A Topps League Story

These fun, illustrated chapter books for 7 to 9 year old readers feature the adventures and misadventures of the Pine City Porcupines, a hapless team, including Chad their erstwhile bat boy who's got a huge baseball card collection and sat-happy Dylan, Chad's best friend. While the team, its league and the games are fictional, the baseball cards the bat boy uses to help solve the player's problems are based on real Topps cards. Book Two: Chad's parents float the idea of sending Chad to camp for a more 'comprehensive' summer, as his dad puts it: he says Chad will love the canoeing and camping, but Chad suspects they just want to get him away from the junk food at the ball park and into a health-conscious cafeteria. Chad goes to work feeling doomed, sure it's his last day with friends, baseball and hotdogs. He commiserates with Sammy, a hefty player off the bench, at the concession stand. Sammy had problems of his own. He had a big swing but is too slow to play a position except for an occasional emergency on one of the corners. He's also slow on the base paths. He needs to prove himself capable of brief bursts of speed.
As luck would have it, they're playing the Farminton Weevils in the full heat of a pennant race and the Weevil pitcher is one of the best in the Prairie League at picking off potential base stealers. Chad finds a baseball card showing the player's single, but important stolen base. With Abby's help, Chad convinces Sammy that he can duplicate this feat and stay with the Porcupines. Abby as a similar strategy for Chad to evade camp and keep his job.