The Genius Who Saved Baseball: A Feel Good Baseball Novel

by Robert E Ingram

Ever wish you could regain the magic you felt as a child when you first played the game of baseball? Do you feel like all the modern analytics and statistics are ruining enjoyment of the game today? In The Genius Who Saved Baseball, fourteen-year-old genius and baseball player Charlie Collier feels the same way. In a college class, he attempts to prove statistically to his statistics professor that baseball’s obsession with analytics has resulted in a lower caliber of play. The professor gives him a C–. Undeterred, Charlie continues to work on his plan for a major league team to adopt his philosophies. He hits pay-dirt when his dad, a former minor leaguer, gets hired as an executive with the Nashville Knights, a new franchise in Major League Baseball. The team’s charismatic owner, country music legend Big T. McCraw, makes the boldest move since Billy Beane and Moneyball, when he decides to adopt Charlie’s unorthodox theories. While Charlie’s theories have their naysayers, soon he finds that not only have the Knights’ embraced him and his ideas, but he’s hobnobbing with celebrities, making new friends and celebrating with old ones, and ultimately, making baseball history. Readers will travel with Charlie through the Knights’ first two seasons as they put the magic back into baseball and revolutionize the industry. As a bonus chapter, author Bob Ingram offers his Nine Innings Principles, which draw on lessons learned by the characters, as models for readers to live by.

384 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2021

Reviews

[Reader Views · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best parts of reading is finding a really great book you do not want to put down. “The Genius Who Saved Baseball” by Robert E. Ingram is that book. The funny thing is it was recommended to me and had not been on my radar at all. That being said, it is such a wonderful book, and I went into it as I do any other book, hoping to find myself carried away to some place special. By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked.

I found the story compelling and exceptionally interesting. The author crafts a great feel good baseball story. The pacing was great. The characters are memorable. The characters are realistic. The Collier family is just a slice of Americana. It is also a throwback to the nuclear home. Simultaneously, the Collier’s are juggling a precocious teenager who is incredibly bright. I absolutely loved Charlie, the genius. What’s not to love about a fourteen-year-old with a genius IQ who plays baseball and loves the game itself? The greatest part of Charlie, to me, is his ability to engage with adults. The author sets it up nicely as adults, older adults, meet and hope for Charlie to visit them and talk about baseball with them. Clever.

Charlie is also a prospective baseball player himself, gifted as a pitcher and smart as a whip. He is all of fourteen and incredibly polite and considerate. Charlie is a perfect teenager. (No spoilers.) We soon learn of Charlie’s medical issues, however. He has migraines every so often. Of course, I expected the worse. But the author promises a feel good baseball story.

So, though the story leans one way at first with Charlie’s quirks and idiosyncrasies, then the book flips and turns again later on. Again, no spoilers. Just prepare for a major swing in the story. I thought the book was going to pull on my heartstrings because of the buildup of Charlie and his genius, but the author refused to fall into that simple and easy trope. It is a baseball story, after all. So, we get baseball. There is Charlie pitching for his baseball team. There is a newly formed baseball team attempting to make a splash. There is Charlie’s father, the marketing director of the new baseball team. There is definitely baseball in this baseball story. It is a simple story in so many ways, like baseball. The story is also complicated, like baseball. There are all these moving parts. Charlie is trying to save baseball. Charlie is trying to play baseball. Charlie is also attempting to navigate through college courses where they do not understand his genius. Yet, the story is not just a story about baseball, but so much more. It is what I love about a good sports story, the universality of the events that surround that sports story. Everyone hopes. Everyone dreams. Everyone cries. Everyone fears. A good book gives you all of that—a great book does it without you even being aware it is occurring. “The Genius Who Saved Baseball” is a great book. It is definitely one of my favorite books of the year.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish we could get this book made into a movie! A “feel good baseball novel” is an accurate description of what I think about the story. Aside from the fact that the author obviously has an extensive knowledge of the game and its history, he also has been able to give his readers an uplifting, inspiring story with interesting characters you can connect with. Not long ago I was looking for encouraging, age-appropriate baseball movies to watch with my grandson. There are a few that I believe came from novels that I love even as an adult baseball fan. Two examples are “Angels in the Outfield” and “Bad News Bears”. “The Genius Who Saved Baseball” is right up there with those in the “feel good” department....a book that makes you smile, especially if you’re a baseball fan but even if you are not. I’ve read a book mentioned near the end of “The Genius Who Saved Baseball” - “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton which I read probably 45 years ago! That book definitely made me laugh, but it didn't have the “feel good” quality this novel does. I really loved this story, the ups and downs and positive attitudes. And, as someone who listened to games on the radio with my Dad since I was a very young girl, then watched games on tv with him as we grew older and loved every minute of it (even some of the heart-breaking moments), I can say I also appreciated the baseball glossary, the baseball terminology, and the historical baseball figures described in the book. Bravo, on writing a thoroughly enjoyable novel for baseball fans and non-baseball fans alike!