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

Will Another Baseball Strike Occur?

Major League Baseball’s current Collecrtive Bargaining Agreement expires in 2021, and according to USA Today players are “fixing for a fight,” in order to take back power and put the damper on wage suppression they say they’ve been enduring for years. And although there hasn’t been a work stoppage since 1995, owners back then and during prior strikes and lockouts always seemed willing to bring up their Triple A rosters to protect revenues. Could this actually happen? How would it impact the players – both the striking pros and the farmhands – and how might fans respond? That’s the big “what if” “Strike Four” plays out to its logical conclusion.

Book Excerpt

Strike Four: A Baseball Novel

A sunny day in downtown San Francisco held more promise for the men and women gathered

here. But the weather was irrelevant. Two sides were here to negotiate, a gap between them that

not even the majestic Golden Gate could span. The only encouraging sign in the room was that

they had a common goal, outwardly at least: to avert a Major League baseball strike. In the past

eleven years, three of them had crippled America’s national pastime and a fourth one, at this

point in time, would do nothing to enhance the game’s already tarnished image. The players, of

course, blamed the owners for that image. The owners, in typical owner fashion, blamed the

sport’s decline on the men who play it.

That’s why they were here on a Saturday afternoon instead of their respective ballparks. With

finances and livelihoods on the line, nobody particularly cared to strike out.

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

Will Another Baseball Strike Occur?

Book Excerpt

Strike Four: A Baseball Novel

Comment on this Bubble