GENRE: Non-Fiction
WORDS: 700
Query:
Dear PB Party Hosts,
It was the summer of 1994, and twenty-one women were about to change the game of baseball forever…
Attached please find my 700-word picture book, A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME, the true story of the Colorado Silver Bullets —the first women’s professional baseball team to compete against men.
The facts in this manuscript were reviewed by four players from the 1994 team, and I interviewed all four of them as well.
I’m an elementary teacher, an active member/volunteer for the Eastern NY region of SCBWI, and a #PBChat Mentee in 2022. As a baseball fan growing up in the 90s, I avidly followed the Colorado Silver Bullets. Although I never got to play for them as I had hoped, I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to bring their story to life in this picture book.
A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME is my debut picture book. It combines the determination in World Cup Women by Meg Walters, with women in sports breaking down barriers like in Breaking the Ice by Angie Bullaro.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Excerpt:
For decades, men crowded the diamond and the dugouts.
Women weren’t welcome on the baseball field.
People said they couldn’t catch or pitch,
couldn’t compete,
weren’t strong enough to play.
But in the summer of 1994, everything changed…
From California to the New York island, they arrived—
Softball all-stars.
College heroes.
All-Americans.
The best of the best.
Twenty-one women, ready to play ball.
Batter up.
What inspired you to write this story & what do you have in common with it:
When I was growing up in the 90s, I lived and breathed baseball—and softball, stickball, wiffleball, or any form of the game. So, when a new professional all-female team had been formed to compete against minor league men’s teams, I was thrilled! Dreaming of playing professional baseball was not just a fantasy anymore. It was an actual, tangible goal. Although I never did get to play for them, the opportunity that existed was so impactful for me, it inspired me to share their story in this book.
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