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.

 

Review: The Fireballer by Mark Stevens

 

Many years ago, when Tiger Woods started, it was clear nobody could do what he could do. Nobody had the power, before him, to drive the tee shot so far down the length of the fairway. He made it look easy and the lords of golf were not pleased. Before long, as it seemed like every tournament would be naming Tiger Woods as a champion, the courses were changed and others were marketed as “Tiger Proof.” What Tiger was first to do is now routine for many professional golfers. His days of being a phenom were numbered because human ability and the sport evolved. 

 

Frank Ryder is in the same spot in the here and now as Tiger Woods was many years ago. The sport is different is this time it is baseball. Frank Ryder can consistently pitch at 110 mph and maybe even higher. What he can do with a baseball is amazing and it is just not the speed. Though the speed makes everything else work incredibly well. Because of him, the Baltimore Orioles are upsetting the competitive balance in the American League East where the Yankees and Red Sox expect to dominate the standings and the market. 

 

What Frank Ryder can do is seen by some as a threat to baseball itself. The owners are soon discussing putting a cap on how fast a ball can be thrown because Ryder is virtually unhittable. Instead of celebrating human achievement and the fact that what Ryder can do now will be common in another few years, they want to micromanage Ryder because fans surveyed seem to want to see homers and not shutouts. 

 

It should be a magical year for Ryder as he takes his team to the playoffs for the first time in a very long time. But, it isn’t. Ryder has a dark secret. Some of which folks know about as long ago he honored one of the many unwritten rules of baseball. But, what the public knows about what happened is just the tip of the iceberg. Much more is going on in Ryder’s head. Dealing with the past and the pressure of now is difficult when the media is focused on every move you make and every breath you take. 

 

The Fireballer: A Novel by Mark Stevens is a complicated read and one that goes far beyond the game of baseball. Legacy, hope, redemption, and more play out against the backdrop of baseball, being a teammate, and how you deal with the unwritten rules. The same unwritten rules that mandate how you function as a teammate because that is the way it has always has been. 

 

Much like this review that only skims the surface of the book, The Fireballer: A Novel by Mark Stevens is a complicated book on multiple levels. At its heart, it is about a supremely talented pitcher in major league baseball. But, far more is at work in this complicated read. The Fireballer: A Novel by Mark Stevens is and incredibly complicated and powerful novel. It is also well worth your time, regardless of how you feel about baseball.

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

My reading copy came by way of an ARC through NetGalley.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023

Review: "Double Switch" by T. T. Monday (aka Nick Taylor)

Double Switch by T. T. Monday is the second book in the series featuring San Jose Bull Dogs Relief Pitcher, Johnny Adcock. He is well aware that he is far closer to the end of his career than the start as he moonlights as a non-paid private investigator to his fellow players. He’s helped more than one player out of a jam and keeps details to himself. That fact and a few other things means he has a bit of a reputation around Major League Baseball (MLB) among the players and the ownership.

Tiff Tate also has a reputation around MLB. She is what is known as a “stylist.” When having a certain look can make a player rich by celebrity endorsements, she designs a persona to fit the player on the field and off. She gets paid well. Very well in fact as she is reputed to earn mid six figures for each makeover she can well afford her private jet and other luxuries. She also can suddenly resurrect a struggling player’s career with a few tweaks. More than any other sport, superstition rules baseball and when her player makeover magic works it adds to her allure and mystique.

But, the stylist to the players has a problem she can’t solve on her own. It’s June and the Colorado Rockies rookie outfielder, Yonel Ruiz, is tearing-up the league. He can do it all from being on a record pace homer wise and driving in runs to throwing out base runners on the paths. He is also a media sensation because of his perilous journey out of Cuba.

What the public does not know is that Ruiz is being blackmailed by the Venezuelans who smuggled him out of Cuba. Tate has been told by Ruiz that his family is being held hostage in Havana. They want him to set up a deal where his salary of 50 million dollars paid over six years goes into an account the kidnappers’ control. He will be given an allowance so he can keep up appearances. Should he fail to agree to do this in the next two weeks. They will start killing his family including his daughter, wife, parents, siblings, etc.

Ruiz’s only contact is with staff of the Colorado Rockies and Tiff Tate, his stylist. The kidnappers won’t allow him to meet with others and most likely have operators in the area watching him. So, with the Bay Dogs soon headed to Denver to play the Rockies, Tate wants Adcock to try and find out who these Venezuelans are. Once he identifies them then Tate will try to work directly with them to resolve the problem. If MLB gets involved they will do what is best for the sport and not the player. She will resort to involving MLB if she has to, but intended to give Adcock a week to work the case.

While Adcock is well aware that he can’t do much, he agrees to do what he can. Ruiz isn’t the only one being threatened as Adcock quickly finds out.  It is a far reaching mess that could have a huge impact on baseball in the future. It does not help that those at the upper reaches of MLB very much want Adcock to get out of the private investigator business and that is way before the bodies start dropping.

Double Switch builds on the events of The Setup Man in a strong way. Adcock is a year closer to the end of pitching in the majors and he very well knows it. A future beyond baseball is on his mind, but he isn’t about for one second to give up on what he loves which is playing baseball.

In addition to the complicated mystery, T. T. Monday brings readers well familiar with baseball or not at all right along for a ride through the clubhouses and the underworld of how Latin American players make it into the show. He has a rare gift of making baseball accessible to the novice as well as the experienced fan as part of the overall mystery.  As he did with the first book, T. T. Monday shines a light into the less glamorous aspects of a sport he clearly loves.

Double Switch could be read as a stand-alone, but it really should be read after one reads The Setup Man. The sacrifices of family continue to play a role in Adcock’s life as do other elements carried over from the first book. Double Switch is a good read and an excellent sequel.

Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano Public Library System.

Kaye George first reviewed The Setup Man as part of her ongoing “Monday With Kaye” segments back on in March 2015. Because of her review I hunted down the book at my local library and reviewed it a month later. It is because of Kaye George’s review that I made the time to read this series so you know now who to blame. 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2016