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.

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Author Insight

Will Players Strike in 2021?

Major League Baseball’s current CBA 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. What if this actually happens? 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. Set against the groomed outfields and dusty base paths of America’s baseball shrines, and told through the eyes of an aging minor league player-manager looking for his last shot at making “the show,” Strike Four delves into the players’ mindsets, the owners’ motivations, and ultimately the back room negotiations and the business that’s at the heart of America’s pastime.

Book Excerpt

Strike Four A Baseball Novel

David Ferris descended upon his bacon and eggs in the restaurant of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown San Francisco. What a beautiful city, he thought as he gazed at the view from the hotel’s eighteenth floor. I hope to hell I can get out of here soon.

His thoughts quickly turned to his nemesis Stewart Addison, whose overbearing attitude and stubbornness were the only things blocking his passage back to his home in Michigan. And his family. Not a bad guy, actually, Ferris thought. He’s doing his job just as I’m doing mine. Heck, we’d probably be friends if only he weren’t so damn stubborn.

The meal in front of him stole his attention back. The bacon was a little too crisp, he noted, and the eggs a little too hard for his liking. He’d try not to hold those things against his adversary today, he decided. Things were going badly enough without a less-than-perfect breakfast complicating matters. He smiled at the implication of his last thought. “Players Walk Because of Crisp Bacon,” the headlines would cry out. He’d never work again.

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Gary Frisch

Strike Four A Baseball Novel

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Will Players Strike in 2021?

Book Excerpt

Strike Four A Baseball Novel

Comment on this Bubble