Ray & Me (Baseball Card Adventures) [Hardcover]

Dan Gutman (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up | Series: Baseball Card Adventures

The ball hit me. It sounded like a bomb going off in my head. Everything went dark. The last thing I remember was hearing somebody yell, "Call 911!"

When Stosh gets hit in the head with a baseball, he's lucky to survive. Then he learns about another player who wasn't so lucky—Ray Chapman, the only player in major league history to get hit by a ball and die. If only they'd had batting helmets back then . . .

Get ready to go back in time as Stosh travels to 1920 to try to save Ray—and meets Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker, and even Harry Houdini. This baseball card adventure is a wild ride to a moment that changed baseball history forever!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dan Gutman has always been a baseball fanatic. He played in Little League as a kid, and one of the first magazine articles he ever sold explained the science behind the spitball, the scuffball, and corked bats. When he thought about the T206 Honus Wagner—the most valuable baseball card in the world—he began to write honus & me, his first Baseball Card Adventure. That book introduced Joe Stoshack—Stosh—a kid who can use baseball cards to travel through time and meet the game’s greatest players. Stosh has since gone on many amazing, fast-paced adventures, most recently to try to save Roberto Clemente.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; First Edition edition (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061234818
• ISBN-13: 978-0061234811
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #742,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

This is hard. I'm a pretty regular Jersey guy who spent fifteen years trying to write newspaper articles, magazine articles, screenplays, books for adults, and just about everything else before I discovered the one thing I'm good at--writing fiction for kids. I aim for kids who DON'T like to read, and hopefully the kids who DO like to read will enjoy my stuff too. For all the gory details about me, check out my web site.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Spectacular Baseball Adventure, January 7, 2010

By 

Oxguy3 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ray & Me (Baseball Card Adventures) (Hardcover)

.....Dan Gutman's "Ray and Me" is an excellent baseball fantasy story. The story follows Joe Stoshack, better known as Stosh, who has the ability to travel back to any point in time by holding a baseball card from that year. After his Little League coach, Flip, asks him to pitch instead of playing shortstop, he is hit in the head with a baseball and wakes up from a coma two weeks later in the hospital. Flip, now sorry he insisted Stosh play pitcher, tells him about Ray Chapman. Chapman was a major league baseball player who, on August 16, 1920, was hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays and died that night. That one pitch ended Chapman's life and essentially ended Mays's career. Knowing about Stosh's powers, Flip gives him a Carl Mays baseball card and encourages him to travel back and try to save Chapman's life. He is shocked to realize his power no longer work. It is only after a few weeks of recovery that the tingling sensations from holding a baseball card return to Stosh, and his powers work again. He immediately goes back in time using the Mays card. He tries to save Chapman's life, bringing a batting helmet with him (a safety device that didn't exist in the 1920s).
.....This story is a fantastic combination of baseball history and time-traveling fantasy. It combines the life of Ray Chapman, a real person who is the only major league player to die from a pitch, with the life of Joe Stoshack, a fictional Little Leaguer with the power to travel back in time. It fantastically depicts what might have happened on August 16, 1920. This is why I think "Ray and Me" deserves five out of five stars.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great book, June 28, 2009

By 

B. GOODWIN "BGoodz" (hamburg ny) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ray & Me (Baseball Card Adventures) (Hardcover)

My 12 year old son is not much of a fan for reading, but the minute he finds out that another of the Dan Gutman Baseball card adventures is available we get it. He read this one in one day. For moms of boys who don't like to read, try this series. It will be a hit!

5.0 out of 5 stars Great series, June 3, 2011

By 

6boysmom - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ray & Me (Baseball Card Adventures) (Paperback)

My 12 year old son LOVES this whole series of Dan Gutman books. They've been fun and taught him a lot about the history of baseball.