Play Ball!
Copyright© 2016 by Ernest Bywater
Foreword
Foreword
This is a story about people, their attitudes, behaviours, and actions. It is also meant to be entertaining at the same time. Baseball was chosen as a sports venue to help carry and focus the story plot and characters.
When I started this story I wrote to a number of baseball clubs and universities to obtain permission to use their real names in the story. A few responded by saying they couldn’t give permission for legal reasons to do with contracts they have, and some didn’t respond at all. After six months I gave up waiting and I went ahead to write the story without naming any specific organisations. I did choose a real life town to base the main character, Mo, in to have a place people can relate to. To the best of my ability, while using maps and search engines, I located Mo in a place where you’ve a selection of real life universities and colleges to pick from, plus there’s a selection of both Major and Minor League baseball clubs within suitable commuting range of the base location. Thus, you have a choice as to which teams you wish to feel the story is linked to. I deliberately refrain from naming the teams for legal reasons. The same is true of the key people in the organisations. Everyone named is fictitious and are made up by me from my fertile imagination.
This story is about the people and not the sport, but the sport is a key part of the story and the development of the people, so it has a big part in the story. The baseball scenes are to show the person’s ability, skills, and attitudes so they’re important because of that. I’ve not played baseball in my life, so I ran every inch of play, action and rules, through a friend who is a baseball umpire in the USA. Each scene was taken apart in fine detail and then woven back together again after lengthy talks on what is within the rules and the bounds of possibility in the field. Then they were put to another USA baseball fanatic for approval as to the play validity. So, if you don’t agree with them please do not email me about them. I’m not going to change them unless those two say I should. This is known as ‘ducking out from under and leaving it up to the expert witness.’ There is one scene I thought of that many will say can’t happen. A week after writing it I found this video to show it can happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dob7is7zkYw
