The Pitcher

by William Hazelgrove

“I never knew I had an arm until this guy called out, “Hey you want to try and get a ball in the hole, sonny?” I was only nine, but mom said, “come on, let’s play.” This Carney guy with no teeth and a fuming cigarette hands me five blue rubber balls and says if I throw three in the hole we win a prize. He’s grinning, because he took mom’s five bucks and figures a sucker is born every minute. That really got 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.”

A boy with a golden arm but no money for lessons. A mother who wants to give her son his dream before she dies. A broken down World Series pitcher who cannot go on after the death of his wife. These are the elements of The Pitcher. A story of a man at the end of his dream and a boy whose dream is to make his high school baseball team. You will laugh and you will cry as The Pitcher and Ricky prepare for the ultimate try out of life.

Distributor: Ingram Publisher Services
Pub Date : 09/01/2013
Price : $15.95
EAN: 978 1 938467 59 2
Trim :  6×9
Format : Trade Paper
Pages : 275
FIC038000   Fiction/Sports
FIC056000   Fiction/Hispanic & Latino

KEY SELLING POINTS     
• The author is known internationally as the Writer in Ernest Hemingways attic. Stories in the New York Times, USA Today,The International Hearld, NPR, All Things Considered, People Magazine, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Chicago Sun Times, NBC, ABC, PBS, CSPAN have all covered his books and writing in the attic.
• Follow up to highly reviewed Rocket Man novel out this spring
• Strong crossover into the YA market
• Releases just in time for the MLB playoffs
• Appeals to Latino and Hispanic readers

AUDIENCE
• People who loved The Natural, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, The Rookie.
• Baseball fans, coaches and players
• Women who have sons in organized sports.
• Multicultural with an emphasis on Latinos and Hispanics

AUTHOR BIO  
William Elliott Hazelgrove is the best selling author of four novels, Ripples, Tobacco Sticks, Mica Highways, and Rocket Man, which launches in May of 2013. His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editors Choice Awards and optioned for the movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest  Hemingway’s birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today and other publications.  He runs a political cultural blog, The View From Hemingway’s Attic.

ONLINE
www.williamhazelgrove.com        theviewfromhemingwaysattic.com