Fenway Fever

Happy 100th Birthday, Fenway Park!

"Stats" Pagano may have been born with a heart defect, but he lives for three things: his family's hot dog stand right outside fabled Fenway Park, his beloved Red Sox, and any baseball statistic imaginable. When the family can no longer make ends meet with the hot dog stand, life becomes worrisome for Stats. Then the Sox go on a long losing streak and the team's ace pitcher--and Stats's idol--becomes convinced the famed Curse of the Bambino has returned. Stats just has to help . . . but how? As the Sox faithful sour on their team, Stats forms a plan that ultimately unifies an entire city and proves that true loyalty has a magic all its own.

In honor of Fenway Park's 100th birthday, baseball novelist John H. Ritter delivers an inspiring tale for the sports fan in each of us, regardless of team allegiance.

Baseball novelist John H. Ritter grew up in a baseball family. "But we were also a family of musicians and mathematicians, house painters and poets. My dad was a sports writer in Ashtabula, Ohio, who moved the family out west, just before I was born, to become Sports Editor for The San Diego Union." After high school, John attended the University of California at San Diego, where he met his wife, Cheryl, now an elementary school teacher. Like their grown daughter, Jolie, who runs her own espresso cafe, John has always preferred the self-employed life, having been a custom painting contractor for 25 years. "Even so," he says, "I always 'booked' my calendar with time to write."

In 1994, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators honored him with the Judy Blume Award for a novel in progress. Three years later, upon the sale of his first book, to Penguin Putnam, he retired from house painting and realized his dream of becoming a full-time writer. Now, he is the author of six books for young readers: Over the Wall, Choosing Sides, Under the Baseball Moon, The Boy Who Saved Baseball, The Desperado Who Stole Baseball, and Fenway Fever.

John H. Ritter lives in Koloa, Hawaii. Learn more about him at johnhritter.com.