For an eighth grader, Molly Williams has more than her fair share of problems. Her father has just died in a car accident, and her mother has become a withdrawn, quiet version of herself.<br><br>Molly doesn't want to be seen as “Miss Difficulty Overcome”; she wants to make herself known to the kids at school for something other than her father's death. So she decides to join the baseball team. The <i>boys' </i>baseball team. Her father taught her how to throw a knuckleball, and Molly hopes it's enough to impress her coaches as well as her new teammates.<br><br>Over the course of one baseball season, Molly must figure out how to redefine her relationships to things she loves, loved, and might love: her mother; her brilliant best friend, Celia; her father; her enigmatic and artistic teammate, Lonnie; and of course, baseball.<br><br>Mick Cochrane is a professor of English and the Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, where he lives with his wife and two sons.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>