Baseball Fiction

Humor is the best part of baseball. To survive a long season, the everyday schedule, and the failure that is inherent in the game people have always needed a good laugh about a ballgame from time to time. The stories in Baseball Humor: A Collection of Stories by Master Storytellers poke good fun at the struggles, ambition, greed, romance, envy, wisdom, and quirks of the players, managers, wives, and fans. Included are “The Pitcher and the Plutocrat” by P G Wodehouse, “Horseshoes” and “Alibi Ike” by Ring Lardner, “The Red-Headed Outfield” and “The Rube” by Zane Gray, and many others.

Caitlin Dufresne has never loved anyone as much as she loves winning. A ruthless fifth-year associate at an elite Chicago law firm, she's on the fast track to partner - until a stupid, serious error enrages her bosses. Caitlin's continued refusal to share work - or credit - lands her a forced two-week vacation. She needs to regroup and learn to be part of a team, not just the star. When she meets Eli Grant, head of the firm's IT department, Caitlin knows the overgrown frat boy isn't her type.

Dania Ramirez, the first female pitcher in the MLB, comes home to Miami to play for the Marlins. She was brought up in Little Havana loving the game her father played in the DR. Her arm is better than most men her age, and it makes her a top prospect in the league. When the Dodgers need to do a salary dump, Dania is sent to Miami in a high-stakes trade.

Dwayne Devero is just like you and me, except he simply doesn’t give a sh*t anymore. He’s had enough. He’s done with people living life wrong. You’ll do it right, or he’ll bury you under the bases at the ballpark where he coaches. It’s just that simple. Tired of poor decisions being made all around him, from the politics of player positions on his son’s little league baseball team to the philandering of his wife in his own bedroom, Dwayne decides that breaking is better than bending.

A young boy is determined to become the best baseball player in the world, no matter what. But can he copy his favorite player's bad habits and still make it to the major leagues?

With a hint of mystery and a collision of love and hurt, sports action, and thoughtful introspection, the debut novel, Baseball Boys: Collision, introduces athletic high school and junior high brothers F.P., Micah, and Mason, transplanted to Redd Rock Ranch and searching for comfort in "home" radically redefined. Competitive, the Redd brothers race ahead, dashing off to a next active exploit and throwing themselves into trouble. Usually with a ball. A rock. A bat. A stick. It's a competition. Play ball!

Eleven-year-old Tommy has dreamed of being on the Bulldogs sports team forever. The Bulldogs eat, breathe, and fart sports. They’re part of the elusive Super Sports Society in his hometown, and Tommy knows that if he makes the team, he’ll be set up for life. Meanwhile, Pel would rather be at home gaming in the air conditioning, but his mom decided that he has to “be a role model” to his little siblings (ugh!), and now he’s trying out for the Bulldogs too. At least that means the two BFFs won’t be in competition for the spot . . . right? (Wrong.)

Taking over the family farm in our small town was the only future I knew. The never-ending work left me with no social life and my virginity intact. Until my childhood rival graced us with his presence and was convinced he could help me with my... problem. Owen Ramsey was an elite professional baseball player who left Ashfield without a backward glance. But when he was left at the altar, he sought refuge back in our town. I hated how he could simultaneously make my heart race and my hands fist. And I really despised how good he looked in a pair of baseball pants.

Eddy Pareti is a street-smart kid who does things his own way. He ditches school and dodges duties at the family’s tavern, Ernie’s Bleachers (now Murphy’s Bleachers), which is just across from Wrigley Field. World War II is ending, the Cubs are heading to the World Series, and Eddy sneaks into games and brushes up against baseball legends, including stars of the Negro League. From behind his family’s bar, Eddy pours beer for soldiers, ball players, and rodeo clowns, runs bets for a bookie who wants him to shoot a deadbeat gambler and—hold your horses—crashes a stagecoach on State Street.

When Christine, an idealistic young American teacher, meets and marries Hideki Yamada, an aspiring Japanese high school baseball coach, she believes that their love with be enough to sustain them as they deal with cultural differences. However, Hideki's duties, and the team of fit, obedient boys whom he begins to think of as a surrogate family, take up more and more of his time, just as Christine is struggling to manage the needs of their multiply-disabled daughter and their sensitive son. Things come to a head when their son is the victim of bullies.

Tayla, Pippa, and Mitch love playing baseball outside. Their game is interrupted, however, when Mitch’s brand-new ball that was given to him by his grandad Mac is eaten by the Baseball Monster. The three kids realise they must find courage and work as a team to get the ball back from the greedy monster.

In this briskly paced novella involving far more than America’s pastime, an older man befriends an angry young boy following one of his disastrous practices. The boy is clearly the worst player on his team, yet he is desperate to improve. So the man sets out to give him some pointers about the game and possibly about life, amid initial reservations from the boy’s mother, and violent opposition from his vulgar and abusive stepfather.

A mild mannered CPA and baseball fan travels back in time to prevent the 1919 World Series from being fixed, and saving the reputations of Joe Jackson and Eddie Cicotte. Along the way, he meets lots of interesting characters from that era. He not only must stop the scandal, but has a murderer on his tail trying to stop him.

Jess Singer, pitching prodigy and son of the infamous Jewish Joe Singer—who starred on the mound for the same MLB team twenty-five years earlier—is blessed with a plus-plus curveball, possesses immense athletic abilities, and is on the fast-track to stardom. But he's harboring perhaps the most potent secret a professional athlete can possess: his sexual preference.

Summer is around the corner, and Little League first baseman, Billy Kramer, is looking forward to playing another year with the LA Southgate Sharks. His plans are uprooted when his mother announces an unexpected move to rural Bennington, Nebraska. Billy's world is turned upside down.

Over its hundred and fifty year history, professional baseball has experienced its share of scandals and embarrassments -- sometimes involving players, sometimes teams, sometimes team owners, sometimes the leadership of the game itself, and sometimes even the fans. There's been gambling. There's been cheating. There's been drug abuse. There's been outrageous rhetoric. There's been drunken rioting. There's been wife-swapping. There's been All-Star voting abuse. There's been overt racism, collusion, litigation, court challenges, strikes and lockouts.

When Luis joins his new baseball team, the Manatees, things seem pretty hopeless at first. Some of his new teammates—including "loud and obnoxious" home-run slugger Jimmie—are mean to him or to each other. His new coach doesn't tell the players everything to do like his old coach did. And some of the Manatees seem more interested in goofing off than in sportsmanship or working hard.

The nephew of a star baseball player from Cuba seeks to establish his own imprint on the game, with the added goal of leading people to glory. He faces a number of trials from evil people and forces of nature that test his faith. His youth and lack of pedigree also work against him as he tries to compete with the best players in the world at the most difficult assignment in sports—hitting a baseball.

In Peter Schilling's wonderful novel, the extraordinary baseball season of 1944 comes vividly to life. Bill Veeck, the maverick promoter, returned from Guadalcanal with a leg missing and $500 to his name, has hustled his way into buying the Philadelphia Athletics. Hungry for a pennant, young Veeck jettisons the team's white players and secretly recruits the legendary stars of the Negro Leagues, fielding a club that will go down in baseball annals as one of the greatest ever to play the game.

Scarlet LeBlanc, a famous actress known for getting extremely immersed in her roles, just wants to focus on studying the Miami Warriors to prepare herself for her next role in a dramatic film about a baseball team. However, when she accidentally breaks up the first baseman - Anton Alvarez - and his girlfriend, Scarlet finds herself becoming more intrigued by Anton than by the movie she is supposed to be preparing for. Despite Anton's reputation for being a womanizer and for sleeping around, he is still rather charming and sweet, and it doesn't take him long to capture Scarlet's heart.