Review of "Steady: A Baseball Story," by James and Marion Renick

Review of

Steady: A Baseball Story, by James and Marion Renick

Three out of five stars

 This book is fundamentally about a group of boys with a love for baseball, yet it is also about friendship and a desire to succeed. However, the action is largely predictable, the results of the big game at the end was known very early in the book. If there is a moral, it is that if you have a dream, pursue it. Yet, there is always the issue of dreaming something that you athletically cannot do. Many boys dream of dunking a basketball, throwing pinpoint passes or hitting a baseball over 350 feet. Yet, nature has not endowed them with bodies capable of these feats.

 George Jones is a boy that loves baseball but does not think that he has the skills needed to play the game at a competitive level. When their family stops to give a young man named Bill a ride, they learn that he is a baseball player. After a brief conversation, Bill tells George that he is very knowledgeable about baseball, so he will be able to play if he works at it.

 A league is formed and George joins one called the Cardinals, he becomes a catcher and because he is a calming influence on their best pitcher, is given the nickname of “Steady.” Steady’s team is a solid one, winning most of their games and achieving a position in their equivalent of the World Series, which was a predictable path.

 The writing is not very good for sports fiction. The action has little if any tension, the best writers spend pages developing the tension for a climactic event, the key moments where the game is decided. The prose here is dull and lackluster.