Strike Four: A Baseball Novel

Sports & Outdoors

synopsis

Synopsis

Major League Baseball has been crippled by yet another players’ strike, and the fans have had enough, tired of paying to see ballplayers with seven-figure egos but ten-cent work ethics. When baseball’s commissioner floats the idea of enlisting the minor leaguers to keep revenues flowing, Lew Pearson, the aging player-manager of the Triple-A Indianapolis Outlaws, sees his chance to fulfill a lifelong dream. Having never had more than a “cup of coffee” in the big league, Lew leaves his wife and two young kids behind to play in the bigs, even though he knows he and his teammates will just be the pawns of the owners. Baseball runs deep in his blood – his father’s own professional dreams were trampled on many years before – and despite the big asterisk that will accompany every game, it’s an opportunity that beckons him. But no one, including Lew, the owners and the striking Major Leaguers, could predict how fans would embrace these farmhands, who take the field every day not for their big paychecks but purely for the love of the game. At first the crowds are small, but as the fan frenzy takes root in ballparks across the country, both sides of the strike confront a new normal, and an audacious plan takes shape in board rooms to determine once and for all whether the Major Leaguers or the minor leaguers will get the privilege of remaining in “the show.”

bio

Author Biography

Gary Frisch is a long-time sports fan with a special place in his heart for hockey and baseball. A lifelong writer and former journalist, he has contributed many articles and columns to a variety of newspapers and magazines. He was inspired to write Strike Four as a result of multiple player strikes and lockouts that marred baseball in the 1980s and ‘90s, during which the media frequently speculated that owners might bring up minor league players to fill the rosters. Frisch works in the public relations field, and has owned his own PR agency since 2007. In 2015, he was named to Linkedin’s inaugural list of “Top Voices of the Year” for his contributions to the business networking site’s blog. He lives in Gloucester Township, New Jersey, with his wife and two children, and frequently writes under the watchful eye of his cat and two dogs.

website

Author Insight

The Origins of Strike Four

The idea for Strike Four came to me in the late 1980s, as Major League players were threatening a strike. Newspapers proclaimed that the owners were considering bringing up their Triple-A players to fill the rosters and keep the games going. I thought it was a very interesting idea, and began wondering how that would look if it really happened. Would fans reject the minor leaguers as scabs, or would they be excited to watch fresh faces playing not for multi-million dollar salaries but truly for the love of the game? Strike Four takes a look at both of these what ifs, and this scenario’s impact on the fans, the owners and especially the minor league players and one long-time veteran who never got his chance in “The Show.”

Book Excerpt

Strike Four: A Baseball Novel

Lew had heard the expression “an old man playing a boy’s game” more times than he cared to

think about, but would never allow himself to believe it applied to him. Old men, he thought,

don’t bat .235, and they certainly don’t adhere to a strict regimen of jogging and weight training

during the off-season. In any case, his teammates were quick to rub it in after games in which

he’d go oh-for-four, or in which a fly ball would land just inches beyond his outstretched arm,

the shoe-string catch that never was. He knew it was all good-natured ribbing, the brand that goes on in any locker room in any sport, yet it always made him a bit uncomfortable. True, his

hitting wasn’t always consistent, but he had always attributed that to slumps. It was easy to say

“I’m in a slump, but just wait until I get out of it.” The problem was the slumps came more and

more frequently, and each one lasted just a little bit longer.

Buy

Amazon

Share
Follow Unfollow
Comment
x
Comment on this Bubble

Your comment and a link to this bubble will also appear in your Facebook feed.

Gary Frisch

Strike Four: A Baseball Novel

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

The Origins of Strike Four

Book Excerpt

Strike Four: A Baseball Novel

Comment on this Bubble