Relief Pitcher

by Dick Friendlich

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pete Conroy is a very promising infielder with great range and an active bat. He is also very knowledgeable about baseball, so it appears that he will make the majors. However, a hot-dogging young player spikes him in the leg, reducing his ability to cover as much ground as before. It now appears that he will remain in the minor leagues throughout his career. Since he is still able to play at a lower level and knows the game so well, he is assigned as a manager to a low-level minor league team.
Due to poor planning by people higher up in the organization, Conroy’s team is short of pitchers, so when his team is far behind, Pete pitches. He repeats this a couple of times and finds that he has excellent control and has some good movement on the ball. After some success, he is told to give up pitching.
When Pete chooses to quit baseball rather than give up pitching, all seems lost. However, he quickly discovers that he has friends in high places, and he is called up to the major league Eagles as both a pitcher and a shortstop. There, he must not only perform, but find a way to make peace with the man that caused his injury.
This is a good story about coming back from adversity and overcoming the physical as well as emotional scars to succeed. Knowledge of baseball is needed to fully understand it. Most successful paths that people take are not the first one that they started on. Pete Conroy thought he had lost his dream only to discover that there was another way to achieve it.

[Martin Herbordt · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Found this on the shelf at a summer house and read it on a lark. I thought it would remind me of some surprisingly gritty baseball books I read in elementary school - and it did.)

This is of course children's literature - lots of coincidences and contrivances, and some improbabilities (although the main plot points are based on real stories). And virtually no text of about any character's life beyond baseball (does anybody have a family?).

But it is excellent at getting into the head of a likeable complex (for the genre) character. And for giving the feeling of life in the low minors in the late 1950s - small cities, long bus rides, hot summers, no AC.

[Nikki Rathbun · Rating 3 out of 5]

My son and I read this together for a book report he had to do. A cute little story about perseverance.

[Bob108819 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one as a teenager, but still remember it. I'm not sure how it would hold up, but the fact that I remember the story tells me that it was an enjoyable read.