The Lord of the Infield Flies by Steven Reilly

The Lord of the Infield Flies will thrill readers with Coach Steve Reilly’s harrowing, challenging, and adventuresome baseball team’s trek from Connecticut to play in Maine. As a prequel to his award winning memoir, The Fat Lady Never Sings, Reilly, a high school baseball coach, narrates the true story from the beginning of his coaching career at the age of 20. In summer 1977, Reilly plans to take his high-school-age team on a weekend trip to the baseball mecca on Cape Cod to play a Massachusetts all-star team. When plans go awry, he jumps at an offer to take the players instead to the serene surroundings of southern Maine to play that state’s all-star team. Most of the team’s starters decline; their hearts had been set on “The Cape.” Determined to go through with his commitment, Reilly gathers ten players to make the four-hour trip in a cabin truck and his car on a Friday night. Will the team arrive in time to battle Maine’s best the following morning?

After his legal alcohol-age players convince him to stop at a package store on the way to buy just a “few beers” for the idyllic cabin they will be staying at in the resort area of Old Orchard Beach, they exit the package store with hand trucks filled with cases of beer. Chaos reigns. The cabin truck with its inebriated players gets separated from Reilly’s vehicle, losing half the team traveling in the opposite direction in Massachusetts! Will the team ever get to Maine? Will the team play Maine’s all-stars? And, will the players make it back to Connecticut?

Meet the Author:

Since 1976, Steve Reilly, a practicing attorney, has coached high school baseball in Connecticut’s Lower Naugatuck Valley. He has spent the last thirty years assisting other high school coaches and is currently in his seventeenth season at Seymour High. Reilly and his wife, Suzanne, live in Seymour, Connecticut. 

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My Take:

This book is all about baseball! Teams, coaches, seasons, and baseball jargon. I got this book thinking my grandson would enjoy it, because he pretty much eats, breathes, sleeps - baseball.

If you have baseball knowledge this book should keep your attention. Personally, not well versed in baseball terminology, I struggled a little, but the story line was interesting enough and is based on the author's personal experience. While coaching a summer baseball team, he decides to play his team against any other teams he can find willing to put them to a challenge. His team of teen boys are headed to play a game in Maine one summer weekend. The trip gets off to a lousy start when some of the players get intoxicated. Apparently, the drinking age is 18. They are driving in two separate vehicles and following each other, but the intoxicated kids end up not following the coach as well as they should have. Back in the day when there are no cell phones to connect with each other, this could turn into a big dilemma. The coach's main goal is to get to Maine and back all in one piece, with all his players. Looks like it is going to be a challenge.

My biggest problem with the book was the language. It has quite a bit of profanity, and sadly I do not feel comfortable sharing it with my grandson. 

I received this book from the author and Pump Up Your Book Group to read. I was not required to review positively. All opinions are my own.