I read the book At the plate with Sammy Sosa in the month of January. Sammy is a child that lives in the Dominican Republic, which has a high level of poverty. There are kids in the streets (including Sammy and his older brother) that beg people to pay them for shoe shining.
Since Sammy's family is un-wealthy, Sammy and his brother have many problems. For instance, Sammy's brother was unable to go to school or play baseball, because he had to work to raise money for his family. He worked as a shoe shiner on the streets.
Sammy's history in baseball began when his brother signed him up for baseball practice. The kids in the Dominican Republic had to play baseball with a wooden stick (instead of a bat) and a piece of cloth that they'd roll up into a ball (instead of a baseball). Pretty soon Sammy started catching up with the sport. When Sammy grew up a scout came to watch one of his games. The scout was impressed of what he was seeing so he was sent Sammy to the United States to play professional baseball. The first day he played was on the team called the Texas, Rangers. Half a year later he was drafted to the New York, White Sox. A couple years later he was once again drafted to the Chicago, Cubs. On the year 1998 Sammy scored 66 homeruns in that whole season and became the 2nd best homerun hitter at that time! “The man”, as they called him, was Mark McGwire and he scored 70 homeruns in that season of 1998. McGwire was beating Sammy by 4 homeruns and he was holding the record of the most homeruns hit. Unfortunately, the Dominican Republic was hit by a hurricane, so Sammy established a children's hospital there and also sent 80,000 pounds of rice, beans, and cooking oil to his hometown.
My opinion on this book and why I recommend it is that it was a very exciting book and the farther you get into it, the more exciting it gets. To imagine a child raised up in poverty becoming a national baseball star is amazing. I recommend this book to people of all kinds that are into the sport of baseball. I hope you enjoyed the information I provided about Sammy Sosa!
