Hardball: A Novel About America's Two Favorite Pastimes

by Tom T. Hitman

Tommy Bruno, the aging star center fielder for the Seaside Top Socks, returns for spring training smarting from an ugly divorce and furious to discover he has been paired as a roommate with the hot-dog rookie Tim Weare. It isn’t long, however, before Bruno discovers the advantages of rooming with a man in his sexual prime.

Soon the rest of the Top Socks get in on the action, including manager Mitch Hudson, star pitcher Roger “Thunderbird” Twain, hirsute catcher Damon “The Werewolf” Thorne, Latin sensation Hector Valenza, and the team’s 18-year-old Italian batboy, Ricky Catalano.

The season is full of surprises, both on and off the field, but in the end the Top Socks’ teamwork stands them in good stead, pushing them into the play-offs and a World Series showdown against their arch rivals, the Philadelphia Pilots — whose hated star pitcher has been sleeping with Bruno’s ex-wife.

Genres: Gay Erotica, Gay

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Bert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read my share of erotic novels before, but none like this. You’ve gotta hand it to the author, every single page of this book is unbelievably crude and absolutely filthy, I was very impressed with all the new and interesting ways of describing all these sex acts, very very impressed. It’s a super easy and fun read, not to be taken seriously at all, its prime intention is to entertain and I was mightily entertained. Very sexy and over the top.

[Cameron James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb above is wrong. That's for his hockey novel, here is the blurb for Hardball:

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Tommy Bruno, the aging star center fielder for the Seaside Top Socks, returns for spring training smarting from an ugly divorce and furious to discover he has been paired as roommate with the hot-dog rookie Tim Weare. It isn’t long, however, before Bruno discovers the advantages of rooming with a man in his sexual prime.

Soon the rest of the Top Socks get in on the action, including manager Mitch Hudson, star pitcher Roger “Thunderbird” Twain, hirsute catcher Damon “The Werewolf” Thorne, Latin sensation Hector Valenza, and the team’s 18-year-old Italian batboy, Ricky Catalano.

The season is full of surprises, both on and off the field, but in the end the Top Socks’ teamwork stands them in good stead, pushing them into the play-offs and a World Series showdown against their arch rivals, the Philadelphia Pilots — whose hated star pitcher has been sleeping with Bruno’s ex-wife.

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This book is dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty… and I like it.

This novel is almost non-stop sex. Guys are masturbating left, right, and centre, there are blowjobs galore, and tons of sex. I’d say that about 70-80% of this novel consists of sex scenes… yet Hitman somehow manages to string together a sports plot and a romantic subplot. A lot of that is accomplished through the sex scenes. That takes skill, but it’s also the mark of a good writer. A sex scene should never exist just for the sake of being a sex scene — even in an erotic novel. A sex scene must always be there for a good reason, a reason that furthers the plot. (In erotic novels, sometimes a sex scene will further the erotic/romantic plot — so it still does have a reason.)

While the ending is quite predictable, the journey there is a lot of fun.

What I found particularly enjoyable about this novel was that while it featured the first-time gay sex experiences of Bruno, Hitman spends very little time having Bruno agonizing over what a same-sex experience means about his sexuality. So, it’s a self-discovery novel without all of the typical emotional mumbo-jumbo of most other self-discovery novels. And I think it works well here because of the macho and masculine environment that Hitman portrays. Emotions in the locker room? They’re generally unwelcome.

Hitman made a few choices in his writing, however, that I felt detracted from the narrative.

Read the rest of my review on my blog:
http://camerondjames.wordpress.com/20...