In the Sunday Sports Selection series, we showcase a sports-related product (gadget, book, film, equipment, etc.) that we have enjoyed and think you may find of interest as well.

Did you know when the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball team in 1869 the batters got to call whether they wanted the ball high or low? Did you know the first pitchers didn’t throw overhand? Did you know there wasn’t any bunting in the beginning of professional baseball?

In Darryl Brock’s If I Never Get Back, the reader and the main character, Samuel Clemens Fowler, are thrown back to the 19th century world of railroad travel and the first professional baseball players. Sam Fowler, a divorced newspaper reporter whose life is in ruins when the book begins, is somehow transferred back to 1869 and ends up traveling with Harry Wright and his Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team.

If I Never Get Back is one of the best sports’ books I’ve read. What makes it so great is that it is not only a great book for sports fans, but if you just like a good adventure tale or are a history buff you should find it appealing. It blends both the baseball and the science fiction time travel genres brilliantly making it a great book for a variety of folk.

After Fowler begins the book with his life in ruins (divorce, binge drinking, etc.) and his father being buried in the 1980s-90s, he finds friendship, camaraderie, love, and lots of adventure in the 19th century. While traveling with the Red Stockings, he takes on a reserve role with the team as well as later becoming a director of promotions/concessions.

As the inside flap conveys Fowler finds several other adventures in the 19th century as well as those he has with the original pro ball players:

Sam Fowler is taking a modern-day Amtrak home to San Francisco when an unscheduled stop somewhere west of Cleveland gives him the opportunity to stretch his legs. Instead, Sam finds that time has stretched and mysteriously transported him back to 1869.

Bewildered at first, Sam soon meets up with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball’s first all-professional team, and begins to ride the rails with them on their first national tour across post-Civil War America. He encounters a political conspiracy, a get-rich-quick scheme with Mark Twain, and through it all, the shaky-legged beginnings of America’s favorite pastime . . . before it ever was!

Needless to say, I recommend this book to anyone and everyone. I currently am in the process of reading the sequel, which has a high probability of finding its way onto a future edition of Sunday Sports Selections.

Another great bonus, since this book was originally published in 1991, is that you can get a mass market paperback edition for a cheap price. How cheap? Amazon has copies for $0.01 plus S&H.

Shotgun Spratling

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