Baseball Fiction

You Know Me, Al is a classic of baseball, the game and the community. Jack Keefe, one of literature's great characters, is talented, brash, and conceited. Self-assured and imperceptive, impervious to both advice and sarcasm, Keefe rises to the heights, but his inability to learn makes for his undoing. Through a series of letters from this bush-league pitcher to his not-quite-anonymous friend Al, Lardner maintains a balance between the funny and the moving, the pathetic and the glorious.

It is 1947 when Joseph Burke, ex-Marine, ex-husband, ex-somebody–is hired as a bodyguard to protect Lauren Roach, 25 and spoiled rotten. The unlikely duo becomes entangled with Burke’s boyhood hero, color-barrier breaking baseball player Jackie Robinson, in a story that is both thrilling and engaging. It is in the historical character Jackie Robinson that Mr. Parker finds inspiration and Joseph Burke may find his redemption. This is a work of fiction about a real man. Most of what I’ve written I’ve made up. I have, however, attempted to render Jackie Robinson accurately. As he was, or as I imagined him to be, in 1947, when I was turning 15, and he was changing the world. The rest is altogether fiction. It may be more Burke’s story then Jackie’s story. But, without Jackie, Burke would have had no story. And neither would I. Robert B Parker.

Maggie Fortini doesn't play baseball but is a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jim Maine is a Giants fan whom who teaches Maggie the fine art of scoring a baseball game. Jim is drafted into the army and sent to Korea, and although Maggie writes to him often, his silence is just one of a string of disappointments - being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the early 1950s meant season after season of near misses and dashed hopes.

Twelve-year-old House Jackson, star pitcher and team captain of the Aurora County All-Stars, has been sidelined for a whole sorry year with a broken elbow. He's finally ready to play, but wouldn't you know that the team's only game of the year has been scheduled for the exact same time as the town's 200th-anniversary pageant. Now House must face the pageant's director, full-of-herself Frances Shotz (his nemesis and perpetrator of the elbow break), and get his team out of this mess.

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.

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.

When a beautiful brunette driver meets Nashville Slammers catcher, Sawyer McBain, at the airport, he figures it's his lucky day. Sure, he's usually pretty guarded around people, especially after his ex, but he can enjoy the car ride. Until she passes his apartment...and keeps driving. Slammers executive Addison Carlisle needs one little favor. Sure, she may have kinda maybe kidnapped one of her professional baseball players, but it's for a really good cause. She desperately needs someone high-profile to auction off that night for the multiple sclerosis society she's chairing.

When the kitchen ceiling caved in and the contents of his mother’s attic splayed across the floor, Ron, better known as “Punky”, knew he had to help clean up. With the assistance of his son and nephew, he would try to preserve as many of the dirty, mold-covered memories as he could, including a mysterious old metal box, possibly belonging to his Grandpa Hash. What’s inside it takes him back 32 years earlier, as he recalls the magical weekend in 1984 spent with his grandfather attending two baseball games.

Owen Thatcher has been ghosted by his ex, leaving him to pick up the pieces of their family in the midst of being traded to a new team. After striking out with nanny after nanny, he's desperate to create a stable life for his two kids. Sophie Callahan comes from an affluent family but this free spirit is nothing like the stereotypical trust fund baby. While she waits on the perfect job to open up, she's making it work as a substitute teacher. But a ruggedly handsome baseball player makes her an offer she can't refuse.

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.

Hi! My name is Lucas Anderson, and moving to Pinewood was a big change for me—not the good kind either. Everything seemed to be going wrong…until I discovered baseball. The game brought new challenges, but I wasn’t alone. Dad, a former Navy SEAL, taught me to be brave and keep trying no matter what. And Mom (a genius) was always there, teaching me tricks to level up.

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.

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?

I was issued an ultimatum between the two loves of my life: her or the game. No matter what I choose, I have to give up something I love. Spring training is my first chance to show the world that Cooper Noah is back after the elbow injury that took me out of the game. It's the stage I stand on to prove I'm the starter the Vegas Heat is paying big bucks for. But my heart isn't in any of it. My heart can't be in it when it's broken. There's no way I can have both, but I've made my choice. It's time to play hardball.

Our team is assembled, and the Vegas Heat is ready for our first season. Life is perfect except for one thing: I can't tell anybody about the love of my life. The more time passes, the more people find out. It's only a matter of time before her father learns the truth, but it has to come from us. If it doesn't, our relationship will become like a groundball that'll eventually roll to a stop… but there won't be anyone there to pick it up.

The first time I met Benson LaCroix, he sat in a bar wearing “cocky player” like a cheap cologne. The second time, he stood in a locker room in nothing but a jockstrap and a scowl. Apparently, the Miami Storm’s star pitcher isn’t too thrilled his new boss is the woman who turned him down.

All-Star player Ben Zobrist (Tampa Bay Rays), considered one of the best all-around players in baseball, writes about the importance of his faith, life, and athletic career in Double Play. Written with his wife, Christian singer Julianna Zobrist, and MikeYorkey, best-selling author of Every Man's Battle and Linspired: The Remarkable Rise of Jeremy Lin, the audiobook gives fans a first look into the heart of an athlete whose talent and devotion to God, family, and baseball make him one of the most loveable figures in the Major League today.

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.