Rootie Kazootie, Baseball Star

For several years, I (Mike) had been thinking about a book my father read to me when I was a kid. All I remembered was that it was about baseball, and there was a mouse in the cast of characters. Ten years ago, when the internet wasn't what it is now, web searches yielded nothing. At one point, I even swapped a few e-mails with someone at the Library of Congress about how to find this book, but without a title or an author, I was in a bad way.

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My quest ebbed and flowed over the years, until earlier this summer, when I again tried a search of "mouse AND baseball" -- this time at some obscure book collectors' web site. I hit on an image of the cover (above). It looked familiar, so, after 10 years of searching, I now had a name. From there, it was on to a few auctions on eBay, where prices ranged from $13.50 to $259.00. I ultimately found a copy in California for which I paid $7.25, including shipping. When I got the book, I vividly remembered the images but not the story. (Basically, good triumphs over evil.)

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The big unknown was whether my now 85-year-old-father would remember reading this book to me some 50 years ago. Lo and behold, he didn't.

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I'm not sure why this book has had such a lingering impact on me, but I think it has a lot to do with a memory of something my Dad did for me -- bonding, if you will. I have to confess I was disappointed he had no recollection of the book, but I guess it's because, to him, it represents just one of many things he was doing for me.

If you'd like to take the five minutes required to read Rootie Kazootie, Baseball Star, I may be posting a link to a .pdf of its 32 pages, but I'm looking into some copyright issues. In the meantime, if you just can't stand the suspense, let me know, and we'll make some arrangements.

Here's Dad with Rootie, 8/22/09.