Baseball's Opening Day!

Anyone who has been following my posts is aware that I'm a fan of baseball.  Today (March 29, 2018) is Major league Baseball's OPENING DAY! For the first time in fifty years, every team is participating in a game today to open the season, and I hope it won't another fifty before it happens again. My own team, The MILWAUKEE BREWERS, will have our home opener on Monday, April 2, but I'll be watching today, hanging my hopes on an eager and building team that includes players who feel like old friends and those with new names and faces who are already becoming familiar from spring training. 

I think it's safe to say that every player on every MLB field today had his start in Little League, or his nation's version of such a program. It's also safe to say that every player on the field (and in the dugouts) today will be male. Which calls to mind several picture books I've reviewed in the past about the role of girls and women in baseball, on the field and in the management offices. It also makes me want to share a new release from prolific profiling picture book author, Heather Lang,   work has been featured here in the past.

ANYBODY'S GAME: Kathryn Johnston, the First Girl to Play Little League Baseball is as lively and appealing as the cover art and character. You can learn about spunky and sporty Kathryn and her clever decision to PROVE that girls can play baseball as well as boys in the book trailer linked HERE.
Backmatter includes an author's note, timeline, and acknowledgements. At a time when girls were expected to be playing hopscotch and jumping rope, in a an all-white setting that was typical of mid-century America, Kathryn's slightly-fictionalized persistence still inspires and parallels some of the race-struggles for equal treatment that were happening in the same era. In her case, she could cut her hair and disguise her gender to prove herself while skin color did not offer the same options. Illustrator Cecilia Puglesi creates slightly cartoonish but lively and expressive characters.

Albert Whitman Company, March, 2018

To launch this opening day, I'm linking here to some of my many previous baseball-related picture book posts, beginning as far back as my first year of blogging:
April 6, 2012:  BATTER UP!  Biographies and profiles.
May 12, 2012:  BASEBALL STRIKES AGAIN  Two biographies, a nonfiction history of the role of women in baseball, and a novel in verse framed on a baseball-loving narrator.
June 16, 2012:  Here's to the Boys, Young and Old: An all-time favorite picture book story, with an unforgettable message.
January 13, 2013: Never Too Soon for Baseball... or Too Late!   Biography
April 14, 2013: An"Anti-Theme Month Post  Women with untold stories, including baseball.
July 13, 2013: Finding Inspiration in Biographies, AGAIN!: Biography, of course.
July 28, 2013: Who Do You Trust: Sports Heroes?  Biographies and profiles.
April 3, 2016: Baseball Biographies: Who Makes the Line-Up in Literature? Picture book biography of a woman in baseball management, and link to a middle grade historical novel with roots in Milwaukee and the earliest days of baseball, the Civil War era HATTIE'S WAR. (Note: offer for free download of ebook has expired)
July 11, 2016: Trauma and Racism: Picture Books Open Hard Conversations Baseball (and other) picture books about diversity and courage (fiction and nonfiction titles)

So you're officially invited to explore some of these baseball-based posts, now or after the game ends. And whoever your team allegiance supports, good luck on this opening day and throughout the season ahead.