The Baseball Card Adventures is a novel series is written by Dan Gutman.[1] So far there are 10 books in the series. The 11th book, Ted & Me, is expected to be released in 2012. The books feature a boy, Joe Stoshack, who can travel through time when he touches old baseball cards. When he holds a baseball card, he is transported to the year that card was made and somewhere near the ballplayer on the card. Later he discovers that this power also works on very old photographs. He tries to use this power wisely, and he changes history several times, but it is always something different than his original goal.
The novels are typically illustrated with black and white photos from the time period in which the story takes place. For an example, when Jackie Robinson steals second base in Jackie & Me, a real photo of Jackie Robinson stealing a base is pictured. Occasionally they will also be illustrated with pictures taken exclusively for the book.[2]
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Joe Stoshack discovers the T206 Honus Wagner, the rarest baseball card in the world, while cleaning out an elderly neighbor's attic, and uses it to travel back in time to 1909. Joe helps Honus Wagner win the 7th game of the 1909 World Series, and travels back to the present to return the card to his neighbor. He then discovers his neighbor is really Honus Wagner's old girlfriend, and sends her back in time to be with him again.
Joe Stoshack experiences what it's like to be an African American in a segregated society when he travels back to 1947 to watch Jackie Robinson play, and while going back in time he himself turns black. He tries to bring back a bunch of Jackie Robinson cards, but the cards are stolen by the Dodger's batboy. Stosh also meets Flip Valentini as a kid.
Did he call his shot or didn't he? Witnesses never agreed. Like other baseball fans, Joe Stoshack wants to know the truth. Joe Stoshack and his father Bill travel back to 1932 and catch Babe Ruth's called shot in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs.
After Flip tells Stosh about the Black Sox Scandal, Stosh thinks that Shoeless Joe is innocent, and he goes back in time to try to stop it from ever happening.
Joe's dad gets in a car crash, and fearing he might die, tells Joe his inheritance: a Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card. He tells Joe to go back and prevent the terrible accident that negatively impacted Mantle's baseball career. However, Joe's cousin Samantha switches the Mantle card for a catcher of a women's league team, Dorothy Maguire. When he goes back in time he took the job for the mascot of the Milwaukee Chicks.
Joe goes back in time to see if Abner Doubleday really invented baseball.
Joe and Flip Valentini go back in time with a radar gun to find out how fast Satchel Paige's pitching really was. Unfortunately, they never get to find out, attempting to do so several times only to have something go wrong in the last minute. Then Joe Stoshack leaves Flip Valentini in the past in a climatic chase scene, and Flip lives his life over again. at the end everyone ends up happy and a happy ending
Joe and his enemy Bobby Fuller go back to 1913, where they meet Jim Thorpe, Bobby Fuller's great-grandfather. However, along the way they have several disagreements.
After Joe is hit in the head by a baseball and wakes up after two weeks in a coma, he learns about another baseball player who wasn't so lucky - Ray Chapman. When Joe recovers from his accident, he goes back to 1920 and attempts to save Chapman from an event that changed baseball history forever.
| Title | Historical figure | Year of publication |
|---|---|---|
| Honus & Me | Honus Wagner | 1997 |
| Jackie & Me | Jackie Robinson | 1999 |
| Babe & Me | Babe Ruth | 2000 |
| Shoeless Joe & Me | Shoeless Joe Jackson | 2002 |
| Mickey & Me | Mickey Mantle/ Dorothy Maguire | 2003 |
| Abner & Me | Abner Doubleday | 2005 |
| Satch & Me | Satchel Paige | 2006 |
| Jim & Me | Jim Thorpe | 2008 |
| Ray & Me | Ray Chapman | 2009 |
| Roberto & Me | Roberto Clemente | 2010 |
| Ted & Me | Ted Williams | 2012 |
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