Afterword

IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL some forty years ago, I heard about a baseball book written for children in which a rookie ballplayer could hit any pitch foul and walked every time he came to bat. In the years since, I’d never forgotten that simple story line, but all my efforts to locate a copy were of no avail, and I always regretted that such a wonderful story might be forever lost to obscurity.

Last year when Doubleday asked me to write a book about baseball, my instincts drove me clearly in one direction, which was to take that basic premise and write a story for adults. Only after I turned in the manuscript did a remarkable coincidence come to light: Doubleday itself had published the original, in 1951. It was entitled The Kid Who Batted 1.000, by Bob Allison and Frank Ernest Hill, and I was finally able to obtain an original copy and read it.

My version has little in common with the original other than its very simple, very wonderful premise.