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From Booklist
A prequel of sorts to The Boy Who Saved Baseball (2003), this novel dials back the time period to the Wild West. Twelve-year-old Jack Dillon, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest baseballist in the ’tire nation,” befriends Billy the Kid on the trail to California. Ritter depicts the famous outlaw as a lightning-reflexed, misunderstood loner looking to fade into obscurity in Dillontown, while the brash Jack intends to join his uncle’s renowned amateur baseball squad. The Dillontown Nine have challenged the mighty Chicago White Stockings (run by a low-down, scheming coal baron) to a high-stakes game, with the future of the town riding on the outcome, and sure enough, Jack’s unbridled enthusiasm and Billy’s natural athleticism figure to play a role in that outcome. The story lopes along on the strength of its delightful and articulately brusque dialogue and Jack’s far-fetched innovations (his “convolutionary secrets” include the hit-and-run and suicide squeeze plays). Although Ritter overshoots the wholesome-versus-greedy America angle—Dillontowners literally just want to play baseball and make apple pie—that’s small shakes in light of this wildly entertaining yarn. Grades 5-8. --Ian Chipman
[A] wildly entertaining yarn. Booklist
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