In 1961, Jack Dolan’s dream of hitting home runs like his heroes, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, quickly turns into a nightmare. He hasn’t gotten a hit all season. Not even a foul tip. How could he when the other team chants “No Contact Jack” when he is at bat? But when his neighbor, once a semi-pro Negro League star, teaches him the game, he not only makes contact with the ball but with his overworked father—all by keeping his head up in more ways than one. Making Contact tells the story of a young boy’s, sometimes painful journey, from “No Contact Jack” to team hero when he gets the winning hit in a championship game. His story shows how practice and persistence leads to success. More importantly, Jack’s journey deepens his relationships with his teammates, friends, neighbors, and most of all his father. Although Making Contact is set in the past, young readers, who followed Aaron Judge’s pursuit of Roger Maris’s home run record in 2022, will not only discover how baseball and the world was different in 1961, but how the challenges of playing baseball and growing up remain the same.
