The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game

by Tim Brown

[1538726556] [‎‎978-1538726556] A book The Tao of the Backup Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game Brown Hardcover 2023

299 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

Tim W. Brown was born and raised in Rockford, Illinois. In 1983 he graduated summa cum laude from Northern Illinois University with a degree in American studies. He is the author of four published novels, Deconstruction Acres (1997), Left of the Loop (2001), Walking Man (2008), and Second Acts (2010). His fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in over two hundred publications, including Another Chicago Magazine, The Bloomsbury Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Chelsea, Chiron Review, Colorado Review, The Fiction Review, The Ledge, Main Street Rag, New Observations, Oyez Review, Pleiades, Poetry Project Newsletter, Rain Taxi, Rockford Review, Slipstream, Small Press Review, and Storyhead. A long-time resident of Chicago, where he was a fixture in that citys literary scene as a writer, performer, and publisher of Tomorrow Magazine (1982-1999), Brown moved to New York in 2003. He currently earns his living as a writer at Bloomberg."

Reviews

[Dominick Mondi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tao of The Backup Catchers as a lot to offer to more than just fans of America’s pastime. It is an interesting and emotional narrative about a role player, someone who is good enough to in the big time, but not quite good enough to stick. Eric Kratz paints a picture of someone, or someones, who put it all on the line, who often hold it all together, sometimes for a season, sometimes for a game, sometimes for only a few innings. His stories are grounded in a working class mentality that make this book a must read if you enjoy seeing inside the life of everyday people trying against the odds to “make it”.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a baseball fan, so the concept then of the back-up catcher seemed interesting to me . . . but maybe because I'm not a FANATIC, I was completely lost in this book. We're following Erik, but stories about other catchers come up and nothing seems to flow well. A story about one catcher started on page 198 and I kept going back in the book, thinking I had skipped some pages . . . but no, the story finished on page 212. Hard read.