A Topps League Story: Book Three: Zip It!

These fun, illustrated early chapter books feature the adventures―and misadventures―of the Pine City Porcupines, a hapless baseball farm team, and their two batboys: Chad, an avid baseball fan with a huge baseball card collection, and Dylan, who doesn’t know a thing about the sport. The fictional series has a unique twist: Chad solves problems by using information from Topps cards of real figures from modern baseball history.

Pine City Porcupines batboy Chad breaks an important unofficial rule of baseball: Don’t talk to the starting pitcher when he’s got a perfect game going, where not a single opponent has reached base. Now, because Chad opened his mouth, the entire Pines dugout is upset, and the team may lose to the second-to-last-place West Valley Varmints. Chad has to consult his baseball card collection to figure out how to help his beloved Pines pull off the perfect game.

Kurtis Scaletta is the author of several acclaimed middle school novels, including Mudville, one of Booklist’s 2009 Top 10 Sports Books for Youth. He lives in Minneapolis. Eric Wight is the creator of the popular Frankie Pickle illustrated chapter book series. He lives in Pennsylvania with his family.