Review Detail

Teenage Ruby Thomas is suddenly in charge of her two young nieces, after their family is hit hard during the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic. For months she looks for jobs and kills birds and squirrels so that they can eat at least one meal a day. She is determined to keep her girls safe in the bustle and crowd of the noisy New York City. For a 17-year-old girl, Ruby possesses one rare skill; she can throw a ball as fast as some of the best major league pitchers. That skill is what brings her out to Coney Island, where she gets her first real job as a sideshow. But when her wonderful manager is killed, an alcohol dealer replaces him and begins to abuse Ruby and her girls. Ruby escapes the hands of her manager and goes to live with one of her friends. A couple weeks later she signs a deal to pitch for the Brooklyn Typhoons as the only woman ever to pitch on a male team. Ruby soon finds herself trying to find her way through the maze of tricksters, rumrunners and gangsters that come with her ride to fame. She receives threats from the Ku Klux Klan, newspapers and individuals who do not like the idea of a female pitcher. Numerous times violence and death come knocking at her door, but Ruby uses her intelligence and bravery to outwit the sneaky gangsters. Through it all Ruby pitches her heart out for her team and never fails to impress.

Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace was an amazing novel that had me hooked right from the beginning. This book is actually partially based on a true story about a girl named Jackie Mitchell, who pitched for the Chattanooga Lookouts and struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Joseph Wallace puts great detailed language into his novel, so that you can really hear the roar of the crowd, or smell the New York air. “The crowd erupted into deafening cheers.” Wallace does a fantastic job with the main character Ruby, who is always on her toes and ready to pitch a great game or run from a mob of gangsters. Headstrong and unbelievably smart, Ruby is wound tightly into this complex story. “Before she could even take a breath, he had yanked her to her feet by one arm and shoved her into the dressing room. As he slammed the door behind them, Ruby heard Allie start to wail.” This book is very deep and sometimes kind of dark. Ruby has to make tons and tons of decisions where either way someone could possibly get hurt, or either way she could lose her job. But there are also many happy parts to this book, like Ruby’s first game with the Typhoon’s or when Ruby takes the girls to a fair, when they first move into her friend’s house. On a scale of one to five, I would give this book a five, because I thought that it was an unbelievable book and I love to read books about women (in the times before they were considered equal to men) who defy their “boundaries” in life.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction about baseball and can stand some depressing or intense parts in the story. Enjoy the maze of trickery, baseball, sickness and family that bring this fantastic book together.