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Summary
Summary
Michael Arroyo has a pitching arm that throws serious heat. But his firepower is nothing compared to the heat Michael faces in his day-to-day life. Newly orphaned after his father led the family's escape from Cuba, Michael's only family is his seventeen-year-old brother Carlos. If Social Services hears of their situation, they will be separated in the foster-care system--or worse, sent back to Cuba. Together, the boys carry on alone, dodging bills and anyone who asks too many questions. But then someone wonders how a twelve-year-old boy could possibly throw with as much power as Michael Arroyo throws. With no way to prove his age, no birth certificate, and no parent to fight for his cause, Michael's secret world is blown wide open, and he discovers that family can come from the most unexpected sources.
"The dialogue crackles, and the rich cast of supporting characters--especially Michael's battery mate, catcher and raconteur Manny--nearly steals the show. Top-notch entertainment in the Carl Hiaasen mold." --Booklist, starred review
Author Notes
Michael Lupica (born on May 11, 1952 in Oneida, New York) is an American newspaper columnist. At the age of 23, Lupica began his newspaper career covering the New York Knicks for the New York Post. In 1977, he became the youngest columnist ever at a New York newspaper when he started working for the New York Daily News. He has also written for numerous magazines during his career including Golf Digest, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, ESPN: The Magazine, Men's Journal and Parade. In 2003, he received the Jim Murray Award from the National Football Foundation. He has been a television anchor for ESPN's The Sports Reporters and hosted his own program The Mike Lupica Show on ESPN2.
Lupica has written both fiction and non-fiction books. His novels include Dead Air; Limited Partner; Jump; Full Court Press; Red Zone; Too Far; Wild Pitch; and Bump and Run. He also writes the Mike Lupica's Comeback Kids series. He co-wrote autobiographies with Reggie Jackson and Bill Parcells and collaborated with William Goldman on Wait Till Next Year. His other non-fiction works include The Summer of '98; Mad as Hell: How Sports Got Away from the Fans and How We Get It Back; and Shooting from the Lip.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-When Michael Arroyo is on the baseball diamond, everything feels right. He's a terrific pitcher who dreams of leading his South Bronx All-Stars to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. It's a dream he shared with his father, one they brought with them as they fled Cuba and wound up living in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. Michael's ultimate dream is to play in the major leagues like his hero, El Grande, Yankee star and fellow Cuban refugee. Tragically, Papi died of a heart attack a few months back, leaving Michael and his older brother, Carlos, to struggle along on their own. Afraid of being separated, they hide the news of their father's death from everyone but a kindly neighbor, Mrs. Cora, and Michael's best friend, Manny Cabrera. When a bitter rival spreads rumors that Michael is older than he appears, the league demands that he be benched until he can produce a birth certificate. As he did in Travel Team (Philomel, 2004), Lupica crafts an involving, fast-paced novel peopled with strong, well-developed characters. Readers will find themselves rooting for Michael as he struggles with the loss of his father, stumbles into his first boy-girl relationship, and yearns to play baseball. The sports scenes are especially well written; fittingly, the euphoric finale takes place at Yankee Stadium. At times, the author veers toward melodrama but he keeps his lively plot on course with humor, crisp dialogue, and true-to-life characters. Lupica scores another hit with this warmhearted novel.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Michael Arroyo's life is heating up in several ways¿some of them unpleasant. The Cuban-born 12-year-old and his older brother, Carlos, have been living alone in their Bronx apartment since the death of their father several months earlier. Afraid they will be split up before Carlos turns 18 and can become Michael's legal guardian, the two have only confided the news of their parent's passing to Michael's supportive best friend and a kind elderly neighbor who looks out for the siblings. The boys' elaborately staged ruse ostensibly convinces an official with the children's services administration that their father is still caring for them. On another front, ace pitcher Michael is barred from playing on his all-star baseball team¿on track for earning a spot in the Little League World Series¿when opposing coaches file a petition accusing the boy of being older than 12 and efforts to procure a copy of his birth certificate from Cuba are unsuccessful. But warming up Michael's life in a positive way is his new friendship with a beautiful, elusive girl who turns out to be the daughter of a celebrated Yankees pitcher. The finale may stretch readers' credibility, and at times the drawn-out dialogue slackens the novel's pacing. But convincing characterization and exciting on-field action help Lupica (Travel Team ) throw out a baseball story with heart. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)
Booklist Review
Gr. 6--9. Michael Arroyo is a 13-year-old Cuban American who lives in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. Yes, he is a Little League ballplayer, and, yes, he has a dream: to pitch in the Little League World Series. To do so, his South Bronx All-Stars will need to beat the best the greater New York area has to offer in the regional championship, to be played in--you guessed it--Yankee Stadium. This setup sounds like yet another Rocky meets Bad News Bears tearjerker: the immigrants from the Bronx take on the white-bread rich kids from the suburbs. It is that (with some notable twists), but it's much more, too. Michael and his brother, 17-year-old Carlos, have a problem: their beloved father is dead, and the boys are hoping to avoid a foster home by pretending Papi is visiting a sick relative in Miami. Lupica wrings plenty of genuine emotion from the melodramatic frame story, but he sidesteps the slough of social significance by building characters who speak for themselves, not the author, and by enlivening the story with a teen version of street humor. The dialogue crackles, and the rich cast of supporting characters--especially Michael's battery mate, catcher and raconteur Manny--nearly steals the show. Top-notch entertainment in the Carl Hiaasen mold. --Bill Ott Copyright 2006 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Michael Arroyo's left arm is "a gift from the gods." His Papi would say, "Someday, you will make it to the World Series." Michael has grown up the object of his father's dreams, but what he loved most was just playing catch with his father in Cuba and, now, playing pickup games with his friends in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. Lurking behind the scenes is the issue of Michael's real age and whether he's really eligible to play in the Little League World Series, if his team makes it that far. Lupica follows his bestselling Travel Team (2004) with another winner. He has the veteran sportswriter's gift of dialogue and muscular prose, employed well in creating believable characters and well-developed action scenes. The story culminates in a tear-jerking scene with Michael on the mound in Yankee Stadium, making this work an irresistible treat for sports fans. (Fiction. 10+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter one Mrs. Cora walked slowly up River Avenue in the summer heat, secure within the boundaries of her world. The great ballpark, Yankee Stadium, was on her right. The blue subway tracks were above her, the tracks colliding up there with the roar of the train as it pulled into the station across the street from the Stadium, at 161st Street and River.The two constants in my life, Mrs. Cora thought: baseball and the thump thump thump of another train, like my own personal rap music. She had her green purse over her arm, the one that was supposed to look more expensive than it really was, the one the boys upstairs had bought for her birthday. Inside the purse, in the bank envelope, was the one hundred dollars--Quik Cash they called it--she had just gotten from Bank of New York ATM machine. Her food money. But she was suddenly too tired to go back to the Imperial Market. Mrs. C, as the kids in her building called her, was preparing for what could feel like the toughest part of her whole day, the walk back up the hill to 825 Gerard from the Stadium. Now she moved past all the stores selling Yankee merchandise--Stan's Sports World, Stan the Man's Kids and Ladies, Stan the Man's Baseball World--wondering as she did sometimes if there was some famous Yankee who had been named Stan. He hit her from behind. She was in front of Stan's Bar and Restaurant, suddenly falling to her right, onto the sidewalk in front of the window as she felt the green purse being pulled from her arm, as if whoever it was didn't care if he took Mrs. Cora's arm with it. Mrs. Cora hit the ground hard, rolled on her side, feeling dizzy, but turning herself to watch this . . . what? This boy not much bigger than some of the boys at 825 Gerard? Watched him sprint down River Avenue as if faster than the train that was right over her head this very minute, pulling into the elevated Yankee Stadium stop. Mrs. Cora tried to make herself heard over the roar of the 4 train. "Stop," Mrs. Cora said. Then, as loud as she could manage: "Stop thief!" There were people reaching down to help her now, neighborhood people she was sure, voices asking if she was all right, if anything was broken. All Mrs. Cora could do was point toward 161st Street. "My food money," she said, her voice cracking. Then a man's voice above her was yelling, "Police!" Mrs. Cora looked past the crowd starting to form around her, saw a policeman come down the steps from the subway platform, saw him look right at her, and then the flash of the boy making a left around what she knew was the far outfield part of the Stadium. The policeman started running, too. The thief's name was Ramon. He was not the smartest sixteen-year-old in the South Bronx. Not even close to being the smartest, mostly because he had always treated school like some sort of hobby. He was not the laziest, either, this he knew, because there were boys his age who spent much more time on the streetcorner and sitting on the stoop than he did. But he was lazy enough, and hated the idea of work even more than he hated the idea of school, which is why he preferred to occasionally get his spending money stealing purses and handbags like the Hulk-green one he had in his hand right now. As far as Ramon could tell at this point in his life, the only real job skill he had was this:He was fast. He had been a young soccer star of the neighborhood in his early teens, just across the way on the fields of Joseph Yancy park, those fields a blur to him right now as he ran on the sidewalk at the back end of Yankee Stadium, on his way to the cobblestones of Ruppert Place, which ran down toward home plate. "Stop! Police!" Ramon heard from behind him. He looked around, saw the fat cop starting to chase him, wobbling like a car with a flat tire. Fat chance, Ramon thought. Ramon's plan was simple: He would cut across Ruppert Place and run down the hill to Macombs Dam Park, across the basketball courts there, then across the green expanse of outfield that the two ballfields shared there. Then he would hop the fence at the far end of Macombs Dam Park and run underneath the overpass for the exit from the Deegan Expressway, one of the Stadium exits. And then Ramon would be gone, working his way back toward the neighborhoods to the north, with all their signs pointing toward the George Washington Bridge, finding a quiet place to count his profits and decide which girl he would spend them on tonight."Stop . . . I mean it!" the fat cop yelled. Ramon looked over his shoulder, saw that the cop was already falling behind, trying to chase and yell and speak into the walkie-talkie he had in his right hand all at once. It made Ramon want to laugh his head off, even as he ran. No cop had ever caught him and no cop ever would, unless they had begun recruiting Olympic sprinters for the New York Police Department. He imagined himself as a sprinter now, felt his arms and legs pumping, thought of the old Cuban sprinter his father used to tell him about.Juan something? No, no. Juantarena. Alberto Juantarena. His father said it was like watching a god run. And his father, the old fool, wasn't even Cuban, he was Dominican. The only Dominican who wanted to talk about track stars instead of baseball. Whatever. Ramon ran now, across the green grass of Macombs Dam Park, where boys played catch in the July morning, ran toward the fence underneath the overpass. It wasn't even noon yet, Ramon thought, and I've already earned a whole day's pay.He felt the sharp pain in the back of his head in that moment, like a rock hitting him back there. Then Ramon went down like somebody had tackled him from behind. What the . . . ? Ramon, who wasn't much of a thinker, tried to think what had just happened to him, but his head hurt too much. Then he went out. When the thief opened his eyes, his hands were already cuffed in front of him.The fat policeman stood with a skinny boy, a tall, skinny boy with long arms and long fingers attached to them, wearing a Yankee T-shirt, a baseball glove under his arm. "What's your name, kid?" The one on the ground said, "Ramon," thinking the policeman was talking to him. The cop looked down, as if he'd forgotten Ramon was there. "Wasn't talking to you." "Michael," the skinny boy said. "Michael Arroyo." "And you're telling me you got him with this from home plate?" The cop held up a baseball that looked older than the old Stadium that rose behind them to the sky. "Got lucky, I guess," Michael said. The cop smiled, rolling the ball around in his hand. "You lefty or righty?" Now Michael smiled and held up his left hand, like he was a boy with the right answer in class. "Home plate to dead center?" the cop said. Michael nodded, like now the cop had come up with the right answer. "You got some arm, kid," the cop said. "That's what they tell me," Michael said. Excerpted from Heat: An Amateur's Adventures As Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford, Mike Lupica All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
