By 

J. Green (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Big Field (Hardcover)

Fourteen-year-old Keith "Hutch" Hutchinson loves baseball, and he loves being the shortstop, the guy in the middle of all the action. Unfortunately, he's been moved to second base to make room for Darryl Williams, a kid with tons of talent but not the best attitude. But Hutch is still the team captain and he takes baseball seriously. He's a good team player, he works hard and doesn't show off, even when he hits a home run. His dream is to attend a private baseball school up north and make it to the major leagues. His father was a star player in his day as well, but he missed his chance and doesn't offer Hutch any encouragement, not wanting his son to put all his hopes in one long-shot basket. It bothers Hutch that his father isn't more involved with him, but it's too much when he shows up early for practice one day and finds his father coaching and giving pointers to Darryl.

My son who loves baseball and I read this together. Even though Hutch's passion for baseball is obsessive, there was plenty to relate to here. My hope was that it would give my son an idea of how a baseball player should *think* on the field, but while the story is heavy on jargon it's a bit light on fundamentals. It's also pretty long (or at least *felt* that way) and not always the most interesting read. The conflicts with his father and with Darryl offered some fairly interesting plots, and some of the scenes during games were quite exciting and dramatic, but overall it felt kind of formulaic and like it just wasn't a very substantial story. We both liked it, but it wasn't real high on our list.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars He's a natural, April 8, 2008

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Field (Hardcover)

This will give you a sense of my sportsy prowess. I'm in a bookstore the other day and I see a book with a quote on it from Mike Lupica. The only thing is, it's an adult book. One that has to do with sports of some sort. So I rub my head and I actually have this thought while standing there: What is Mike Lupica doing writing quotes for adult books? You see the problem here? I know Mike Lupica as one thing and one thing only; this is the guy who knows how to write a fabulous sports-related work of fiction for young readers. He's the Matt Christopher of the new millennium. Now I don't like sports myself. They don't really fall within my perceived everyday reality. I know they exist and I know that people follow them, but as far as I can tell I am interested in virtually nothing that has to do with one or another. But do I head for the hills when I see that Mr. Lupica has written a new title for his young fans? I most certainly do not! The notable thing about "The Big Field" is that it returns the author to what is undoubtedly his favorite sport to write about. Baseball. Lupica lovea him the natural tension and stress and story arc that comes with the game. You can hardly blame him. The craziness is that in the process of getting excited, this author has the ability to get YOU rather excited too. I don't love baseball. I know that a lot of kids are like me in this respect, but hand them a copy of "The Big Field" and get them to read the first few chapters. If Mike Lupica does nothing else, he proves to us that good writing is good writing and can lure you in, regardless of the subject matter.

Fourteen-year-old Keith "Hutch" Hutchinson isn't the star of his American Legion team, Boynton Beach Post 226, the Cardinals. That honor belongs entirely to his fellow teammate Darryl. Hutch doesn't even mind all that much since it's really the love of the game that keeps him going. He's the team Captain and a pretty swell player in his own right, not that his dad would ever notice. A former local baseball star himself, Hutch's father had dreams once of hitting the big league. When those dreams didn't come to fruition he decided to protect his only son by denying him any pointers or chances to share in the game they both love so much. Now Hutch's team has a chance to make it all the way. To play for the state championship on "the big field" at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter. Only trouble is, there are some problems with Darryl and they involve Mr. Hutchinson. Hutch has never allowed outside distractions to keep him from playing his best, but now it looks as if the fate of the entire team depends on him and his ability to figure out why his dad is the way he is.

I saw a lot of similarities between Hutch in this book and the character of House in Deborah Wiles' The Aurora County All-Stars. In both cases the hero is a kind of Gary Cooper type. Thoughtful and a bit wise beyond his years, but still prone to anger if riled. And riled he gets! The raw jealousy Hutch feels when he sees his father playing baseball with the team star, something Hutch himself has never done, is palpable. It practically sends little ripples down the page. Normally in a middle grade novel a kid will feel betrayed by a parent or a friend and then just sit and stew for chapter after chapter. I was a little afraid that Lupica might go this route as well, but fortunately this wasn't the case. So it felt strangely satisfying to watch Hutch rip into his dad about everything the man has ever done wrong. It's excellent. You want to sip a cool drink after reading a passage like that. And what's even better is that Lupica can make Hutch be entirely in the right one moment and then entirely in the wrong the next without so much as a narrative hiccup.

I've read Heat and some of Miracle on 49th Street so I'm not a complete Lupica newbie. And from these books I've noticed a trend in the author's work. Mike Lupica has a deep and abiding interest in and affection for the smart alecky sidekick. The kind of sidekick that ends up being the voice of reason more than once, but is so jokey that the reader isn't supposed to notice. Some might see this as Lupica getting lazy with his characters, but personally I didn't really mind. In this book the sidekick is Cody, a kid who's been friends with Hutch since the beginning. As with many sidekicks he begins by being the untamed fellow who puts down Darryl while Hutch murmurs that they're all on the same team. Then, at some point, the tables turn and it's Cody who has to keep Hutch in line (and out of trouble). In Heat this kind of character would help the hero directly in a kind of deus ex machina manner. Here, Hutch has to do all the work himself, and as a hero he rises satisfactorily to the challenge.

Lupica isn't afraid of putting contemporary flourishes on his book. This will date it a bit more than it might if he left them out entirely, but in a way I enjoyed it. Admittedly, I liked the references to Derek Jeter better than the references to 24, but whatchagonnado? By the way, can I say how nice it is to have a protagonist in a book who isn't whitey white white? Hutch is part Dominican and it's not a big deal in any way, shape, or form. It defines who he is but isn't the focus of the narrative. It's just part of the story, and it's something that sets the book apart from the ten bazillion books with white kids in `em that stock our library and bookstore shelves.

You know what it is about this writer? Lupica satisfies a reader, deep down somewhere. You read one of his books and you feel good about... something. Maybe it's just about a game, or maybe it's about the characters and what they've figured out, but you feel good. Like you've accomplished something big. For kids who are already converts to Lupica's style, "The Big Field" is not going to be a hard sell. But for kids who enjoy sports and want something a little contemporary and fun, this will be a good Intro to Lupica: 101. Heck, even if they don't like sports this book will still suck you in. That is, if you can get `em past the initial premise. I hate utilizing sports metaphors when describing literature, so let's just take the phrase, "Lupica hits another one out of the park," switch it out for its literary equivalent for now.