The Summer of the Homerun

"The ball seemed to be something other than an object struck by a wooden bat and sent sailing through the air over the park; it was more like a bird, something with an intelligence of its own, or like time itself moving as we
stopped to gaze and wonder."
That's how Smitty, 13, shortstop turned pitcher, describes the home run that the New Kid hit.
Everything, Smitty says, was just fine before that hit. After the hit, his whole world, even the budding romance with Sandy Miller, seems to change, and the changes leave Smitty bewildered.
It's a summer in the early 1960s. Smitty and his pals are entering high school. The story examines those changes through the prism of one spectatular baseball hit.
It is also a story about kids playing summer baseball, their joy, their youth and friendship.