A young boy is the bat/ball boy for a baseball team. Trying to help them improve he searches for four leaf clovers, makes some for the team. There is a fake bunt and a hit in the game to win. Read in late 1960’s or early 70’s.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
Lucky Baseball Bat or Jinx Glove, both by Matt Christopher? Or maybe one of his other books at that level.
I also owned and read this book in the early 1960s. The main character was a 12- or 13-year-old kid who played on a Little League or Babe Ruth League team and kept getting on the wrong side of three of the best players on the other teams due to his aggressive but not dirty play. He desperately wants to make the league’s all-star team, but he fears his unpopularity might cost him being selected. One of the opposing teams is the Green Sox and one of the three opposing players is named Glenn.
He is also the batboy for local Big League of Triple-A team (Bears?) and he caters to the superstitious players in order to get them on a winning streak. The slugger has a lucky bat that the kid made, the catcher wants a new four-leaf clover to put in his mitt before every game and a pitcher wants to find small pebbles near the pitching mound. Gamblers steal the lucky bat and kidnap the kid before the big game. His three former enemies follow the bad guys while riding their bikes and help the police retrieve the kid and the lucky bat before the last inning of the big game. But the slugger hits the winning home run without using the lucky bat.
The book title could have had the word “Jinx” in it – but it is not “Dugout Jinx” the Chip Hilton book by Clair Bee.
thans you remember a lot more of the story than I do. I’ll keep loooking using this info.