J. Conrad Guest
Baseball Romance
978-1935171317
220 pages
About You know Backstop. He plays the catcher’s position for any team in any city in America with a major league ball club. You cheer him when he delivers, and boo him when he doesn’t.
Told in his own words during the seventh and deciding game of the World Series, Backstop chronicles his rookie season, takes the reader to Chicago, where he finds romance, and reveals the heartbreak he endured in the aftermath of his one indiscretion.
You’ll cheer for Backstop, both on and off the field, as he plays the most important game of his career, haunted by the ghost of his father, and fights to win back the heart of the woman he loves more than the game.
Reviews
“... by the time you get to the last ‘inning’ of this ‘game,’ you’ll be rooting for Backstop to succeed both on and off the field. He’s not perfect, for sure, but he’s a good guy at heart, and a great baseball player! And like me, you’ll be glad you read this book, whether you’re a sports fan or not.”—Terri Kirby Erickson, author of Telling Tales of Dusk
"In Backstop, J. Conrad Guest offers an entertaining and instructive journey into both major league baseball and major league matters of the heart."—Jeff Vande Zande, author of Landscape with Fragmented Figures
"Baseball, like love, is a game of errors and regrets. Pop-outs, ground-outs, strike-outs. A bad swing, a bad throw, a bad hop. But what captivates us most is the possibility of the next at-bat, of the chance for a rally, of an unlikely clutch play that suddenly changes the stakes. This is where J. Conrad Guest meets us in Backstop: in this beautiful, hopeful place closest to our hearts, where we play for the love of the game, and we love with everything we have."─Rachael Perry, author of How to Fly
"In this story of love and sport, told in the tradition of Field of Dreams and For Love of the Game, J. Conrad Guest masterfully weaves the human realities of risk, regret, and redemption in bold and charming fashion."―Jeff LeJeune, author of Postmarked Baltimore
Excerpt
I wait for Higgins to dig in and think of my father, whether, wherever he is, he is proud of my accomplishments in baseball, or whether he is merely ashamed of what I did to Darlene. I want to forgive him for so much—as I want desperately for Darlene to forgive me—especially for handicapping me in so many ways. But in order to forgive him, I somehow feel I must elevate myself into a position of judge, and that’s something I find I just can’t do. I accepted long ago that I am who I am, the good and the bad, as a result of this man about whom I know so little and who left me before I could prove myself to him. If I could only resolve to stop staring at my past looking for answers, or to assign blame, I might finally be able to consign him to a less prominent place in my life, into a favorite corner to which I can go from time to time if only to dust off the cobwebs.
Somehow I found the courage to risk my dreams, even when they seemed to exceed my grasp, despite Dad’s inability to succor me. Still, in failing Darlene, I failed to become the man I always wanted to become. The sin rests entirely with me. Yet in the aftermath of that sin I fought for Darlene. As I continue to fight for us. But it’s a battle I can’t win alone.
In my youth I once considered that my father, due to my mother’s unhappiness, should not have married and, in my own unhappiness with my father, that he should not have fathered children. But what did that say of me, my self-image, my self-value? Indeed, what does Darlene’s unwillingness to fight for what we once had say of me? Yet I’m unwilling to concede defeat—perhaps the result of the ballplayer in me—although my resolve, like my knees, weakens day by day.
BACKSTOP: A BASEBALL LOVE STORY IN NINE INNINGS
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