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The Story

Winners Take All by Fred Bowen

Kyle, a good kid, makes a bad decision to cheat in a big game. He fakes a catch to clinch the win against a long-time archrival. His teammates go wild with victory. But suddenly Kyle doesn't feel so good. His conscience is bugging him. And he feels like he's keeping a secret from his teammates, especially Claire. Kyle and Claire are good friends and her praise makes him very uncomfortable.

But Kyle doesn't want to come clean and give up his hero reputation. Eventually he concocts a scheme to secretly throw a game to balance the false win and make his team even in the standings with the archrival. There's a lot of tension every time Kyle comes up to bat (will he strike out on purpose?) or goes after a fly ball (will he drop it?). But Kyle's drive to win proves too strong; there's no way he can throw a game.

Meanwhile a subplot has been building. Another kid actually saw the fake catch and is threatening to report Kyle to the Youth Baseball Commission. He says that he will keep Kyle's secret on one condition: that Kyle's team doesn't win the championship! Kyle feels trapped. He desperately wants his team to win the trophy, but if he plays hard and they win, the other kid will blab and Kyle's secret will be out—everyone will know he cheated. He wishes he could put his life on rewind—he wouldn't fake that catch again. But there's no rewind button in life, so what can he do now?

The Audience

Winners Take All is chiefly for the 8 to12 year old crowd—boys and girls alike. Grownups will enjoy reading it aloud because of the sports-history angle: Kyle's baseball-loving grandmother tells him about Christy Mathewson, one of the first baseball Hall of Famers. Mathewson had the kind of personal integrity that kept him out of messy scrapes like the one Kyle got into.