What I'm Reading: Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series

Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series is one of the books my son is reading for his Battle of the Books team at school. (I recently read Re-Start, another of the books he's reading for BoB.) I can see why Virginia picked this one for the Battle of the Books tournament--it's about the Washington Nationals, and specifically it's something of an alternate history where the Washington Nationals made it to the World Series in 2009.

The book is about Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, two 14-year-olds who work as sports reporters for Washington newspapers. They seem to have made a reputation for themselves as able to ferret out big stories in unexpected places, as they previously uncovered mysteries at the Final Four, the U.S. Open, and the Superbowl. (Apparently Change-Up is the fourth in a series.) In this book, they land an interview with Norbert Doyle, a 30-something journeyman pitcher who learns during the interview that, due to a series of injuries to other pitchers, he'll be pitching the opening game of the World Series for the Washington Nationals that night. Of course, Stevie and Susan Carol were lucky enough to be present so they're able to break this news in the national media.

Doyle lost his wife years before to a drunk driver and has raised his two kids by himself while bouncing around from city to city in the minor leagues. For him, his chance to pitch the big game is a dream come true--and after he wins the game that night, publishers and movie studios want the rights to his inspiring story. The problem is, when Stevie starts digging into Doyle's background, his version of the drunk driving incident doesn't seem to hold up. Meanwhile, Susan Carol meets with Doyle's son, an athletic 14-year old boy who appears to have a romantic interest in her--or is he trying to get between her and her co-reporter/boyfriend, Stevie, so they don't dig up any more on his dad?

This book was a lot fun, moved fast, and kept up a steady beat of snappy dialogue. It was also fun to read about all the players and coaches from a decade ago whose names I remember from attending games, reading newspaper articles, and listening to games on the radio. Only one player from that era remains--Ryan Zimmerman, then-third baseman, now first baseman, but still a pretty good player. (While there are many real people who pop up as characters in this book, all the main characters are fictional.)

Still, there were two things I found hard to accept. One, this maybe more of a quibble, but it's the idea of the 2009 Nationals making it to the World Series. Fun to think about--but it was never going to happen! The team that year simply wasn't good enough. They had Zimmerman and slugger Adam Dunn and... well, that was pretty much it. As much as I enjoyed reading about shortstop Christian Guzman or center fielder Austin Kearns or catcher Wil Nieves, those guys were decent but not great players and that's being generous. In fact, the Nationals won only 59 games that season--this is not a team that was only a hot streak away from the postseason. I believe that was the year I attended seven or eight games at Nationals Park and the team won none of them. (Maybe I was the problem?)

The other thing is that Stevie and Susan Carol do not act like fourteen-year-olds. My son is thirteen, and from observing him and his friends, as well as my own memories, Stevie and Susan Carol are not believable for that age. They are simply too mature in their romantic relationship with each other, their ability to write copy to deadline, their ability to keep their cool in stressful situations. I might have accepted them as sixteen-year-olds. But fourteen just doesn't work, and having them referred to as that age repeatedly broke my suspension of disbelief.

More because of the latter flaw than the former, I find I can't wholeheartedly recommend this book. Nevertheless, Change-Up would likely really appeal to a middle schooler interested in sports, and it has enough of an eye for detail and ear for dialogue that it would be a fun and quick read for a baseball-loving adult as well.

Ranking: Aquaman

My son and I saw Aquaman in the movie theater this past weekend. It was his second time seeing it, and it was entertaining enough for a 13-year old that he eagerly went back with me. The nice thing about going to a movie that's been out for a while--both our tickets together came to $13.00. Pretty cheap for a movie nowadays!

I'm not sure I liked it as much as my son, but I found it plenty entertaining. Unlike most DC films lately, it didn't have an especially dark tone. It was fun and fast-paced. Best of all, it didn't take itself too seriously, just like it's lead character, Arthur Curry, who was born to an Atlantean mother but raised by his human father in a small town in Maine. Arthur's main hobbies are drinking and hell-raising, though he sometimes likes to go for long swims to commune with the fish and, um, fight off pirates. When other characters start coming around asking him to come to the ocean to take up the crown of an undersea kingdom called Atlantis, all he knows is how inadequate he would be to the task of kingship.

When a war between Atlantis and other underwater kingdoms comes to the surface, though, he knows he finally has to visit Atlantis and overthrow his half-brother, Orm, a war-mongerer who sits on the throne in his stead. Not surprisingly, Orm doesn't want to go, and he tosses Arthur and their beautiful and headstrong cousin Mera, who has befriended Arthur, into a deep ocean trench filled with demonic deep-sea creatures. It is there that Arthur and Mera make an important discovery....

Like I said, the film is fast-paced and humorous, and it has plenty of great special effects without overly relying on them. It also has some surprisingly A-list actors: Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe. I don't know that muscle-bound and heavily-tattooed Jason Momoa is one of history's great actors, but as Aquaman, he has definitely found a role that suits him. All in all, I rank this movie as Pretty Good, the second-highest rating in my system, putting it just below the first Spider-Man movie from 2002 (yes, I know there was a 1970s made-for-TV Spider-Man movie, but I'm not counting it) and above X-Men 2.

I have previously ranked Avengers: Infinity War, the Avengers movies, the Batman movies, Black Panther, Captain America: Civil War, Dr. Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Logan, Man of Steel, the Man-Thing, the non-Marvel and non-DC comic movies, the other DC movies, the Spider-Man movies, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the summer 2015 comic movies, the Superman movies, Thor: Ragnarok, Wonder Woman, and the X-Men movies.


As ever, my ranking system is
Green=excellent  Blue=pretty good  Black=Okay  Red=avoid


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Here's the master list of all comics movies I've rated so far, in order from best to worst:

Crumb
American Splendor
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Iron Man
Heavy Metal (1981)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Avengers
Superman (1978)
Captain America
Wonder Woman (2017)
Batman Begins (2005)
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Spider-Man (2002)
Aquaman
X-Men 2: X-Men United
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Superman II
Batman (1989)
Ant-Man
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Dr. Strange
The Dark Knight (2008)
Logan (2017)
Iron Man 3
The Wolverine (2013)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Sin City (2005)
X-Men: First Class
X-Men (2000)
Black Panther
Man of Steel (2013)
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
Swamp Thing (1982)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Iron Man 2
Watchmen (2009)
Batman Forever (1995)
Superman Returns (2006)
Thor 2: The Dark World
Incredible Hulk (2008)
Mystery Men (1999)
Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Man-Thing (2005)
Superman III
Supergirl (1984)
Thor
X-Men 3: Last Stand
Hulk (2003)
Fritz the Cat (1972)
Batman and Robin (1997)
Batman Returns (1992)
Superman IV

Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (Haven't seen)
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (Haven't seen)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) (Haven't seen)
Batman (1966) (Haven't seen)
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Haven't seen)
Catwoman (Haven't seen)
Constantine (Haven't seen)
Deadpool (Haven't seen)
Green Lantern (Haven't seen)
Hellboy (Haven't seen)
Judge Dredd (Haven't seen)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Haven't seen)
V for Vendetta (Haven't seen)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Haven't seen)