By Adam Waldman
If you’re a parent, it’s highly likely that you’ve spent countless hours watching your kids participate in sports. It’s also a virtual lock that you’ve experienced coaches who made your stomach turn with their ineptitude and/or nepotism. If you’ve been a coach yourself, you know how it feels to deal with “participation trophy” parents who place selfish desires to see their kid in the spotlight over the greater good of the team and experiencing real competition. Political correctness, and fear of embarrassing your child, makes it very unlikely that you ever do anything about your dissatisfaction besides complain to your inner circle of friends. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to share your inner-circle thoughts with the masses, take meaningful action and let the chips fall where they may? If so, Matthew S. Hiley’s Baseball Dads is a must-read!
It’s been nearly a decade since the country was captivated by Tony Soprano and his take-no-shit crew of New Jersey gangsters that you couldn’t help but root for, despite the fact that they lived on the wrong side of the law. Who among us, when watching The Sopranos, never fantasized about dishing out our own brand of justice (if only it were legal)? Most people never reach the breaking point that pushes them to vigilante justice, but in the darkest depths of your mind, the thoughts certainly exist, even if they are never acted upon.
In Baseball Dads, Dwyane Devero evolves from a hard-working, loving father who struggles to make ends meet and do right by his family, into a Tony Soprano-esque superhero that leads a crew of equally disenchanted baseball dads to mete out their own brand of justice. Devero’s challenge lies in leading a crew that faces an unexpected transition into a life that they have no real skills to handle with any degree of expertise. It is the main character’s undeniable charisma and feeling of invincibility that acts as the glue that holds this group of flawed men together.
From massive drug use to wildly inappropriate sexual escapades and cringe-worthy blunt talk loaded with foul language, you can’t help but follow along with anticipation to see how the story unfolds. This book is not for the faint of heart or the uptight, but if you were a fan of The Sopranos, you will find Baseball Dads to be a thoroughly entertaining read that will make you laugh out loud, while simultaneously shaking your head in disbelief.
By tapping into a subject that is so familiar to every parent that has ever watched their kid play sports, Matthew S. Hiley brilliantly develops these characters in such a way that you feel like you can be one of them. There is no doubt that Baseball Dads would make an excellent movie in the future, and if it hits the theaters, I’ll be there on opening night.
Click here to read the first three chapters of the book for free, and then click the button to order your own copy. You will not be disappointed!
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