[2] Kirkus Reviews praised Choosing Up Sides, which attacked the once-prevalent views of religious fundamentalists toward left-handed children, as, "No ordinary baseball book, this is a rare first novel.
According to Vicki Sherbert, writing in The ALAN Review for the National Council of Teachers of English, Ritter "uses the game of baseball, the glory of music, and the power of the written word to illustrate how young people can overcome everyday, and not-so-everyday, challenges.
There he played baseball and met his wife, Cheryl, who later became an elementary school teacher in San Diego, where Ritter worked for 25 years as a painting contractor while trying to establish himself as a writer.
When Ezekiel becomes minister of the Holy River of John the Baptist Church in Crown Falls, Ohio, Luke inadvertently becomes involved with the local baseball team, which won the county championship the previous year and hopes to repeat their success.
Reviewing Choosing Up Sides, Elizabeth Bush described it in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books as a novel that "pits fire and brimstone Fundamentalism against a rival religion—Baseball—and treats both with cathartic understanding.
"[13] Dr. Stefani Koorey in her Voice of Youth Advocates review maintained, "Unlike many sports novels, Choosing Up Sides does more than offer a mere glimpse of the grand old game of baseball—it takes a deeper look at faith, truth, and individuality", going on to dub the tale a "well-designed study of personal choice.
Though later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court,[15] the law's enactment inspired Ritter to search for a metaphorical children's story paralleling the discriminatory amendment and the religious-based beliefs behind it.
"[16] "By the end", noted Todd Morning in a review for School Library Journal, "Tyler has gained a level of self-awareness by unraveling some of the tangled stories in his family's past and understanding the intricacies lying beneath the surface of life.
"[19] A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that Ritter "tackles tough subjects relating to violence in sports, religious hypocrisy, and the Vietnam War while creating layers of metaphors which neatly unfold..." and described the novel as a "powerful lesson in compassion.
"[20] Writing in The ALAN Review, Patricia K. Ladd noted "Readers are left questioning societal mores and values, rules and politics, and their own moral development,"[21] and Roger Leslie commented in Booklist that Over the Wall is a "fully fleshed-out story about compassion and absolution.
After witnessing for days the grand, immediate outpouring of selflessness, generosity, and sacrifice in lower Manhattan—the ‘small friendly town of New York City’ that I celebrated in my recent novel, Over the Wall—I now sit in a blue funk, disappointed in our nation's response and the public outcry for further military retaliation.
Invasion of Iraq by disguising it as an environmental issue and using a lighter and more humorous vein in a work based loosely on Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
After talking with twelve-year-old Tom Gallagher, however, Doc decides to let the fate of his land rest on the outcome of a single baseball game pitting a team of local ballplayers against an all-star squad from a neighboring community.
Del Gato's character, Ritter reveals in an interview for the Baker & Taylor book distributor's newsletter, "was partially based on the real life tragic hero, Ken Caminiti, who was a big league MVP and batting champ in the '90s, but struggled with addictions, leaving the game under a cloud, and was dead by age 41.
"[28] Blair Christolon observed in School Library Journal that the work "is peppered with both optimism and dilemmas; it has plenty of play-by-play action, lots of humor, and a triumphant ending.
"[29] Despite the reception and commercial success of The Boy Who Saved Baseball, Ritter could not shake the ever-increasing depression he felt over the suffering caused by the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and subsequent loss of civil liberties at home.
In an essay published in the Summer 2004 volume of The ALAN Review, he wrote, "The idealistic hopes and dreams for a better America, for a more balanced and peaceful world which guided so many of us in the ‘60s and ‘70s has, in the last three years, evaporated into thunderclouds of arrogance, self-indulgence, anger, and fear.
"[30] He used the invitation from editors M. Jerry and Helen Weiss, to contribute a short story to their fantasy anthology, Dreams and Vision, which examines the morality of going to war versus terrorism.
The story, "Baseball in Iraq," is a somber depiction of a newly dead American soldier facing a life review by a six-foot-tall rooster and a sympathetic Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh.
"[32] In a starred review in Booklist, writer Bill Ott noted that "Ritter pulls out all the stops in his myth-heavy plot, but what really makes the book soar is his sense of place: the laid-back, hippie-influenced, communal spirit of OB permeates every scene, offering stark contrast to the coldly commercial world toward which Andy aspires.
As in his earlier work, Ritter melds style to content beautifully, telling his story in a hip, street-smart argot that perfectly matches Andy's trumpet improvisations.
Teen friendly, lots of fun, never preachy, but with plenty of thematic pizzazz,"[33] and a Publishers Weekly contributor noted that "Ritter's dialogue crackles with the rhythms of the funky California setting, and Andy's passion and ambition give the novel its heartbeat.
"[34] In the novel, Andy Ramos, a skilled trumpeter who hopes to revolutionize the music scene with his band's fusion of Latin jazz, rock, and hip-hop, finds himself strangely drawn to Glory Martinez, a childhood rival and talented softball pitcher who has returned to the neighborhood.
His father, though, is closer to who I am today in his approach to life and his view of the entertainment industry's customary habit of reining in and ‘branding the maverick’ of talented, rising stars whom they deem as being too far out creatively.
But kids in Glory's situation do occasionally develop a desire to dream big, coupled with the drive to succeed, and I find this rare character far more fun and interesting to write about than the typical.
On his way from St. Louis to Dillontown to find his long-lost uncle, the playing-manager of a championship baseball team, twelve-year-old Jack Dillon meets Billy the Kid, who is looking for a fresh start in California.
In the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Elizabeth Bush described Ritter's authorial voice as having "all the charm of a well-spun tall tale with plenty of Twainian malarkey.
"[36] Marilyn Taniguchi asserted in School Library Journal that "Ritter writes in an idiom-laden, mock-epic style full of bombast and bravado...Reminiscent of Sid Fleischman.
[40] Ritter is currently working on a utopian novel, 2020 Vision, premised on the changes American society must go through after a floodgate of top-secret disclosures occur upon the release of undisputed evidence of U.S. Government participation in the events of September 11, 2001.