A nasty witch and her equally unpleasant black cat decide that they hate baseball after they attend a game and witness the pleasure it brings to so many. Brooding on the matter, the witch comes up with a plan to ruin America's pastime: create an ensorcelled baseball bat, one with a disguised hole that allows the ball to pass right through it. With no hits (especially home runs), the excitement of the game will be ruined...

I have fond memories of reading some of author/illustrator Syd Hoff's classic early-readers as girl - notably, his Danny and the Dinosaur and Sammy the Seal - but I never happened upon The Witch, The Cat, and The Baseball Bat, which was first published in 1968. It doesn't appear to have been one of Hoff's more popular stories, and I might never have discovered it, were it not for my interest in witchy picture-books. I'm glad that I did, as I enjoyed the humor of both the story and the artwork, which (needless to say) felt very familiar to me. I appreciated the fact that, atypically, the witch was not reformed, and I found the forced-looking grin on the face of the witch's cat deliciously creepy! This is one I would recommend to fans of Syd Hoff's charming, vintage-style artwork, as well as to picture-book readers who enjoy witchy fare and/or stories about baseball. ( )