The Toilet Paper Tigers

A misfit Little League team is headed for a losing season until their clueless coach’s feisty granddaughter, Kristy, whips them into shape in Gordon Korman’s Toilet Paper Tigers (1993). Corey Johnson, the team’s wanna-be pitcher, resents Kristy’s take-charge attitude but admits that her irregular methods work. Each player faces a unique personal problem that keeps them from playing their best. As Kristy and Corey help them overcome their challenges, everyone learns valuable lessons about friendship and teamwork. Toilet Paper Tigers offers abundant sports action and plenty of good-hearted humor for middle-grade readers.

When their kindhearted but oblivious coach, Professor Pendergast, shows up late to the all-important team draft meeting, the only players left for the Feather-Soft Tigers are the dregs. Corey is not happy to be on a team sponsored by the local bathroom tissue company—especially since the uniforms sport a roll of toilet paper along with a tiger—and he is not happy to have Professor Pendergast as a coach. The elderly Professor is a brilliant physicist and a celebrated town benefactor, having brought his particle accelerator to Spooner, Texas, but he knows absolutely nothing about baseball. Leptons, yes; baseball, no. Professor Pendergast volunteers to coach the Tigers so his granddaughter, Kristy, who is visiting from New York for the summer, will have some friends. The Professor, ignorant of even basic gameplay, cheers the Tigers on through miserable practices and staggering losses, happy as long as he believes everyone is having fun.

Kristy, on the other hand, realizes the team is pathetic. Sporting major attitude in her pink high-tops, orange sunglasses, and army fatigues, she tells the Tigers that her “main man P.P.” hasn’t had a “reality sandwich” for a while and that she will straighten out this team of “rural dudes.” Corey’s irritation grows when Kristy makes Kevin Featherstone, the sponsor’s son, pitcher instead of Corey. Kristy is a confident, outspoken queen of slang, and she knows her baseball. She snaps a photo of the boys in an embarrassing state of dishabille in their locker room and uses it to blackmail them into compliance. The boys are worried enough about starting seventh grade in the fall and do not want a compromising picture of them plastered all over the school. Corey, frustrated that his summer is being ruined by Kristy, writes a letter of complaint to the League officials.



Kristy works on improving each player. Their catcher, Luis Bono, develops a paralyzing fear of the ball after a pitch gets stuck in his face mask. Kristy and the team try hypnosis to cure his phobia, and Luis recovers his mojo. The boys help the first baseman, Ernie McIntosh, pass his summer school pretest so he can stay on the team. Tuba Dave Jablonski, “King of the Line Drive,” can hit, but too overweight to run, he gets forced out before ever reaching first base. Kristy initiates a weight-loss program for Tuba Dave involving stewed crabgrass, only to discover that he has been scarfing down M&Ms hidden inside his tuba. Right-fielder Ryan Crisp falls asleep during games because he works so many odd jobs to help his family. The team takes over his jobs to give Ryan a break and learns that his family is perfectly well-off: Ryan has been financing his own private arcade. Kristy and the boys help Caspar Howard, who loves figure skating but not baseball, develop a talent for running bases. Kristy stops center-fielder Tim Laredo’s older brother from bullying him. The group discovers that Bobby Ray Devereaux, who one day is a great batter, but the next day a great fielder, is really two twin brothers: their family couldn’t afford for both boys to join the league. Kristy makes one of the brothers a substitute player.

Each of Kristy’s plans is successful and the Feather-Soft Tigers improve and start to win games. But Kristy’s schemes take a toll on her assistant, Corey, who suffers a black eye, is attacked by crows, and is dragged around by a large dog. Corey remains angry with Kristy, thinking she is a “blackmailing sleazeball.” He continues to try to get the damaging team photograph back from her. The rest of the team grows to like Kristy, starts hanging out with her, and thinks Corey should trust her. Corey finally asks why Kristy hates him and will not let him pitch. She reveals a photocopy of the letter Corey sent to the League. Kristy declares she would have let Corey pitch, but his letter could have hurt Professor Pendergast, and it made her decide not to give Corey a chance.

The Tigers’ losing streak becomes a winning streak, even though Kevin can’t pitch, and the team makes it to the championship. At the bottom of the ninth, the Tigers have a slim chance to beat the powerful Raiders. Kristy puts Corey in as pitcher, giving him an opportunity to “spit back the reality sandwich” and win the game. Corey’s curveball saves the day, and the Tigers earn the championship trophy.



Before she heads back to New York, Kristy stops to say goodbye to Corey. He is still mad that she did not let him pitch until the very end of the season, but Kristy argues she gave him the best chance ever: to win. She gives him the compromising photograph which turns out to be not compromising at all and asks him to keep in touch. He realizes angrily that she is not from New York City, but a small town in New York. Kristy counters that NYC is not a place, it’s an attitude, and she was born to be a New Yorker. Despite Corey’s bluster, he looks forward to seeing Kristy again next summer.