Author: Steven M. Reilly

ISBN: 0595394671

Baseball has become part of the American psyche for over one and half centuries. What is even more incredible is that not only has it a hold on the American consciousness but it also has reached other parts of the world as Central America, South America, the Caribbean and East Asia!

By far baseball's attractiveness can be attributed to its accessibility and affordability, thus making it an ideal pastime for kids living in countless American rural and city communities. It is a sport that has been romanticized and has even served as a metaphor for life that has resonated in the USA for years. However, playing the game is not an easy feat. It requires skill, effort and strategy and if you are not focused, you can easily get whacked, humiliated or hastily put out.

Baseball has also enabled many communities to develop a unique identity, since many of these small towns have little going for them in the way of entertainment other than cheering for their high school teams. Such is the case of Derby, a town of about twelve thousand and the smallest town in Connecticut where the Derby High School Baseball team is known as the Red Raiders. And it is here where author Steven M. Reilly was an assistant coach of their 1992 baseball championship team.

Reilly's tome, The Fat Lady Never Sings: How a Football Team Found Redemption on the Baseball Diamond details how he and the team's head coach, John DeFrancisco, or coach D, as he was known, with their unselfish dedication led their team to their glorious final victory and the state championship.

It is a yarn that begins when the Derby football team lost its last game of the season to its rival Shelton High School in the fall of 1991, thus ending their twenty-eight year winning streak.

Three of the team's players, Gino DiMauro, Ben Bartone and Donny Shepherd were devastated because they knew they would be branded losers. However, as the story unfolds, we learn that all is not lost and these three senior high school students would be given a chance to redeem themselves with their high school baseball team, the Red Raiders.

Reilly's colorful sketches of the idiosyncrasies of some of the coaches and their tricky strategies, the less than perfect ballparks they played in,  the play-by-play analysis of the games, the wheeling of the kids from town to town, and the team's wins and losses, all bring the games to life. What’s more, he does a masterful job in describing how they coached these teenagers in believing in themselves and to never give up. They instilled in them valuable lessons that with practice, work and concentration they would become better at the game or whatever they undertake in life. To boot, without actually saying it, the coaches demonstrated that they really cared about these kids.

This is a heartfelt, entertaining and moving narrative that lovers of baseball will easily relate to; nevertheless, it should be pointed out that owing to its many references to baseball terms and expressions including playing strategies, readers need to come armed with a minimal amount of baseball knowledge to appreciate fully the book.

The above review was contributed by:  NORM GOLDMAN:  Retired Title Attorney: Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are more of  Norm Goldman's Reviews 

To read Norm's Interview With Steven Reilly CLICK HERE