Once Upon a Fastball

the long version

Your legacy is in the Attic. The words leap from the cryptic poem left for Harvard professor Seth Stein by his Papa Sol, the doting grandfather who vanished without a trace two years earlier. It was Papa Sol who instilled an unquenchable passion for baseball in Seth’s soul; it was Sol who also ignited Seth’s obsession with history, spinning fabulous tales of times and people long gone.Seth is still searching for answers to Papa Sol’s disappearance when the poem leads him to a scuffed, yellowed baseball resting in a box handmade by his grandfather. A single touch of the rough leather thrusts Seth through the swirling vortex of history onto the streets of 1950s Brooklyn, and then to the greatest baseball game ever played, the Bobby Thomson “Shot Heard ’Round the World” play-off classic. In this surreal, sepia-toned site of past glory, Seth begins a wondrous, life-changing odyssey to find the answers he so desperately seeks.Suspenseful, thought-provoking, funny, and poignant, this beautifully crafted novel is a joyous tribute to our inspiring and timeless national pastime, and a rare treasure for all those who love baseball.