This book is old enough I could not find a single online Blurb to copy and paste here. In fact, I couldn’t even find another review.

Written in 1954 by Burgess Leonard, The Rookie Fights Back was the first book I loved. I remember finding this book at a garage sale when I was a kid. Pretty sure I paid a quarter for it. I quickly read it. This was fifth grade at the latest. I only remember that because I was still in Clay City at the time and we moved to Flora before I started sixth grade. This was also a time when I was barely passing school and was not a reader.

But I sped through this one…only to get to the end of the book and find the last chapter was missing. Perils of rummage saling. Still, before any others came along (Confessions of a Thief, Iliad, Ready Player One), The Rookie Fights Back was my first book love.

Review

The Rookie Fights Back follows the exploits of Herman Sherman, aka Hoimie, a diminutive baseballer, starting out with his time in the minors and then making the big leagues with his childhood favorite team, the Lancers (aka the Yankees). I pretty sure I saw it even as a kid, but it is even more evident reading this as an adult. Herman Sherman was the first book character I saw myself in. An undersized kid who defies the odds by utilizing his wit and hustle to make up for his lack of physical prowess. As a baseball-loving kid who did not crack 100 pounds until high school and was 120-some pounds even after high school, Herman Sherman may have actually been my first sports idol, even if fictional.

Sherman’s hustle and grit earn him the spot he always coveted, only to still get picked on and dismissed by the larger lads on the Lancers. He didn’t take any lip and gave plenty right back. Yeah, looking back, I may have patterned myself after this kid a little too much, eventually leading to my head getting bounced off dugout walls, stomped by cleats in football and so on, because I refused to be pushed around despite my size and had the mouth to go with it. Thanks for the brain damage Herman.

So, did nostalgia make this book better than it was? Did it hold up? Actually, yeah, I enjoyed reading this again at the age of 45. It took me just a couple of evenings to plow through its 192 short pages. Having grown up (debatable) to become a sports writer, I see how much of this book was just dramatized gamer after gamer story now, but I still enjoyed it, despite having written thousands of game stories myself, albeit in a very much different style. Leonard wrote with the flare a novel requires, where my gamers are more straightforward newspaper style of course.

Well worth the $13 and reading again, and finding out the ending. I fully intend to pass this book on to my nephew, who is visiting this weekend, hoping he enjoys it as much as I did.

Side note: This was released in 1954. And yet much of the book is bemoaning how the game has given way to high pay prima donnas and long ball hitters, eschewing the nuance of small ball. 1954. I guess some things don’t change.