Diamond Stars
A Novel of the 1934 All-Star Baseball Game
Diamond Stars is a love story about Solly and Abby, a boy and a girl with a deep, abiding love for the game of baseball, thrown together by fate, luck and baseball cards to witness one of the signature achievements in baseball history: New York Giants pitcher Carl Hubbell striking out five future Hall-of-Famers in succession at the 1934 All-Star Game.
As boy and girl connect in that awkward, timeless ritual of adolescent courtship, we're given a play-by-play account of this remarkable game that featured some of the greatest names in baseball history, along with Abby's favorite—the hard-throwing, hard-drinking Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher with the melodious name of Van Lingle Mungo.
Mungo turned out to be the losing pitcher in that 1934 contest. Now, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of that game—with Abby in the hospital and Solly hoping for a miracle—Mungo will have one last chance to redeem himself.
Diamond Stars is a story about passions, perseverance and the strange, mystical role heroes play in our lives. It is also a story of baseball and the enduring hold it has on the people who play it, watch it and love it.
Hubbell's strikeout heroics, where he fanned Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in a row, are what most people recall about that game. But there was so much more to it than that.
There was Earl Averill and Mel Harder. Al Schacht and the pop fly that never came down. There's Charlie Gehringer, Chuck Klein, Dizzy Dean, Lefty Gomez and Pepper Martin performing their own heroics. And through it all, there's Solly and Abby watching it unfold, inning by inning, pitch by pitch, as they embark on their long road together that reaches a crossroads on the occasion of a second All-Star game, fifty years later.
On the morning of the 1984 game, Solly is at a complete loss. He's been fired from his scouting job, leaving him adrift from the game he's loved all his life. Worse than that, Abby is in a coma from injuries suffered in a traffic accident with little hope for a full recovery.
Solly receives a surprise invitation to the game where he learns that Abby's old hero, Van Lingle Mungo, will be among the old timers taking part. He's convinced this must be a sign and he hatches a desperate plan: that against all logic, Mungo can save the day for her as he couldn't in 1934.
Diamond Stars moves between these two classic games, following Solly and Abby's story with their future clouded by doubt and their salvation in the improbable hands of a man who lost as many games as he won. Solly is convinced of this.
His job now is to convince Van Lingle Mungo.
As boy and girl connect in that awkward, timeless ritual of adolescent courtship, we're given a play-by-play account of this remarkable game that featured some of the greatest names in baseball history, along with Abby's favorite—the hard-throwing, hard-drinking Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher with the melodious name of Van Lingle Mungo.
Mungo turned out to be the losing pitcher in that 1934 contest. Now, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of that game—with Abby in the hospital and Solly hoping for a miracle—Mungo will have one last chance to redeem himself.
Diamond Stars is a story about passions, perseverance and the strange, mystical role heroes play in our lives. It is also a story of baseball and the enduring hold it has on the people who play it, watch it and love it.
Hubbell's strikeout heroics, where he fanned Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in a row, are what most people recall about that game. But there was so much more to it than that.
There was Earl Averill and Mel Harder. Al Schacht and the pop fly that never came down. There's Charlie Gehringer, Chuck Klein, Dizzy Dean, Lefty Gomez and Pepper Martin performing their own heroics. And through it all, there's Solly and Abby watching it unfold, inning by inning, pitch by pitch, as they embark on their long road together that reaches a crossroads on the occasion of a second All-Star game, fifty years later.
On the morning of the 1984 game, Solly is at a complete loss. He's been fired from his scouting job, leaving him adrift from the game he's loved all his life. Worse than that, Abby is in a coma from injuries suffered in a traffic accident with little hope for a full recovery.
Solly receives a surprise invitation to the game where he learns that Abby's old hero, Van Lingle Mungo, will be among the old timers taking part. He's convinced this must be a sign and he hatches a desperate plan: that against all logic, Mungo can save the day for her as he couldn't in 1934.
Diamond Stars moves between these two classic games, following Solly and Abby's story with their future clouded by doubt and their salvation in the improbable hands of a man who lost as many games as he won. Solly is convinced of this.
His job now is to convince Van Lingle Mungo.
