Singled Out in Center Field
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend - Book One
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Excerpt from Chapter 10
Jenna was still looking at Lola whizzing the ball to the catcher, when she was suddenly flying horizontally through the air. She tried to catch herself on the dugout bench which was covered in ball bags, helmets, mitts, and water containers. As she hit the bench with a thud, her arm slid against it. She felt the skin on the inside of her left forearm scrape against the metal edge. She landed on the dugout floor on her right hand, but not before her knee banged against the concrete. The ball bag that she fell against toppled to the ground with a thunk and pushed most of the other items onto the concrete as it fell. One of the helmets went rolling into the bats that were leaning against the fence. The dugout rang with the PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! of falling bats. Horrified, Jenna peered up to see who had witnessed her fall. Just about everybody was looking right at her.
“I’m fine! No one hurt!” Jenna yelled, cringing inside.
How did this happen? she asked herself. She looked at the entrance to the dugout and saw a small step up onto the concrete. Jenna had not seen that little step because she was staring at the pitcher. She checked her knee, which was stinging and a little scraped, and her forearm, which hurt in the spot that had hit the bench. She tried to throw everything back up on the bench and pretend as though nothing had happened.
Excerpt from Chapter 15
Julie, Coach Liza's daughter, was the first one to bat in the second inning. She hit it to the third baseman. The third baseman fielded the ball but couldn't make the throw in time, because Julie's long legs got her there quickly.
Zoe's short, blond ponytail stuck out of the back of her helmet as she got into the batter's box. She hit it to the shortstop, who tossed it to second. Julie was out, and Zoe was on first.
Zoe stole second while Trina was up to bat. The catcher tried to throw her out at second, but Zoe slid in under the tag. The team began chanting:
She stole on you, yeah, she stole on you!
While you were picking your nose, she was up on her toes,
While you were combing your hair, she was already there,
While you were fixing your skirt, she was down in the dirt,
When she stole on you, yeah, SHE STOLE ON YOU!
Trina hit a line drive to the first baseman. The player caught it and immediately turned to throw it to second. Zoe barely made it back to the base.
That first baseman must be a second-year player, thought Jenna. She's on her game!
Kayla was up now. Her bright orange fingernails gleamed as she gripped her bat. She watched as four balls went by and then hustled down the line to first base.
Jenna was up. Runners on first and second, two outs. No pressure!
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Jenna is very nervous the night she goes to the softball ranking session. She has some trouble catching the balls that are thrown to her, and she misses several of the balls that are hit to her. In the batting cage, she is a little freaked out by how fast the pitch crosses that plate. All-in-all, she is not very confident when she leaves.
But no matter. Once practices start, Jenna knows that she'll do better. She and her dad practice in the yard and at the first practice, Jenna........lets the ball roll between her legs into the outfield. Oh boy. She needs to spend some more time in the yard with her dad!
About the Author
I carry a book with me everywhere I go. I have spent the past several summers in soccer complexes and ballparks in different cities and states, and I have always carried a book to read. People would comment that they wished they had thought to bring a book, also.
When the girls on my daughter's 10-and-under softball team saw me reading, they would claim that they didn't like to read because there weren't any good books to read. I found that difficult to believe. What kind of books were they looking for? What would interest this group of girls and hold their attention?
I began to pay attention to what the girls did and what interested them. Each one seemed to love sports of all kinds. Even when they were told to "rest" between games, they would play pitch and catch, throw a frisbee, play on the playground equipment, or throw a football. At one tournament, someone had a volleyball, and they had a blast with that!
I looked online and in bookstores for books about girls' sports, specifically softball. There were very few, and the ones I did find were for beginning readers or for teenagers. Matt Christopher has written many books about several different sports, but most are written for boys. Maybe there was a need for this genre of books.
Little stories and events began to swirl in my mind. Because I had majored in French and minored in English in college, I was fairly sure that I could write a grammatically correct book. My kids were (and are) involved in sports and silly things were (and are) always happening around our house. So, one night I sat down at the computer, and Voila! the series Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend was born.