Able to Play: Overcoming Physical Challenges

In the fourth title in Stout’s middle-grade Good Sports series, he profiles four major league baseball players—pitchers Mordecai Brown and Jim Abbott, third-baseman Ron Santo, and outfielder Curtis Pride—all of whom thrived on-field despite physical disabilities. In clean, fast-moving prose, Stout outlines the injuries, medical conditions, and birth defects that affected the men (“The stump of his amputated finger affected Mordecai’s grip on the ball, and just as every throw he made from third base swerved and dipped, so did each of his pitches”), the challenges and setbacks they faced, and their triumphs. Equal parts inspirational and informative. Ages 9–12. (Apr.)