Calico Joe by John Grisham

This recently published short book written by John Grisham is his first foray into the world of baseball. The book coming in at under two hundred pages jumped to the front of my list as I saw an opportunity to finish a book in a short span.

In the story we meet the fictional ballplayer Joe Castle, a minor league first basemen from the town of Calico, Arkansas. When the parent club, the Chicago Cubs suffer an injury to their first baseman on the same day their triple A first baseman goes down Joe Castle is called up the big leagues.

What happens next is improbable but this is the nature of fiction. Joe Castle becomes the greatest rookie ever. Collecting fifteen hits in his first 15 at bats Castle takes the league by storm. Hitting for power, bunting for singles, stealing bases with abandon in this first month Joe does things that have never been done before.

The story is told by Paul Tracey a man who at the start of the story gets a call advising him that his father, Warren Tracy ,is dying of pancreatic cancer. The story is told in a combination of the present and in flashback. Paul has no relationship with his father, he was an abusive husband and a drunk. He also was a professional baseball player. Pitching for the New York Mets in the year of Joe Castle, 1973, Warren Tracy's career is winding down.

When in the end of August the Cubs come to Shea to play the Mets Warren Tracy is on the mound. Paul is at the game and his is conflicted. Joe Castle is everybody's hero and his father is not nice to him, in fact a couple weeks earlier his father had slapped him giving him a black eye. In his first at bat Joe Castle hits a homerun after an at bat where he fouls off pitch after pitch. Rounding first base he gives a slight fist pump and Paul Tracey's heart sinks.

Paul knows what will happen next. Sure enough it does. The next time Castle appears at the plate his life and both Paul and Warren Tracey's lives will be changed forever.

This is a very good story. It is very easy to read, I am planning to suggest my teenage boys read it.

As Paul's Dad approaches death he comes up with the idea of arranging a meeting between Joe Castle and his dying father, the man who beaned him on the day in 1973.

I would not be surprised if this book became a movie, it has all the elements of a great one.