About The Book

Everyone who has read The Bat That Lost Its Ping and every child who has had the book read to them, a chapter a night, as a bedtime story has been changed not only in the way they understand the game of baseball but how they look at themselves.

In the first few innings a cracked metal baseball bat is loaded into the back of a pickup truck and hauled away to the junkyard. Not far from the junkyard, abandoned on a bench in the away team dugout is a worn and used leather glove. During the night the glove hears the voice of a baseball far behind the center field fence and goes to find out who’s out there. The ball is freed from the dense brush by the glove and the two go to the junkyard where the glove says he saw a metal bat on a pile of junk. Inside the junkyard they find the bat. The ball and glove with help from the junkyard dog and a thrown out wagon missing a wheel save the metal bat and together they escape from the junkyard to the baseball field.

In the innings that follow, while the five wait at the field for a team they become friends, understanding one another’s story. While learning to support one another they deliver a hamster away from two boys bent on harming the hamster. They become steadfast in their commitment to one another when the master of the junkyard dog forces the dog to return to the junkyard where the master chains him.

With the help of the wagon and the junkyard dog the bat, glove and ball try to get accepted by a baseball team of boys who have new uniforms, better equipment and a baseball field in peak condition to practice and play on. The team rejects the bat because it is cracked, the glove because it is old and refuse to allow the ball to play because it is not white enough.

In the later innings on the other side of the forest live boys who have no uniforms, no equipment and no field to play on. When the boys discover the five friends they can’t believe how lucky they are to have the use of a real bat, a real glove, and a real baseball.

The dream shared by the bat, the glove and the ball to just get back into a baseball game changes as they are played by the boys from the other side of the forest.

All who have read The Bat That Lost Its Ping and all who have had the story read to them have gained insight into and understand how challenges in life are overcome to achieve far more than expected.The bat Tobey, the ball Speedy, the glove Catch, the wagon Winny and the junkyard dog HR tell the story how they helped one another get back into the game of baseball, a metaphor for life, in a way they couldn’t have imagined before knowing one another.

Once started the reader and the listener will find in the first chapter that The Bat That Lost Its Ping can not be put aside until it has been read through and once read the characters- Tobey, Catch, Speedy, Winny and HR can never be forgotten. The questions will come: How would Tobey handle this? What would Winny say? How would Speedy feel?

The Bat That Lost Its Ping is not a small book. There are thirty-three chapters, one hundred and ninety-seven pages and fifty-eight pen & ink illustrations; however, it is priced so that everyone can have the chance to read it. It was originally told as a bedtime story a chapter a night to help two adopted children to understand how much they are loved, the meaning of what it is to be a family, that with determination and not giving up, you can overcome and accomplish anything.

Table of Contents

Excerpt from Chapter 7