Todd Dushay didn't have much experience with being close to people or part of a family. Getting involved had never been his style. Was he ready for the responsibilities that would come with extending a hand to this woman and her little boy?
Size: 177 KB (33,448 words)
Genre: Romantic
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Heterosexual
Review by Quasirandom [other reviews by Quasirandom]
Reviewed:
Standard Obligatory Disclaimer: I don’t like baseball, but I do enjoy Tony Stevens’ baseball stories. (Mitsuru Adachi is the only other comparable author I’ve met.) His ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ series is Great Stuff, being sweet and sexy romances with young adults where it just so happens at least one partner is involved with the game.
This story is installment #15, but that number means little — the series has a shadow of an overall arc, but each story stands alone and can be read in any order. You can also read it knowing little (like I do) to nothing about baseball — the sport is important in the story only because it’s important to the characters, and the emotional significance of sportsball events is always made clear.
For this installment, I should above all give this warning: it is missing a crucial story code, in this case Tearjerker. The possibility is on the table from the opening chapter, but many of us appreciate the heads-up on this before diving in, especially given the context. (Okay, yes, I’m being weasel-wordy to avoid spoilers.)
That said, I appreciate that that particular story thread does not swallow up the story as a whole — the romance and the pro-sports life are well-balanced with each other and the tear-jerking.
Said pro-sporter being Todd Dushay, who has spent several years playing in the second-from-the-top level of baseball (called the AAA league, for reasons lost in the depths of convention, but thus the title) for a couple different franchises, who is finally starting a season in the top level (called the Major Leagues, which is not consistent for reasons also lost in the depths of convention) as a backup fielder, which means he considers his spot on the team precarious (which gives this a few parallels to an earlier story, “World’s Oldest Rookie”). Maureen, meanwhile, is just as wary of a romance for Reasons tied up in that spoiler mentioned above. Said romance, however, is one of the nicer in this series. I like this one quite a bit, despite the missing code (and all those parentheses). Worth your while to read.
Even if, yes, this story is Premium — but that makes it one more reason to support this site by getting a Premier membership. Really.
Review by Teloz [other reviews by Teloz]
Reviewed:
I was suckered into reading this story, I read the story details, and there was no mention of baseball, so I started to read. I know nothing about baseball! Shit! I know nothing about cricket! That's one of my national games, and isn't AAA the American Automobile Association? Once I started to read though, I was hooked.
Despite the wealth of baseball references, most of which could have been written in Sanskrit as far as I was concerned, I was almost compelled to stick with the tale until the bitter end. There were no silly mistakes to spoil my concentration, no grim grammar, or horrific homophones, just a great story, well told.
The tale doesn't have a happy ending, though it does offer the possibility of good things to come, but don't let any of that put you off, just keep the box of Kleenex handy. I might add, that none of the other stories in the Take Me Out To The Ballgame series even came close to grabbing me like his one. So again, get out the Kleenex!
Read, and enjoy!
