From Cultureshock, brief reviews on Tim Kurkjian’s Is This a Great Game or What?
and Jim Bouton’s Ball Four.
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From the Sept. 12 issue of The Queens Gazette, this review of Shea Stadium, part of the Arcadia Publishing stable. AP produces books consisting mostly of photographs of extremely local interest and has dozens of other baseball titles in its catalog.
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Mets fan and author Michael Wayne is offering a free e-book download of his latest work, The Knuckleball From Hell, “to help console” his fellow disappointed brethren.
If the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges teamed up to form a baseball team, they’d be right at home in The Knuckleball From Hell,” he writes on the book’s Web site.
“The Knuckleball From Hell” tells the story of a fictional Mets team that is horrendous and been driven into the ground by its bankrupt owner, while the protagonist is a high school phenom who only wants to pitch for the Mets. Unfortunately, he blows out his arm and his career is seemingly over, until he has a chance encounter with a Professor on the lam from chicken wing eating Department of Homeland Security special agents, enabling the kid to join the Mets with a new pitch – the Knuckleball from Hell.”
I haven’t read this one yet, so I’ll reserve judgment. The book will be available for free as a PDF download until the end of the month. See the press release about the book here.
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From blogger Barbara Vey on Publisher’s Weekly, a plea for more female-centric baseball fiction.
Even the baseball movies out there only have women as peripheral characters like Major League, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Benchwarmers, Damn Yankees and one of my favorites It Happens Every Spring (although I haven’t seen this on tv (sic) in years). Are there any fiction baseball books that feature women? Is baseball not exciting enough? glamorous enough? alpha enough? Would any of you authors out there even tempted by the thought of bats and balls coming together? (Yes…cue the visual).
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Philadelphia Phillies catcher Chris Coste was writing a diary for Phillyburbs.com/Courier Times.
I wrote my first book, “Hey, I’m Just a Catcher,” in 1997 while playing independent baseball, and it was all about the Northern League. I did it all myself, printed 2,000 copies and got rid of them all. I thought that was the end of it.
Then at one point, I decided to write a second book, not about me, just funny stories, behind the scenes stuff. But when I finally got to the big leagues last year in my 13th pro season, I figured my story was a lot more noteworthy now.
Maybe, maybe not. Especially now since the Phillies dropped three straight to the Rockies. Anyway, Coste’s Web site is here.
is available on Amazon.com,
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