"In the very big inning...The gruff and tumble founders of Dillontown, California, were a scrappy bunch. From fistfighting misfits and cattle rustlers to gold-digging drunkards and cardsharp hustlers. And that's just the women. The men were all that, plus they smelled bad." It's 1881, and Jack Dillon, age 12 is determined to play baseball for his uncle, Long John Dillon and the Dillontown Nine... the best baseball team in the West. Long John has challenged the owner of the Chicago White Stockings baseball team to a match in Dillontown, with the prize of $10,000 in gold to the winner -- and the title of Champion Baseball Club of America. On the way out west, Jack meets and befriends "Bill Henry" -- aka the outlaw Billy The Kid, who also has potential as a ballplayer. Together, they bring an arsenal of new tricks and ideas to the Dillontown Nine, including Jack's newfangled suicide squeeze play and "HEW-TA": "Hit 'em where they ain't!" A rollicking old-west story of baseball, outlaws, inlaws, honor, and cheating, this is one of the most fun historical fiction-sports combinations I've seen yet. If you haven't read The Boy Who Saved Baseball, read it after this one, as this is a long-ago-and-far-away kind of prequel to that one. 6th grade and up. ( )

Very good it is a book about the old west with a baseball twist. ( )