The Babe Ruth Ballet School

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

The mighty Babe Ruth is about to lose his best friend and teammate.
Nine-year-old Isabelle “Issy” Archer pitches the fastest, juiciest
spitball in the American League’s 1923 season. Issy and The Babe are
inseparable on and off the field, until Issy decides she wants to spend
her spare time studying ballet. Just to be near his friend Issy, Babe
Ruth ties on a tutu himself. But when Issy announces that she is
quitting baseball forever to pursue a career in dance, Babe Ruth takes
to his sickbed until further notice. He cannot bear to watch Issy pitch
her final game, but without his mighty swat Issy just may end her short
baseball career in failure.

Complemented by the author’s gorgeous artwork, this story could stand
up beside the best baseball yarns of Bernard Malamud or W.P. Kinsella.
Unfortunately, unless a child reader happens to be a precocious baseball
historian, the squirming starts by page 8. Names like Bullet Joe Bush,
Goose Goslin, and even Ernest Hemingway are deftly bunted out from every
page, but they tend to land with a thunk in front of young readers whose
baseball consciousness starts around 1993. Recommended with reservations
for young readers.