Classroom Guide for
¡Béisbol! Latino Baseball Pioneers and Legends

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1. What is your favorite sport to play? to watch? Why do you like them?
2. What is your opinion of baseball? Do you like to play? Do you watch major league games on television?
3. Have you ever been to a major league game? What was it like? Who are your favorite major league players? Why?
4. Why do you think fans look up to sports figures?
5. What is a legend? Can a person be a legend?
6. What happens when someone is excluded from playing a sport? How does that make you feel? How do you think that makes the person feel?
7. Have you ever imagined yourself as a star of something? What was it? How would you work to achieve this stardom?

• What do the players in this book have in common?
• What obstacles did these players have to overcome?

• Find at least five words that have special baseball meanings and other meanings as well. Use each word in two different sentences to show its different meanings.
• Find at least five compound words. Write the two words in each compound. Then use each compound word in a sentence.
• Alphabetize all the words and write a baseball meaning for each.
• Find at least three more baseball words in the book to add to the list.

1. What themes run throughout this book?
2. What are some of the countries these players represent?
3. What did you learn from this book? What did you learn from the players?
4. Which player(s) impressed you the most? Why?
5. Why do you think so many players have nicknames?
6. What was the “color barrier”? How did Jackie Robinson change things for baseball players of color?
7. Why were these players considered groundbreakers in their sport?

• The Questioner might use questions similar to those in the Discussion Question section of this guide to help group members explore the text.
• The Passage Locator might look for lines that tell how each player was unique or describe the hardships the player faced.
• The Illustrator might draw pictures of the players in poses other than those shown in the book.
• The Connector might find and share more information about the players in the book.
• The Summarizer might provide a brief summary of each player’s story.
• The Investigator might research other information about the racial issues and barriers that have existed in the past in professional baseball.

1. What would you say to some of these players? What would you ask them?
2. What is your definition of a good sport? Why did these Latino players have to be good sports? Which players today do you think fit your definition of a good sport?
3. What position do you (would you like to) play in baseball? Why?
4. How does this book affect your thinking about racism and prejudice?

1. Write a comparison of baseball in the early twentieth century and baseball as it is played today. Things you might compare are: who plays, the rules, the uniforms, the equipment, the influence of television.
2. Pretend you are a sports writer for a newspaper. Write a story about a game in which one of the players in ¡Béisbol! is playing. Use some of the baseball terms from the book.
3. Write a description of one of the players mentioned in the book telling what the player is like in action. This description could be in the form of a free verse poem.

1. Lead a brief “text tour” focusing students’ attention on text features such as the type in color, listing of career highlights and boldface words, words in italics, page headings, and illustrations.
2. Use a photograph or diagram of a baseball field to help students identify concrete nouns and action verbs from the book.
   
   

   Teaching Tip  This book is also available in Spanish. You might pair Spanish  speakers with strong English speakers to work with both versions  of the book, translating from one language to the other.

   
   
3. Build confidence by having Spanish speakers pronounce the names of the players for the rest of the class.

1. Have students draw a major league baseball diamond to scale. Let the class baseball fans lead the way in showing the appropriate labels for the diagram.
2. Baseball is a sport known for its many statistical records. Encourage students to look up the statistics for some of the players in the book and to make tables or graphs using these statistics. Students who collect baseball cards might share the statistics on the cards with partners or small groups.

1. Provide a map of North America and South America and have students locate each country or place mentioned in the book. Point out that Puerto Rico is not a separate country but commonwealth in association with the United States.
2. Challenge students to list the hometown of each major league baseball team in the United States and then locate the cities on a map of the country.
3. Students might work in groups to construct a timeline showing when each player featured in ¡Béisbol! was active in baseball.
4. Some students might be interested in researching the exhibits, facilities, and other offerings of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, located in Cooperstown, New York.
5. Some students might follow baseball news and report to the class about the Latino players who are on the sports pages or featured on television broadcasts of games.

1. Some students might research and prepare This Is Your Life presentations for the different players featured in ¡Béisbol!
2. Baseball is a sport known for its many statistical records. Encourage students to look up the statistics for some of the players in the book and to make tables or graphs using these statistics. Students who collect baseball cards might share the statistics on the cards with partners or small groups.

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