The Baseball Boys of Lakeport - the Second Volume of the Lakeport Series

This book is definitely not a usual one for me.  However, it is a book I could not pass up when I saw it up in Cooperstown, New York a couple of years back when my friend, Pam, and I went up there to explore all the sites that actually existed and were used in the Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of Mirror Bay.  After all, Cooperstown is famous for its baseball, and this book happens to be authored by none other than Edward Stratemeyer, the same man who created Nancy Drew (and whose daughter authored Mirror Bay!). Thus, even though I'm not a sports fan at all, and even though I'm not normally a fan of series books for boys, I picked this up for no other reason than to have a collectible from my visit to Cooperstown.  However, as I was chatting with another friend recently, he was asking me about books written by Edward Stratemeyer, and I had to admit I have never read one.  So, thanks to his prompting, I picked up this book and gave it a read.

 

The Baseball Boys of Lakeport is the second volume in a series of books set in the fictional town of Lakeport. What I find amusing about that is the fact that another Stratemeyer series, The Bobbsey Twins, is also set in the town of Lakeport.  The first volume of The Bobbsey Twins series, written by Stratemeyer and published in 1904, featured the two sets of twins having adventures in their hometown of Lakeport.  The first books in this Lakeport Series were published in 1908 (see below for questions regarding publication and copyright dates), and while they did not feature the Bobbsey family, they did feature a group of boys who managed to form clubs of some sort involving a variety of activities.  The boys went hunting in the first book, formed a baseball team in this book, then went on to form a boat club, a football team, an automobile club, and at the end, an aircraft club.  There was very little mystery to this book - it was more about the adventures of the boys and they trouble they faced from local bullies, and based on some of the recap of the first book in this one, I would hazard the guess that all of the books were the same.  This series only lasted six books, being published from 1908 to 1912:

 

1 - The Gun Boys of Lakeport, or The Island Camp (1908)

2 - The Baseball Boys of Lakeport, or The Winning Run (1908)

3 - The Boat Club Boys of Lakeport, or The Water Champions (1909)

4 - The Football Boys of Lakeport, or The Champions of the School (1909)

5 - The Automobile Boys of Lakeport, or A Run for the Mountains (1910)

6 - The Aircraft Boys of Lakeport, or The Rivals of the Clouds (1912) 

 

While the "boys" in the book are quite a few in number, Stratemeyer seems to focus on four or five main boys, with a number of supporting characters that have minimal dialogue or action.  The main characters are Joe Westmore and his older brother, Harry, and their good friend, Fred Rush.  Other boys who share the spotlight are Link Darrow and Paul Shale.  Rounding out the cast are the minor players, such as Frank Pemberton, Walter Bannister, Matt Roscoe, and a few others whose names only appear once or twice throughout the story.  On the other side of the tracks, you have the bullies/villains of the story, which include Dan Marcy, a carry-over from the previous book who caused the boys considerable problems when they were out hunting; Si Voup, the captain of the opposing baseball team who will do anything to win the championship; Sidney Yates, another player of the opposing team who pulls some nasty tricks that get him punished severely by his father; and then there is Montgomery Jaddell, the school principal who is quite the stick in the mud, and who seems dead-set on making life as difficult as possible for the boys during their last weeks of school for the year.

 

While there is the main story involving the formation of the Lakeports amateur baseball team and their struggles to earn money to buy uniforms and equipment, as well as their games against various opposing teams from the surrounding towns, there are a couple of smaller adventures along the way - such as a stolen boat that leaves the boys stranded on Pine Island and the kidnapping of the Lakeports' two strongest players just before the final championship game. The boys also come up against some vagrants who think they are going to report their activities, as well as a bull that somehow gets loose and runs rampart through the main street, and a stolen cash box (that Harry and Joe's father mistakenly believes Harry took!).  Again, there are no major mysteries, and most everything centers around the boys' baseball activities.  Again, the subject matter of the book is not necessarily my cup of tea, but the writing is actually well-done, the story nicely paced, and the characters are varied enough to avoid a cookie-cutter cast.

 

The internal illustrations are by Max Francis Klepper (1861-1907), who was a German-born artist who immigrated to the United States in 1876 and grew up in Indiana before working in Illinois and New York.  He contributed illustrations to a number of magazines, such as Collier's, Harper's Monthly, Cosmopolitan, and others, as well as providing illustrations for several books during the early 1900s, one of which was this particular book.  More information about the artist can be found here:  Max Francis Klepper.

 

Something I found rather interesting is the copyright page.  Pretty much all references to this book I was able to find online provides a copyright and publication date of 1908.  However, the copyright page for this book lists the original Copyright as 1905, by A. S. Barnes & Co., under the title "The Winning Run."  The Copyright of the Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. edition is 1908, under the title "The Baseball Boys of Lakeport, or The Winning Run."  I was unable to locate any information regarding that earlier copyright, or even a book (or magazine serial) published under the name "The Winning Run" by A. S. Barnes & Co., leaving me to wonder just where that copyright originated.

 

Another surprising fact about the book is its length.  The story is 315 pages, which is nearly 100 pages more than most of the children's series books I am used to reading from the first half of the 20th century.  This must have been somewhat the standard in the very early 1900s, as ads in the back of the book indicate the first three Dave Porter books were 312, 286, and 304 pages, respectively.  Other series listed in those ads show books of various lengths - from 300 pages to 310 pages to 320 pages to 330 pages, and even one book at a whopping 431 pages!  It's actually rather sad that the decades passed, the length of these books aimed at children and young adults gradually decreased to just a little over 200 pages, and ultimately down to just 180 or so pages per book.

 

Overall, not a bad story, and while I may not be rushing out there to hunt down the other five books in the series, if I do happen across any of them at some point, I'm likely to pick them up just to read the further adventures of these Lakeport boys!

 

RATING:  9 silk hats with the top knocked in out of 10 for a wholesome story of sportsmanship, friendship, and adventure, with a lot of sports and a bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. 

A Ted Wilford Mystery, no. 11 - The Baseball Mystery

Up until this point, I have more or less enjoyed the Ted Wilford series.  While I'm not much of a fan of the "boys' mystery series" books, since first buying these reprints of the series written by Norvin Pallas, I have been pleasantly surprised by how good the books have been.  While not full of danger and adventure like the Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys series, the mysteries have been more cerebral, and the fun has been in following along with Ted and Nelson as they methodically follow up on clues and use their brains to unravel the truth.  But this eleventh mystery in the series left me feeling a bit let down.

The Baseball Mystery gave me the impression that Pallas was more interesting in writing a baseball story than a mystery.  There's very little mystery and more of Ted and Nelson trying to manage the statewide baseball tournament that is being held in their small hometown of Forestdale.  Between scheduling the games, arranging accommodations for all of the players of the various teams, setting up people for intake, tracking the scores, and taking photographs, Ted and his best friend are left very little time for anything else.  Especially when there are problems that arise that must be handled with delicate care so as to not offend anyone and give Forestdale a bad name.  

The small mystery that comes in to play starts with a break-in at the headquarters for Ted's team of workers.  Nothing is stolen, leaving Ted to wonder exactly what it was someone was looking for.  Then a couple of kids break the window to the local jewelry store, and once again, nothing is taken.  After that, a model airplane is stolen from a small show that takes place during the baseball tournament.  Everyone is convinced that some of the young men who have come to town to play ball are behind all of these crimes, but Ted isn't quite ready to blame the baseball players.  He thinks something else may be going on.  Of course, he has next to no time to really think about it or investigate, because all of his attention is spent monitoring the baseball games, ensuring all of the players have accommodations, and that complaints are handled quickly and efficiently.

For anyone who ever wanted to learn everything about baseball, this book is it.  Either Pallas was well-versed with the game and how it is scored and how the players' averages are determined, or he did considerable research - because he writes about all of it in excruciating detail in this story, making it somewhat difficult to read at times.  I'll be honest and admit that I skimmed over some of the pages when Nelson starts explaining how the averaging works for the various player positions.  I did not see how it was important to the story, and quite frankly, it wasn't.  Yes, the mystery was ultimately revealed to be about some men who were gambling, placing bets on the game and trying to control the outcome of the games in order to make more money - but the overly detailed facts about baseball where not truly necessary in order to enjoy the story.  I have to wonder if perhaps that was used as filler, in order to pad out the story to fill the page count.

Ken Kutler does make a brief appearance in the story, although it seems for no other purpose than to push Ted into suspecting the whole gambling side of things.  Margaret shows up in a scene or two as one of the people helping Ted check in the baseball players as they arrive in town.  Ted's mother is on hand to help house and feed a couple of the baseball players, and even Mr. Dobson, whose newspaper is the one that petitioned to have the baseball tournament held in Forestdale, is barely in the story.  It seems the entire supporting cast has been pushed aside to focus on the baseball (which is why, you'll notice, my post here is focusing on the baseball element of this book - I figure if the book can do it, then so can I!).

I will give Pallas some credit here - he does introduce two young boys that stay at the Wilford house, Larry Dodge and Cal Farmington, who manage to make their presence known throughout the story and play a part in the final revelation about the gambling element.  These two boys are rather likable, and it's almost a shame they won't be sticking around to be regular members of the supporting cast.

Not much else I can really say about this book, other than the fact that I'm glad it's behind me, and I can only hope the next book in the series will be better than this one.

RATING:  5 perfect little bunts down third out of 10 for at least changing things up a bit and not writing the same old mystery plot in each book.