"A modern baseball story of a rookie who proves his mettle on a big league team. The hard grind and many heartaches during his development into a first-rate player are convincingly portrayed. This book will be welcomed by boys and girls who are clamoring for a genuine, up-to-date story written by one who knows baseball thoroughly and who can also spin a good tale." —Library Journal

Mr. Tunis not only knows American sports—he understands other human values. He shows baseball as the intensely human drama it is. Here, measured by one boy's tense experience, are shown the factors that make baseball the best beloved spectacle of the American public—the lightning-like coordination of mind and muscle, the endurance and courage that carry a man through the long grind, the hopes and disappointments, the loyalties, the matchless moments of suspense.

In the rise of Roy Tucker, the kid from Tomkinsville, the reader sees baseball from the inside and sees the boy become a man, moulded by the severe tests of a game that demands not only skill but what the baseball players call "heart."

From the dust jacket