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Bull Catcher | 
 enlarge | Author: Alden R. Carter
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $4.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $4.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 1037332
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0590509594
EAN: 9780590509596
ASIN: 0590509594
Publication Date: March 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Book Description
Neil "Bull" Larsen loves baseball more than anything. But when he submits his four-year baseball diary as his senior project, he is prompted to take a closer look at his life - and learns some important lessons about himself.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Baseball Memories June 30, 2007
For as long as he can remember, two things have been in Neil's life--baseball and his best friend Jeff. Jeff is the only person who loves baseball more than Neil does, and the relationship between the two of them has always revolved around the game. Now Neil is a senior in high school. If he doesn't get picked up by a college team, this may be his last year to play baseball.
Neil decides to do a paper about his baseball experience for his senior project. He has kept records of his games and statistics all through high school and as he starts to put together his paper he looks back through these notes and begins to remember the things that were happening in his life not only on the baseball field but off it as well.
He remembers dealing with his mother, who had him when she was in college and left him to live with his grandparents. He remembers convincing Phuong, the new kid, to try out for the team as a pitcher, and he remembers having to be the one to coach Phuong through the experience.
Most of all, though, Neil remembers Sandi, the girl he lusted after for as long as he could remember. Now that it is his senior year of high school, will Neil finally be able to let her go and maybe start a real relationship with Bev, the girl who obviously likes him a lot? Will he be able to come to terms with the fact that baseball might not be a part of his future?
I liked that this book was about baseball but it was still interesting to someone who isn't very into the game. The relationships among the characters were more important to this story than the baseball itself. I also liked the complexity of Neil's life and the fact that he didn't spend his time whining about things, but made the best of what he had.
I didn't like the way Neil was so focused on Sandi for so many years and then he immediately focused on Jenna while she was around. It seemed really stupid of him to go for these girls he new he didn't have a chance of getting.
 Bull Catcher Review December 14, 2005
Summary- When Neil (Bull) Larsen was young, his mom and dad got divorced and then his mom went to Los Angeles and became a business woman. He then went to live with his grandma and grandpa, then his grandma died, and his grandpa started dating other women. Neil, a catcher, and his best friend, Jeff Hanson, a short-stop, would play baseball year round and would workout in the winter; they were die-hard baseball players. Before the first baseball season, Neil and Jeff got a Vietnamese kid named Ngo Huynh Phuong (No Win Fong) to try out for the baseball team and it turned out that he was good after practicing for a while. During the baseball season, a kid named Billy was being abused by his father. After a couple of seasons, Ngo Huynh Phuong decided to stop playing baseball and that made Jeff angry because they had a good team with him. While Neil was home one day, his grandpa had a heart attack and that frightened Neil. After the third season, Neil decided to "hang up" baseball for a little while and got a job at a camp called Forgotten Pine. While he was at this camp, Billy got drunk and died in a car crash. Neil's and Jeff's team made it to the championship game and played Caledonia for the title, and Neil had the game winning hit. After the game, Neil saw a college scout, who told him he was a good catcher but too slow. After the season was over, Neil and Jeff were inpatient and could not wait for the first pitch of the new season.
Setting- The setting is mainly on a baseball field in different parts of Wisconsin but it also takes place in parts of Los Angeles. Neil wants to stay in Wisconsin with his grandpa and friends, but his mom wants him to move out with her to Los Angeles. During these baseball games, the whole town of Shipley is going crazy and are waiting for the baseball team to win the championship game.
Recommendations- I would recommend this book to people that love to read suspenseful and baseball books. The author really captures my attention to what it would be like to be on a winning team. I liked the way the author tells how the previous baseball seasons went and then they come together and beat the team in the championship game, the team which always would beat them. Even though this book is amazing, I perhaps would not recommend this book to people that don't like swearing because this book has quite a bit of swearing in it. Other than swearing, this book is the ultimate baseball book for any baseball player or fan.
The genre of this book is sports fiction and I rate it 5 out of 5 stars because it is a great book and it will hold your attention through the whole book.
Bull Catcher is a great book for teenage baseball fans! February 12, 2005
This book is about a boy named Neil Larson. His nickname is Bull, because of his size. He and his best friend Jeff, are die-hard baseball fans, kind of like me. They play all year, starting in spring, going through summer and fall, but once there is snow on the ground, they practice inside and do weightlifting every other day.
This was definitely one of the best books that I have ever read (mostly because of the baseball theme to it). One of the many things that I liked about this book was that it was very realistic. The team was good, but they did not win every single game, just like in real life. They blew some teams out, but sometimes, they were blown out too. One kid on their team was even abused by his father, which also happens in real life. Bull and Jeff help him out the first time, but later when his dad starts abusing Billy again, Neil could care less because Billy stole his girlfriend.
I think that only kids above the age of 12 should read this book because there is a lot of swearing.
Bull Catcher is a great book for teenage baseball fans. February 9, 2005
Neil "Bull" Larson is a very big kid who loves to play baseball (he is a catcher). His mom is a businesswoman who lives in L.A. Bull's grandma died when he was still a little kid so now he lives with just his grandpa. He goes to High School in Shipley, Wisconsin, and plays baseball for the school's team. In the beginning, Neil is playing for the jayvee team as a Junior. A Vietnamese kid named Phuong moves to their school and Bull and his best friend, Jeff (shortstop), try to convince him to pitch for their team, but it was a lot harder than they had expected. They saw him to be a great pitcher because of his long arms. They were right that he could throw hard, and he was also very accurate. For the first ten minutes anyway. He just started throwing wild and everything. After a while, Phuong decided that this was not for him, so he decided that he did not want to play baseball. After a couple of days, Jeff began to get really mad at him. Bull talked to Phuong and found out why this always happens to him. He said he just concentrates to hard. So, Bull worked on Phuong's control with pitching. By the time that the season started, he decided to play baseball. Neil and him were so good that the next year they played varsity as Sophomores. Bull felt bad that he made to varsity before Jeff did. That year they finished third. The next year, Jeff was on varsity with everyone else, and he was named captain. They were tied for first place going into a tiebreaking final game of the year. They lost that and is was very tough for Bull to get over it. That summer, he became a counselor at a summer camp and had a great time.
a sure catch for baseball fans January 3, 2005
bull catcher is a story about a boy named neil (bull) larson and his freind jeff who live to play baseball and nothing but baseball, and try to get into the majors. along the way they meet up with new people like ngo phuong, who is an awesome pitcher with almost no control on his arm, and beth, the sister of a boy who neil had accidently broke his nose in A game. When they reach high school, bull and phuong is selected into the varsity team but jeff was not, but things changed and there was an empty slot on the varsity team and then jeff got onto the varsity team. later on the team made it to the finals, but because of the bull, the lost the game and because he couldnt live with himself, instead of playing in the summer league, he became a counsler at a summer camp. over there he meets up with bev again who's another counseler, and finds out that there was a trajedy while he was gone.
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