Thursday, June 07, 2012

Drawing Card: A New Baseball Novel of Cleveland


Information just received from the author on an interesting new novel:

"Drawing Card: A Baseball Novel, just published by McFarland, is a Cleveland-based book written by an ex-Clevelander who was once a student at Cleveland State and maintains connections there"

"In writing this book I was inspired by learning from research that in the early part of the 20th century at least two female ballplayers were hired by minor league clubs, bit after signing contracts, they had their contracts cancelled by Commissioner Landis specifically because of their gender. These two women reacted to their rejection politely, as women were supposed to, and pursued other athletic careers. In my novel, a woman whose baseball contract is cancelled by Landis vows revenge."

In setting my story in Cleveland, I was able to use the neighborhood in which I grew up and many Cleveland landmarks as background. Then, in order to show the main character's violent nature, I used violent events in Sicilian history, beginning with the Olympic era, when Sicily was a Greek colony. This enabled me to demonstrate that throughout history many women enjoyed athletics but had little opportunity to engage in them."

"Today 's women ballplayers face the same discriminatory attitudes that those in the past had to fight against. Just reading one book, like Pam Postema's autobiography (she was an umpire), demonstrates what women in baseball face right now."