Posts tagged David B. Stinson

Gazette Newspaper – Good Ol’ Print Media

Continuing the theme of how wonderful it is to be able to hold in your hands a paper copy of what you read, the Gazette Newspaper was kind enough to feature my book in today’s print edition (May 16, 2012).  Many thanks to Cody Calamaio for her complimentary article about Deadball, entitled Ghosts of the Pastime.  Here is an excerpt:

“The book tells the story of former minor league baseball player Byron Bennett who sees things he can’t explain when visiting historical locations connected with baseball. He sees images of forgotten old ballparks where modern buildings now stand and interacts with people who seem to be from another era.  After his minor league career ends without ever making it to the big leagues, Bennett goes on a journey to discover baseball’s hidden past. His wife and teammates don’t believe in his visions and urge him to leave the past in the past, but something drives Bennett to continue to sort out the mystery.”

Of course the irony of this post is that I am now about to provide a link to the on-line version of the Gazette article.  After that I’m heading over to CVS to buy some hard copies for posterity, and a copy for my folks as well.  Those of you in the D.C. area, be sure to keep an eye out for your copy of the Gazette sitting in your driveway when you get home.

Here is the link:  http://www.gazette.net/article/20120516/ENTERTAINMENT/705169760/1152/1152/ghosts-of-the-pastime&template=gazette

 

Tiger Stadium 1999

A good portion of the book Deadball takes place in Detroit during Byron Bennett’s pilgrimage to the motor city for the Tiger’s final season at the Corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

Tiger Stadium Detroit, August 1999

In Deadball, Byron visits Tiger Stadium in May 1999 for a three-game series against the visiting Baltimore Orioles.

Entrance to Tiger Stadium, Detroit, Gate 1, at the Corner of Michigan and Trumbull

The trip I took to Detroit that season was later in the summer, during the Orioles’ final road visit to Tiger Stadium.

Orioles Pitchers from left Jason Johnson (41), B.J. Ryan (52), Mike Timlin (40), Al Reyes, Jesse Orosco (47), Sidney Ponson, and Doug Johns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My trip to Detroit was taken long before I came up with the story line for Deadball, although much of the atmosphere of Tiger Stadium described in the book came from that visit.

View of Tiger Stadium, Detroit, from section 144 August 1999

I recall being disappointed and amazed on that trip that the City of Detroit would allow such an incredible historical time piece to slip away, just as Baltimore was in the process of doing with Memorial Stadium.

View of Right Field Porch, Tiger Stadium, Detroit

The view of the field, obstructed by iron support columns, helped give Tiger Stadium character that has been stripped from today’s modern ballparks.

View of the right field corner seating from the upper deck cat walk, Tiger Stadium, Detroit

The Corner of Michigan and Trumbull remains hallowed ground, even though Tiger Stadium is now long gone.  As Byron Bennett would have observed, it is now just another lost ballpark.

View of the Corner of Michigan and Trumbull, and Downtown Detroit, from Top of Tiger Stadium

 

Babe Ruth Field At The Old St. Mary’s Industrial School

One would think that, given how important Babe Ruth is to the sport of baseball, more would made of the fact that the baseball field where Ruth honed his skills as a child still remains to this day a baseball field in an area just west of downtown Baltimore.

The Infield at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Maryland

Near the corner of South Canton Avenue and Route 1 just a half mile north of Interstate 95 is a ball field known as “Babe Ruth Field.”

Babe Ruth Field Scoreboard, Baltimore, Maryland

In 2007, as part of my research for Deadball, I visited the site, which at the time was still Cardinal Gibbons High School.  Formerly, the school had been the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage and reform school run by the Catholic Church.

Dugout at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Maryland

In addition to the cinder block dugouts and the chainlink backstop, one major difference between the field that Ruth played on and the field as it exists today is the orientation of home plate, which in Ruth’s day, was located in what is now centerfield.

Center Field at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Formerly Location of Home Plate

Babe Ruth spent the majority of his formative years as a ward of the school, his parents having signed him over to the Xaverian Brothers out of desperation when he was just eight or nine years old.

Babe Ruth At St. Mary's Industrial School For Boys (Huggins & Scott Auctions image)

Brother Matthias Bouttlier, the school’s disciplinarian,  helped harness Ruth’s natural abilities.

Home Plate at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Maryland

In Deadball, the protagonist, Byron Bennett, then a member of the Cardinal Gibbons varsity baseball team, thinks he sees a game being played on the old St. Mary’s configuration of the field wherein George Herman Ruth hits a home run into the crowd of students sitting beyond right field.

Left Field at Babe Ruth Field, Formerly Right Field

With Cardinal Gibbons High School now closed and the facility no longer in use, the future of Babe Ruth Field is uncertain.  Hopefully the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which owns the field, will continue to preserve the historic ballpark so future generations can stand where the Babe once stood and play ball.

Post-Holiday Season Deadball Kindle Sales Picking Up

And now it’s time for another installment of “Blowing My Own Horn.”

As part of my compulsive checking of top 10 lists, I noticed this afternoon (January 6th at 5:00 pm) that Deadball currently resides at Number 18 on Amazon.com’s list of “Top Sellers in Baseball” for Kindle.  For posterity, here’s a screen grab as proof:

Amazon.com's Top Sellers in Baseball - Kindle.

Okay, that’s enough applause for now.  Everyone please take your seats.

DBS

Launch Party Featuring Deadball To Be Held In Downtown Silver Spring – UPDATED

Huntington Park Publications will hold a launch party at the Civic Center in downtown Silver Spring from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 25, 2012, for my novel Deadball, A Metaphysical Baseball Novel. Also featured will be Honour, A Historical Golf Novel by Richard O’Connor. Please join us for this special event. The launch party is open to the general public. More details to come.

Deadball, A Metaphysical Baseball Novel Now Available on Kindle

Deadball is now out on Kindle.   Just in time for the last final, frantic buying days of the holiday season.

Here’s the link:

amazon.com/Deadball-Metaphysical-Baseball-Novel-ebook/dp/B006N34PCW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1324298119&sr=8-3

After only three days on the market, it currently resides (as of 7:00 A.M. Monday December 19, 2011 (Happy Birthday Dad!)) at number 48 on the Kindle Best Sellers List for Baseball Books.

Amazon updates the list hourly so it’s anyone’s guess where it will reside at 8:00 A.M. today and beyond.

DBS

 

 

Deadball – An Amazon Top 10 “Hot New Release In Sports Fiction”

As a kid, my brother and I used to listen to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 Sunday mornings on WPGC.  Whether we heard the entire broadcast depended upon if our parents dragged us to the 8:00 mass, insuring that we were home in time for the 10:00 start time.   Somewhere in my house are cassette tape copies of shows I recorded by placing a Radio Shack microphone next to the speaker of my Motorola AM/FM radio.  Included among those tapes, undoubtedly, is the four-week stretch that Tony Orlando and Dawn’s Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree topped the charts in 1973. My brother and I  kept waiting week after week for that song to be dethroned, unappreciative, as we were at the time, of that song’s brilliance.

Since then, I have had a thing for lists, whether they be ranking the top ten presidents of the United States or to the top 10 portable dehumidifiers (thank you Consumer Reports).  So imagine my surprise when I learned today that after just one week in publication, Deadball was ranked (as of 12/1/11 at 4:00 pm EST) number 10 on Amazon.com’s list of “Hot New Releases In Sports Fiction.”  Not sure how that happened, but I’ll take it.

The Screen Grab Goes To 11, But Deadball Is No. 10

It’s far too early to say where making this list ultimately will rank in my “Top 100 Deadball Moments,” but early indications suggest it is shooting up the charts, with a bullet.

DBS

 

John Kelly’s Bumper

Hello All:

Just wanted to take a moment to share with you what John Kelly of The Washington Post had to say about Deadball:

Deadball is about the magical intersection of memory and mystery, a place where the crack of the bat and the shouts of the crowd mingle with the bricks and mortar of vanished ballparks. It’s about trying to turn a double into a triple and about trying to turn a barely-held memory into a tangible artifact. Someone once said you can’t go home again. But you can. That’s the whole point of baseball, after all – and of David Stinson’s beguiling new novel.

DBS

Deadball Arrives Five Years After Conception

Hello All:

The story told in Deadball first came into focus the winter of 2003, during a drive from Chicago’s Midway Airport to Rock Island, Illinois.  Working then for the Department of Justice, I was on my way to review Department of the Army documents for a case being litigated in the United States Court of Federal Claims. My traveling companion, agency counsel for the Army, was kind enough to listen to my concept for the book as we drove along I-88.

After leaving DOJ in October 2006 to be a stay-at-home dad (SAHD), I began work full time on the novel.  By the spring of 2007, I had a first draft, the ending of the book having come to me the previous fall while waiting in the parking lot for my youngest son to finish soccer practice.

By the spring of 2010, many drafts and rewrites later, Deadball was, I felt, ready to publish.  I was wrong, and for the next year, with the book continually crowning at about 9 cm, I labored to deliver the book for publication.

On November 23, 2011, Deadball arrived.  I hope you will buy a copy of the book and read it.  I encourage you to post a comment on this website, or a review on Amazon.com.

Please check back here for more blog postings.

DBS

 

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