Baseball Fiction

Conor Nash has lived his life with a single purpose - to pitch in the major leagues. He’s been released from professional baseball contracts 10 times over a 16-year career, but he’s overcome every obstacle to finally reach "The Show" when he’s a decade too old. As he faces the specter of injury-forced retirement, he becomes a man neither he nor his wife recognizes. During his career, Conor avoided the trap of alcohol and drugs because his drug was baseball.

Matt Granite and his San Francisco Gladiators find themselves in a flat-footed tie with their arch rivals, the Los Angeles Tangelos. Johnny Morinda, the hard-nosed manager of the Tangelos, will do anything to pull out a win against the young star catcher and the Gladiators.

This entertaining history blends anecdote, incident, and analysis as it chronicles the story of our national pastime. Alexander covers the advent of the first professional baseball leagues, the game’s surge in the early 20th century, the Golden 20s and the Gray 30s, the breaking of the color line in the late 40s, and the game’s expansion to its current status as a premier team sport. He describes changing playing styles and outstanding teams and personalities, but also demonstrates the many connections to society.

Set in 1950 in the rural Midwest, and inspired by real events, this gripping novel explores what happens when an African American railroad repair crew is dropped into a tiny, tight-knit farm community. Will frictions build to an all-too familiar American tragedy, or can tensions be overcome in that uniquely American way, with balls and bats and a field of green? Seventeen-year-old Carlin Littman has big dreams, much bigger than will fit into sleepy Julian, Nebraska, population 172. She has set her sights on college, Chicago, and beyond.

I’m the crazy fun one. Pedal to the floor, balls to the wall, party all weekend guy. The guy everybody calls for laughs and a good time. And I always deliver. So, when Ainsley Winslow and I made a pact for a summer fling, I was all in. What hot-blooded college male doesn’t jump at the chance for a no-strings-attached relationship? Not this one. Then summer drew to a close, and I found myself wanting time to move slower. Ainsley Winslow is a girl of her word. When fall inevitably came, she vanished.

Fans are cheering Troy Soos for his absorbing mysteries packed with old-time baseball lore. In The Cincinnati Red Stalkings, he whisks you back to the summer of 1921 when life was simpler and the world was a safer place - or was it?

It's another season of Renegade baseball and, as they say, the boys are back in town. All except for all-star pitcher Hawk Sinclair, who has returned to his hometown and back to the ranch he grew up on to rehab after shoulder surgery. Real-estate agent Bellamy Patrick feels like she's failing at being a single mom. Her son is having a hard time fitting in, and she's hoping that playing baseball will be the answer. When he doesn't make the team, she's willing to do anything to help him...except that! And that's exactly what the little-league coach expects.

Andrew "Ace" Braddock is a player in every sense of the word. The center fielder for the Austin Lone Stars, he's also been at the center of numerous sports scandals involving beer, bars, and baseball bunnies. But when he takes the fall for a teammate, Ace wakes up in the hospital, injured and in serious trouble. He's sent to lie low and recover at his family ranch in Silverlake, Texas, where he's saddled with his worst nightmare: his high school nemesis - a beautiful nurse who refuses to play doctor with him.

Matt Granite goes to Philadelphia to play the Flintlocks. The City of Brotherly Love is anything but as they try every trick in the book to get under the young catcher's skin. Not to worry, Sean and Jack are there to make things right. Johnny Morinda, the manager of the Tangelos, joins the gang. There will be nostalgia...there will be a stripper pole in the Flintlocks owner's suite.

Johnny Morinda, the bombastic manager of the Los Angeles Tangelos, finds himself with an open spot for the All-Star Game, which is being played in New York. Much to the surprise of the baseball world and the other All-Star players, Johnny adds the hot-hitting Matt Granite to the squad. New York will never be the same as Matt's friends Sean and Jack romp through the Big Apple.

Join Matt Granite, the San Francisco Gladiators star high school catcher as he goes on the road to face Johnny Morinda and the Los Angeles Tangelos. This time it will be Matt and his friends Sean and Jack matching wits against the Tangelos and their pea green uniforms on their arch rival’s home turf. It’s all in for the trio as the baseball world still hasn’t recovered from their debut in Row 25 Seat 12.

Matt Granite plays baseball for his High School team and voted as Most Valuable Player. When they win the sectional High School championship, Matt and his friends are taken to watch the San Francisco Gladiators as a reward. Matt has been passed by every major league baseball team, in the amateur draft. Big league clubs avoid high school catchers like the plague...they never work out. Little does Matt know, but his world is about to change forever.

Twelve-year-old Trish can solve tough math problems and throw a mean fastball. But because of her mom’s new job, she’s now facing a summer trying to make friends all over again in a new town. That isn’t an easy thing to do. But at her first baseball practice, Trish realizes one of her teammates is Ben, the sixth-grade math prodigy she beat in the spring Math Puzzler Championships. When a mysterious booklet of math puzzles claiming to reveal the “ultimate answer” arrives in her mailbox, Trish and Ben start to get closer and solve the puzzles together.

Antonio Ramirez is ready to leave his wild reputation behind in New York and adopt a more respectable life with the Texas Mustangs. When he spies the woman of his dreams at a Fundraiser-its love at first sight. Convincing Clare Kincaid that he's sincere is harder than he expected. Giving Clare what she wants could wreck his career and compromise his feelings for her. When super sexy Antonio Ramirez approaches her, Clare is sure he's playing a cruel game, but the Mustangs new Center Fielder won't take no for an answer.

Daniel just can't seem to stay out of trouble. One day, after finding himself grounded and home alone, he decides to face his fears and explore the old house's dark and scary basement. What he finds down there will change his life forever. Join Daniel and his friends as they form a detective agency and investigate their first case. Will they solve a mystery that has stumped the police for ninety years? And even more importantly, will they manage to stay out of trouble?

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.

Bob Weintraub’s marvelous collection of baseball stories goes directly to the core of what the game does for us when we watch it being played on the field, and shows how its heroes and villains can reach into a person’s life and remain a part of us for the rest of our days...Each strives for its own sense of authenticity, seeks to introduce characters we’d be comfortable spending time with, and in many cases ends with an unexpected twist. In these and other stories, Weintraub infuses baseball with humanity, originality, humor and compassion, and raises the game to a new level of understanding and love.

They call me Mister Masher. I’m the homerun king on the field...and off. With a glitzy life full of parties, money, and beautiful women, settling down was the farthest thing from my mind...until I met her. Fiery redhead Addie has the kind of luscious curves that turn my thoughts to a line drive up the middle. But every charming pitch I throw at the single mom is a swing and a miss. I soon learn Addison’s son is critically ill, and she is willing to make any sacrifice necessary to ensure he gets the best possible care.

Every law firm has its backroom bench of brilliant workaholic nerds ferocious in their commitment to the law and to their clients. Such a player is Milton Bernstein of Abbott & Windsor. He's highly valued by the partners for his skills, but untested in the courtroom. Milton's younger brother, Hal, is his polar opposite - strikingly handsome, a high-school baseball legend in St. Louis who was on his way to the major leagues until he destroyed his prospects in a motorcycle accident. Milton suddenly finds himself fielding Hal's arrest for kidnapping and murder.

Angel Gomez has never lived by the book. A Bronx-based unwed mother by the time she was 16, Angel’s personal mission has always been to show the world that a Puerto Rican girl is not to be messed with - especially by a man. The only thing that matters to Angel, now, is providing for her son and earning enough tips at the club to complete her nursing degree along the way. Love is nowhere on her agenda.