Pitch

by Matthew Krause

It is 1998. Almost a decade has passed since Travis Lembeau’s life was nearly destroyed by alcoholic pitching prodigy Nicholas “Pooch” Shepherd. Today, both men have gotten on with their lives. Travis is married and working at the local newspaper, and Nick Shepherd, no longer calling himself Pooch, is in recovery, ten years sober, who teaches baseball to at-risk kids. It would seem that the terrible days of Pooch are long gone … but sometimes, the past is never where you think you left it. Through a quantum anomaly, the demon that Nick used to be—the vicious Pooch circa 1989—claws its way across the portals of time to stalk Travis and harass his family. At first Travis fears that Nick has fallen off the wagon and returned to his violent ways. But Nick is still very much sober and has an even greater reason for If this thing really is Pooch—if Pooch has somehow come out of the past to torment the present—then every atrocity Pooch commits will leave a trail leading back to Nick. Working together and apart, and enlisting the aid of a mysterious time-traveling transient, Travis and Nick set out to send Pooch back to where he came from … before Pooch’s madness destroys everything they love.

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2012

About the author

With "Matthew" being one of the top five baby names for over 20 years and "Krause" being the German equivalent of Smith or Jones, it's hard to tell one Matthew Krause from the other on Facebook. This Matthew Krause is an award-winning screenwriter, independent filmmaker, teacher, and mentor. Although he writes in multiple genres, the common theme in all of his work is man's eternal struggle to find those pockets of nobility in a sea of human frailty.

Matthew was raised in the heartland of Kansas, earning his Bachelor’s degree from Emporia State University and a Master’s degree from Kansas State University. He has authored several screenplays, including Radical Evil, which placed in the quarterfinals of the Nicholl Fellowship, Play Action, which placed in the semifinals of the same competition, and Baby’s Breath, which was produced as an independent film. Play Action also earned him a Screenwriting Fellowship with Walt Disney/ABC Studios in 2001. When he’s not living in Kansas, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and five cats.

Reviews

[Jeannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too often in speculative fiction, time travel just becomes a device to sloppily play with narrative or, in the case of film, show off some cool effects. This is not the case with Pitch. In 1998, a rift in time allows 28-year-old Nick Shepherd, a recovering alcoholic, to confront his former 18-year-old self, a hostile, violent, still-practicing alcoholic who went by the moniker Pooch. In Pitch, Krause deliberately withholds the inevitable meeting between the Younger and Older, focusing instead on Nick not only coming to terms with what is going on but with the monster that he once used to be. As such, when the meeting does come it is all the more consequential, an integral to the plot of the story, rather than just the starting point for a frenetic shoot-‘em-up as in Looper. Like Looper, Pitch probably has its share of time travel discrepancies, but unlike that film, one doesn’t feel inclined to pick at them. The time travel is just a means to a more important end, which is a statement about how much it’s possible for a person, for any person, to change within a lifetime, and conversely how every person has that potential for good or evil, and it’s just a matter of what choices you make along the way. Unlike most recent time travel stories, Pitch doesn’t set itself up to live or die by how “cool” the audience thinks the time travel in the narrative is. Rather, this is a novel to make one think about human nature and moral choice and how we can mess up while trying to do what we think is the right thing. So much more of that theme is helped along by the time travel element but exists outside of it, too. Pitch works on its own as a thriller and speculative fantasy, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself reflecting on your own past choices as well.

[Gingercat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this story. We all wonder at some point in our lives "What if I had a chance to do something over?" Pitch explores that question as well as giving us a great mystery.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved that I never knew where the tale was going to go! The character were sometimes relatable and other times shocking.