Throwing Smoke

Baseball fans may appreciate the message of Brooks's latest, but the author's followers may be disappointed at the sketchy characterizations here. As the novel opens, pitcher Vincent Cary--aka ""Whiz""--and his shortstop pal Eddie ""E6"" Marchant take the baseball field to practice before the opening game for the Breadhurst Newts, after last season's 0-10 record. While E6 is satisfied with the team's original goal of getting together to simply play ball (all but two players had been cut from other teams), Whiz fantasizes about a winning season. After practice, Whiz heads to his part-time job at a printing shop to make baseball cards with each teammate's statistics, and Brooks foreshadows the connection between Whiz's vocation and avocation: ""Sometimes, when Whiz encountered one of the players in the flesh soon after reading his or her card, he let himself feel for a moment that the words had created a player to match them."" As the urge to win gradually overtakes Whiz, he begins printing up baseball cards for fictional players with dream stats--and they begin to materialize, bringing with them a winning streak for the team. Brooks convincingly demonstrates the fallout when players become more focused on winning than on loving the game for its own sake. However, aside from the relationship between E6 and Whiz, the dynamics between individual players--even twin sisters Phoebe and Wren--are not developed. The immediacy and involvement that goes along with team sports, conveyed so compellingly in Brooks's Wolfbay Wings series goes missing here. Ages 9-up. (June)