Baseball Card Adventures

The Baseball Card Adventures is a novel series written by Dan Gutman. There are 12 books in the series. 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 attempts to change history several times, but it is always something different from 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.

The Cambridge Companion to Baseball in its review of baseball fiction calls the books "an eclectic enterprise" which "uninhibitedly embraces the genre's cliches."Library Journal called them "good examples" of traditional sports novels.

Joe Stoshack discovers the T206 Honus Wagner, the most valuable baseball card in the world, while cleaning out an elderly neighbor's attic, and uses it to travel back in time to 1909. Once Joe is in 1909, he discovers that he became a grown man. 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 Wagner's old girlfriend, and sends her back in time to be with him again. (The neighbor's name is Ms. Young.)

Joe Stoshack experiences what it is 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 Dodgers' batboy. Stosh wants to go after him, but Jackie tells him it's not safe. In the story, Stosh also meets Jackie's wife and son, Jackie Jr. Stosh also meets Flip Valentini as a kid.

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