Jackie Robinson And The Best Years

Watching the Little League duel between Jackie Robinson and South Korea made me think of all the Little League games my son played and I managed to hang around as Assistant Coach. We had an amazing nine year run and now it seems almost amazing it has ended. Baseball is the ultimate kid sport. Something about swinging a bat and shagging balls in a dusty field makes you into a kid again and then of course the games are to die for.

Because in that moment nothing else matters but that game. And it is not just a Little League game anymore it is something between parents and their sons and daughters and it is a moment in time. Like the final game you just cant believe it will end and when it ends badly you don't really believe that either. You think you are immune to rooting for a bunch of kids in a life and death struggle but baseball doesn't put up with that. You are either in or out.

And when it does end you realize quite suddenly those were the best years. Parenting is a strange continuum of moments but doing something with  your kid that you can both participate in and both feel good about is a rare moment. And when it is over all you want to do is just have one more chance. One more game to capture all that youth again.

But of course the season is over and when they grow up all you can do is say...wow...those were the best years.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

How a Gringo Came To Write an Award Winning Latino Novel

The first question I get is usually how could I write in the voice of a thirteen year old Latino boy? I am  about as far as you can get culturally from a young adult Latino just barely hanging on with his mother. But of course if you are a writer you are so many people that biographers will never get it straight. It is the same way I wrote in the voice of an old African American man in Tobacco Sticks and in Mica Highways.

Voice is everything. Once you have the voice you have the novel. When I started The Pitcher I wrote it in third person but quickly realized it would not work that way. It was boring and distant. So I started over and I knew it had to be first person but who would tell the story? The old pitcher? The mother? No. The boy, Ricky. Ricky would tell the story. And so I started to play around with his voice. Then I wrote one paragraph.

"I never knew I had an arm until this guy calls out, "Hey, you want to try and get a ball in the hole, sonny?" I am only nine, but Mom says, "Come on, let's play." This carnival guy with no teeth and a fuming cigarette hands me five blue rubber balls and says I throw three in the hole, then we win a prize. He's grinning, because he's taken Mom's five bucks and figures a sucker is born every minute. This really gets me , because we didn't have any money after Fernando took off, and he only comes back to beat up Mom and steal our money. So I really wanted to get Mom back something, you know, for her five bucks."

And I had Ricky then. I had the novel. And where that voice came from is anyones guess. Maybe it is that kid who messed around in Baltimore City where I grew up. Maybe it was some of the Mexican guys I worked security with. And of course the hard times Ricky and his mother go through are my own hard times. And the baseball is my sons baseball and the coaches and parents are from nine years of being an assistant coach with my son. The immigration issues are from time and Ricky's dream of becoming an MLB pitcher is my own of becoming a novelist against immense odds.

Then again, maybe it was just Ricky flying around out there waiting to be born. But when the Latino Book of the Month Club made it their Monthly Selection or LA Latino did a story on the immigration issues in the book or I stand up on a stage at the Latino Book Festival in Chicago and read my book that  has to be translated to Spanish so the audience can understand what I am saying...even I wonder how a Gringo came to write a Latino novel.

 I guess I just did.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Author Nirvana

Most of the time it is pretty tough. You work by yourself in a vacuum usually over a garage or in a basement or holed up in some back bedroom. You get few attaboys and you work for years on something that might or might not work out for you. You burn out from your own company and fantasize about a real job where people interact and talk and it is not just you and that screen day after day saying...so what are you going to write today?

But occasionally it all pays off. Sometimes it is a great review or somebody buys your book and lets you know or you get a rights sale or just something good comes out of all that effort. But the real payoff is when you see your readers and you see how the book affects them and for a moment it is all worth it. This happens for me when I go to schools to speak and suddenly I see all these young faces and they are holding my book.

And the presentation goes along and they are shy and don't ask too many questions. Sometimes they don't ask you a thing and you have to fill with your writing experiences. But then at the end after you are done signing the books and have talked to the teachers and you are about to go...a lone student walks up and they are holding the book and they look at you and turn red and say "I loved your book....it was the best book I have ever read."

And it took a lot of guts for them to do that. An Adult. An author. And you smile and shake their hand and say thank you very much. And then they leave and you walk away and you really wish you had said more as you cruise down the hallway. Because for a  moment...it all made sense.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...Sometimes a dream is all you have
 

The Pitcher is on Air Force Two on the way to South Korea

So this is the way it happened. I know someone who knows someone who is part of the press corps going with Joe Biden to South Korea. So the someone who knows someone gave the book to the journalist and he is going to give The Pitcher to the VP. Now it is a long flight to South Korea and Joe is probably looking for a little escapism before confronting the North Koreans. What better than a baseball story right?

I imagine old Joe kicking back on Air Force 2 and maybe taking off his shoes and then plop The Pitcher lands in his lap. My guy says something like..."Mr. Vice President if you are looking for a great story of overcoming adversity and getting your dreams, then this is the book for you." Now Joe is probably pretty bored at about this point and so he opens the book and gets lost for a few hours while he is winging his way to the other side of the world.

By the time he reaches South Korea he has finished the novel and is a changed man. Joe gets off the plane with book in hand and waves to reporters and holds The Pitcher high as a question comes from the press. " Mr Vice President, do you think you can get the North Koreans to change their minds?"' Old Joe lifts The Pitcher high and says, "Hey, if this kid can do it...anybody can do it." And everyone claps as they try and see what book the Veep is holding.

Of course he might not read it at all...but that would be a different story.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...Sometimes a dream is all you have
 

Baseball is Over...bummer

With the Boston Red Sox winning the Series that ends the season. And it was sort of anti climatic even though it was the first win in Fenway since 1918 and that says something. But I don't know. Watching the guys all have the victory pile in the field you just couldn't feel like wow so that is it. That is the end of the season and it just made you want to get a few more in and wonder if the summer and baseball had slipped by one more time.

Because baseball is associated with summer and summer is associated with being a kid and lazy days and swimming pools and not going to school. Maybe it is just associated with leisure. And those guys in their uniforms and their hats look so much different than the football gladiators. Football players are beginning to look like people from another planet. They are so big and the equipment is so massive and they hit so hard you just aren't sure anymore who is really behind those facemasks. But baseball you know who the guys are.

They are the same guys you played with in some sandlot or in some street or in some yard. And even though they play the game at the very top it is still just baseball. And baseball is something every kid in American learns to play at an early age and then learns to watch as an adult. And both activites take you back to something you just cant get your arms around..

Time. And it does slip away.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The PItcher

Publishers Weekly Review of The Pitcher

                                                              

While ostensibly a contemporary baseball story, Hazelgrove’s expansive fifth novel also tackles issues of class, immigration law, and inequity. Thirteen-year-old Ricky Hernandez has a 75 mph pitch and dreams of making the freshman baseball team in Jacksonville, Fla., as the first step toward a professional career. He’s dyslexic, of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, and is ceaselessly taunted by his peers, led by a kid named Eric with an inside track to making the team.

While most of Ricky’s teammates can afford sports camp and private lessons, he and his mother are broke due to his abusive father’s lack of financial support and his mother’s mounting medical bills. Despite her deteriorating health, she has loads of attitude, brains, and charm. She singlehandedly persuades their neighbor, “The Pitcher,” who played in the World Series, to set aside his beer, leave his garage, and coach Ricky. 

Hazelgrove (Rocket Man) measures out a generous sprinkling of American idealism while weaving in legitimate threads of sorrow, employing the oft-used baseball metaphor to fresh and moving effect. Adult characters are particularly well-crafted, giving the book crossover potential.

 

 

The Age of Free Downloads and Pastry

I went into a Starbucks and the green smocked happy meal man asked me if I wanted a pastry for free. In fact I could have as many pastries as I wanted. And so I took three and sat down. When I went back for my coffee he explained they had to get rid of all the pastries by the end of the day. New vendor he explained further. Some outfit out of San Fran was going to be coming to all the Starbucks so they were priming the market with freebies.

In publishing free is the new strategy. My own novel The Pitcher is being offered for a week free on Amazon on August 24th. http://www.amazon.com/The-Pitcher-ebook/dp/B00DMOO3RM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=So if you have a Kindle go get your free copy. The theory is that it is better to give away something in the hopes that more will come and pay. This is the hope. Jay Z gave away a million copies of his latest single. Publishers routinely offer up free books. Starbucks gives away pastries. What is going on?

The age of the internet has become such a market equalizer that nobody knows how to market anymore. You didn't have to give away something if you had a lock on the market. Before kindles you either paid the price of a book or you didn't. And before the digital age you either bought the CD or you didn't. But all that left with the LCD or leveling effect of the internet on the market. The only chance now is to "catch." To grab hold and go viral and then you can make your money.

So on August 24th go to Amazon and download your copy of The Pitcher. I would suggest downloading while in a Starbucks where you can enjoy a pastry. For free. What a country.

Free download of The Pitcher August 24

A Night at Wrigley

You get there and of course you need a hotdog and a beer. The best stand has the grilled onions and there is a line but you wait. The Budweiser is cold and tastes like ballpark beer...slightly metallic. A bag of peanuts and now you are on your way. The Cubs have not been doing so well so your thirteen dollar tickets are no longer relevant. There are many places to sit and no need to go into the nosebleed sections. So you plop down along the third base line and watch the Cubs warm up.

The rain has blown off and the sky has cleared and it is blue toward the lake. The honor guard is lining up for the National Anthem and the players have their hats off as some guy belts out the Star Spangled Banner. And he really lets it all fly on the final verse and everyone goes nuts and then you sit down and someone shouts: Play BALL. So you finish your hotdog and drink your beer and start cracking peanuts as the Cubs look like they might actually beat the Brewers.

There are some Brewers fans around you who are mostly quiet in the sea of Cub jerseys. And you pick out the lifers the ones who live in the city around the stadium. And the guys who sell the hotdogs and beers and are probably pushing sixty. Everyone in the park is an amazing testament to the national pastime to the old ladies in their Cub hats and the solitary fan scoring quietly by himself to the young girls in the tight Cub tank tops.

And the rain comes and they stop the game and you watch them roll out the tarp. An amazing orchestrated ballet really. And you sit there with everyone for an hour and watch the rain and lightning but you don't care. You are sitting in the middle of the greatest city in the world in one of the last great old ball parks. And the rain does stop and the players hit the field. Seventh Inning stretch comes and you sing with  thousands of other people Take Me Out to The Ball Park.

And then it is over and you are on the train headed back out. The Cub Fans are rowdy and then asleep and everyone is winding down. The rain has come back as you leave the train and walk toward your car. And you think, sometimes...life does deliver.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have