Read the excerpt from "The New Bobcat.”

But on this first day of practice, they discovered that their new team was going to be different from the others they’d played on. Coach Ramirez told the players that the Bobcats were going to have a girl player join the squad. She and her family had moved to town from Chicago. She had also been playing ball since Little League. Now she was ready for Senior League, just like the boys, and she’d be arriving any minute.

"A girl?” Hakeem blurted out. "Girls don’t play baseball!”