Fielder from Nowhere

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Summary: 1948 Jackson Scholz novel about baseball and urban poverty
Review: Jackson Scholz's 1948 young adult baseball story "Fielder From Nowhere" is about Ken Holt, a complete unknown who comes out of the proverbial nowhere to make the major league team, the Terriers, but who has a secret that could threaten his career. It turns out Holt is an ex-convict. However, this revelation is tempered by the fact that Holt spends his spare time helping inner city youth form a youth baseball league. On one level "Fielder From Nowhere" is a predictable story: Holt will earn the acceptance of his teammates and once he can feel that he has atoned for his crimes the Terriers can go on and win the pennant. This all involves rather standard fare for such juvenile novels, what with the integration of the outsider into the group and the triumph of teamwork over any and all adversity. But Scholz also brings home the reality of inner city poverty, represented by both Holt's background and the current situation of the kids. Baseball becomes the pathway to redemption for Holt and salvation for the kids he is helping out. This makes the story something of more than passing interest today. Scholz was a rather prolific writer of young adult sports books, usually about baseball and football. "Fielder From Nowhere" does focus as much on social issues away from the ballpark as it does on playing baseball, but Scholz often made an effort to make his books more than mere sports stories. Although the writing is a tad stilted this book is still appropriate for Grades 4-6, although if it were written today the story would obviously be about basketball instead of baseball.