Editorial Reviews "The Baseball is written so fluently that I didn't want it to end. This story is built around family, the good times and the bad times, the happy times and the sad times. It's about how different people cope with pain differently and how good things can come out of things that may initially seem like the end of the world. I recommend this book for anyone who truly values family, making memories, and living life to the fullest." - Manhattan Book Review (5-Star Review) " The Baseball is a brief novel by James Flerlage about family and the quality time we choose to spend with them. The irony of Landon's fate-an oncologist whose son develops cancer-could have turned the story into one of bitterness and regret. Instead, it is an opportunity to revisit a time in a man's life when he must choose his family or his work. The author delivers the heart-wrenching plot in simple and crisp prose and without judgment andgives readers the opportunity to re-examine their own priorities in life." - San Francisco Book Review (4-Star Review) "An unusually affecting story. Overall, this is an earnest, unpretentious book that, despite overly deliberate grabs for the heartstrings, still manages to pluck them, all the same. A familiar tale, but one that has a melodramatic sincerity." - Kirkus Reviews "The plot of The Baseball is a well-developed hybrid of family and sports drama. It hits familiar plot beats and framing devices, but the work develops smoothly and evenly with quiet style. The author has a clear handle on storytelling and the unveiling of mystery; the sports focus and the manner in which it is integrated into the characters' lives is alluring." - The BookLife Prize From the Back Cover Landon Myers is a retired pediatric oncologist who spends his days diagnosing the ills of his young grandchildren's stuffed animals while scheming up new ways to spend time with the older ones. When his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Lucy discovers an old Major League Baseball while cleaning his cellar, he faces the difficult task of exposing a family secret that has lain dormant for the past forty years. Over a long lunch with Lucy, Landon reveals that he was previously married, divorced, and had a son, Alex. Two years after his parents' bitter divorce, sixteen-year-old Alex receives devastating news that derails the course of his life. In a captivating story about family, relationships, and reconciliation, The Baseball begs the question, "If life gave you a second chance, would you know what to do with it?"

As one of the first female umpires in the minors, Margie puts up with insults and worse from people who think women don't belong in baseball. Forget making history-Margie just wants to do her job and be part of the game she loves. She's ready for the rude comments. The lousy pay. The endless traveling. But when she suspects a big-name slugger of cheating, she has to choose: let him get away with it, or blow the whistle and risk her career...and maybe her twin brother's major-league prospects, too.Now it's up to Margie to make the call.

Henry Wiggen, the bedraggled six-foot-three, 195-pound, left-handed pitcher for the New York Mammoths, returns to narrate another novel in his inimitable manner. Fans who loved him in Bang the Drum Slowly, The Southpaw, and A Ticket for a Seamstitch (all Bison Books) will cheer his comeback. Wiggen is now thirty-nine, a fading veteran with a floating fastball, a finicky prostate, and other intimations of mortality. Released from the Mammoths after nineteen years, the twenty-seventh winningest pitcher in baseball history (tied at 247 victories with Joseph J. "Iron Man" McGinnity and John Powell), Wiggen is not ready to hang up his glove. What impels Henry to pitch against Pate, to trek to California and as far as Japan? He still has a few seasons, a few innings left anyway. Is he principled or possessed? You'll have to decide for yourself as author Mark Harris plays out Wiggen's midlife crisis on familiar American turf: the baseball diamond.

A young pitching coach for a major league team in Buffalo discovers that baseball, his great true love, has changed in ways that reflect our constantly evolving society. Tradition clashes with modernity both on and off the baseball diamond in hilarious, ironic and unexpected ways.

This annotated bibliography covers approximately 400 novels published from 1838 through 2007. A substantial introduction to the history and development of the genre precedes the chronologically arranged entries, which provide bibliographic details and extensive annotations on plot, themes, and compositional strengths and weaknesses. Mainstream novels by writers such as Hemingway, Wolfe, Roth, and DeLillo are included. Appendices provide historical overviews for the primary baseball subgenres, including mystery, fantasy, and science-fiction; lists for novels that foreground issues of race or ethnicity (or both, as in Winegardner's Vera Cruz Blues), gender (Gilbert's A League of Their Own), and class (Hay's The Dixie Association); and the author's rankings of great baseball novels overall and by subgenre.

Once a middling right fielder in his junior year, Bobby is mysteriously thrust from 2020 into 1975 Philadelphia Major League Baseball-literally moving from the on-deck circle to the batter's box during a game.

Donald G. Evans, Founding Director, Chicago Literary Hall of Fame: "Riveting historical fiction set during a seminal time....A precise and loving re-creation." As 1907 becomes 1908, National Base Ball League President Harry Pulliam suspects that the owner of the New York Giants has hired detectives to spy on him and his lover, Ted Russell, with the goal of blackmailing him. The pressure tests the strength of his relationship and his ability to administer his league duties. Lenore Caylor, Pulliam's new stenographer, falls in love with him and becomes his staunchest champion as he fights to preserve the honor of professional base ball and the National League. Near the end of the season, one of the most bizarre in base ball history, controversial, game-changing calls result in violent protests, riots, and death. The survival of the national pastime hangs in the balance, as do Pulliam's relationships with Ted and Lenore-and, indeed, his own life. Donald G. Evans, Founding Director, Chicago Literary Hall of Fame; author, Good Money After Bad; editor, Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Till Next Year "Sullivan pits baseball's noble ambassadors against the greedy and the intolerant. In his hands, baseball's intrigue is not only games won and lost, but also its ability to confront change and overcome hatred." Patrick Creevy, author, Ryan's Woods, Tyrus, and Lake Shore Drive "With the multiplex references that its title suggests, Called Out connects in a human oneness the world of 1908 with that of our own time. And it does so, first page to last, with an ever-intense narrative drive." Jimmy Greenfield, author, 100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before they Die "Floyd is a great baseball fan and an even better writer. He constantly finds new ways to write that blend a vast knowledge, endless curiosity and sharp wit."

Larry Gordon has it all. He's a successful major league pitcher and dating the perfect woman. He'll earn big money in the free agency market at the end of the upcoming season if he plays well during this, his Contract Year. But his girlfriend walks out on him and turns his world upside down. Larry heads off to spring training to forget about her and get ready for the season. He learns quickly that his self-absorbed carefree way of life won't cut it anymore, that he'll have to find a new way to succeed on the mound and in his personal life. Follow Larry's funny and poignant journey, and get a peek inside the world of professional baseball.