No matter how hard he tries, Harold is no good at baseball. Big Leon tells him to go home, and Shirley thinks he should wait for next year. The bats are always too heavy, and the pitches fly past him before he can swing.
The ground balls always bounce over his head, and his little legs never get him to the pop flies fast enough. So the only place Coach Lombardi puts him is on the bench. Until one day, during a very important game, Harold gets his big chance to show that being little isn't so bad after all.
All he can do is look after the bats and bring cold drinks to the dugout. Even waiting out in the rain does not make him grow like the flowers. But his father and the coach remind him of the short players in the Hall of Fame.
With the championship on the line and two outs in the final inning, the team needs Harold at the plate.
Syd Hoff has given much pleasure to children everywhere as the author and illustrator of numerous children’s books, including the favorite I Can Read books Sammy the Seal, The Horse in Harry’s Room, and the Danny and the Dinosaur books. Born and raised in New York City, he studied at the National Academy of Design. His cartoons were a regular feature in the New Yorker after he sold his first cartoon to that magazine at the age of eighteen. His work also appeared in many other magazines, including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, and in a nationally syndicated daily feature.