Paula Messina Reviews: The Fireballer by Mark Stevens

  

Please welcome author Paula Messina back to the blog today…

The Fireballer

by Paula Messina

 

The Fireballer, a novel by Mark Stevens, is the story of Baltimore Oriole rookie pitcher Frank Ryder who can put the ball over the plate at more than 100 mph. Fueled by Ryder’s gas, the hapless Orioles are at last truly in the pennant race. Ryder is haunted by an accident his errant ball caused when he was twelve years old. Ten years later, Ryder is a phenom, a pitcher who is untouchable.

He has achieved his goal of playing in the majors, but he can’t relax and enjoy his success. Ryder misses Maggie, his girlfriend, who is hundreds of miles away in school, but if he’s willing, there are plenty of women lined up who are even more willing. He has the sudden wealth that is heaped on athletes, so he can afford a fancy condo with a fabulous view. But it’s icy, not a home. He’s been convinced to wear expensive duds, but he feels like a fraud. Ryder is recognized everywhere he goes, and he has no clue how to handle himself. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime pitcher driven by his love for the game. All he wants to do is throw strikes and win games.

And underlying everything is that accident Frank Ryder cannot escape.

Fireballer is about guilt and redemption. It is also about baseball, a big business that eats its own.

Ryder’s pitching prowess makes him a freak. His success makes the baseball union and the commission decidedly uncomfortable. They want to ban those 105 mph pitches. After all, how can the bigwigs watch baseball’s best hitters stand helplessly at the plate while their batting averages wallow in the toilet. Not to mention the possibility fans will become bored with all that Frank Ryder winning.

Before the union and commission can impose a speed limit, Ryder’s teammate is beaned and out for the rest of the season. The unwritten rule in baseball is that the pitcher retaliates. Tit for tat. We lose one. You lose one. His teammates on the field, in the dugout, and in the bullpen expect Ryder to do the right thing, seek revenge. Only Ryder is having none of it. He shakes off his irate catcher’s signals to bean the batter.

The next pitch has a mind of its own and hits the batter in his torso. He’s down, definitely out, and not moving.

Nobody believes it was an accident. Ryder is suspended.

But far worse, Ryder’s arm goes AWOL. He’s a pitching phenomenon who cannot pitch.

The reader roots for Frank Ryder to overcome his past and find happiness because he is a normal Joe, a good person overwhelmed by circumstances. His pitching is freakish. He is not. We know Frank Ryder. He’s your next-door neighbor, the kid you went to high school with, or your first cousin lucky enough to make it to the majors. He’s normal in every way except when he picks up a baseball and steps onto the mound.

Can Frank Ryder revive his arm, or is he a flash in the pan whose time has already come and gone?

 At times, it’s painful to read Ryder’s story. I mean this in the best way possible. His agony is so real, so visceral the reader can’t help but be moved. Most of us never come close to that kind of fame and success, but we all experience guilt and the need for redemption. We know what it’s like to struggle to recapture a part of ourselves that was lost. It’s man’s fate.

The novel’s tension dips when Ryder turns his energy to philanthropy by visiting a school. This isn’t a surprise. Ryder’s humanity spends most of the novel hovering around the edges waiting to surface, but Ryder and the students struggle to communicate. The chapter would have benefited from a bit of judicious pruning. It’s the pressure Ryder puts on himself and inflicted by the Orioles staff, the union, and the baseball commission that fuels the novel. The Orioles’ race for the American League Pennant and the biggest prize of all, the World Series, keeps the reader turning pages. We want Frank Ryder to prevail because he is one of us.

Despite the philanthropy dip, the writing is solid. Stevens creates characters that readers identify with and care about. He’s a master of description. Ryder’s twin brother “broods on problems. Ryder only played chess with Josh if they used a timer.”

Stevens lets the reader hear the ball as it smacks into the pitcher’s glove and the sound of the fans in the bleachers. “The crowd buzzes. It’s the hum of humanity. It’s restlessness. It’s wonder. It’s 37,700 squirming fans who have agreed through some sort of telepathic communion to react as one.”

 Fireballer reminds us that baseball once was America’s favorite pastime, and within its pages, Frank Ryder, is our favorite player.

Mark Stevens, a Massachusetts native, lives in Colorado and writes The Flynn Martin Thriller and The Allison Coil Mystery Series. In 2016 and  2023, Stevens was recognized as the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year. Stevens knows his baseball, and he is a wise man. He does not like the designated hitter, neither does Frank Ryder.

The Fireballer is a grand slam that should be designated to the top of your to-be-read pile.

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4g4y1ct

 

Paula Messina ©2026 

Paula Messina writes the Donatello Laguardia stories, which are set in Boston’s North End during the 1940s. They appeared in the Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and 2025 and another Donatello Laguardia short story is scheduled to appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near America’s first public beach.