Book review: As the baseball season winds down, there’s still time for one more baseball book

The book cover states these are stories. After I read it a bit I understood these stories are actually a novel about a family in Maine, the Malletts. Lou Mallett, the patriarch of the family, spends his days consumed by baseball. He is involved with local baseball teams as a coach and player. He’s also a diehard Red Sox fan.

Mallett works as a substance abuse counselor and has devised a program that trains and employs some of his clients as umpires for the various leagues in that town, from Little League to adults. One of those umpires is his son Finch Mallett. Finch is a troubled young man with substance abuse issues that have estranged him from his family.

This situation provides plenty of opportunities for comic relief as the father as coach becomes incensed at the son as umpire for making questionable calls during a game. How can a coach scream at an umpire when he isn’t speaking to him? Mirth and merriment ensues.

Bette Mallett is his long suffering wife. Her husband is so immersed in baseball activities he neglects her. She is now a hard core runner spending her days running away from their marriage while fantasizing about being with other men. She is enamored with a young man who is a peanut vendor at the ballpark.

This story is told from various points of view. Two younger sons are also really into baseball. We learn how they feel. One of the most amusing sections brings us the viewpoint of the top umpire. He works with Lou Mallett and there’s a hilarious chapter in which he observes Mallett counseling some of his client umpires.

Baseball is the thread binding these vignettes together. The second half of the book is a novella covering one long day in 2004, the year the Red Sox finally won another World Series. Peterson explained it is his homage to a favorite book; “Ulysses” by James Joyce, which illuminated events 100 years before on June 16th, 1904.