The West family is extremely rich. Founded in the 1940s, by a chiasmatic moonshine runner, the huge auto parts company is controlled by Cynthia West, the cold, unemotional matriarch of the West dynasty. Two sons, Michael and Jimmy are heirs to the family fortune, but Cynthia favors Michael, the obedient one who works for the company.
Jimmy manages a Minor League baseball team while dealing with a mountain of problems including alcohol abuse, his ex-wife, his drug-addicted psychotic son, his inability to commit to his girlfriend, his tyrannical mother, and trying to salvage his dreadful losing baseball team.
Jimmy and his girlfriend Michelle are determined to revive the heart and soul of the game by rejecting Moneyball’s dehumanizing analytical techniques that is rendering baseball, “as exciting as taking a math test.” However, one crisis after another threatens to destroy the couples’ chances to save the game, and more importantly, save themselves.
Combining Moneyball’s controversial influence on modern baseball with the austere emotional intensity of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, John Wells’ powerful novel tackles complex issues of money, power, greed, loyalty, jealousy, drug use, sibling rivalry, and in the end, love for the game and one another.
The West family is extremely rich. Founded in the 1940s, by a chiasmatic moonshine runner, the huge auto parts company is controlled by Cynthia West, the cold, unemotional matriarch of the West dynasty. Two sons, Michael and Jimmy are heirs to the family fortune, but Cynthia favors Michael, the obedient one who works for the company.
Jimmy manages a Minor League baseball team while dealing with a mountain of problems including alcohol abuse, his ex-wife, his drug-addicted psychotic son, his inability to commit to his girlfriend, his tyrannical mother, and trying to salvage his dreadful losing baseball team.
Jimmy and his girlfriend Michelle are determined to revive the heart and soul of the game by rejecting Moneyball’s dehumanizing analytical techniques that is rendering baseball, “as exciting as taking a math test.” However, one crisis after another threatens to destroy the couples’ chances to save the game, and more importantly, save themselves.
Combining Moneyball’s controversial influence on modern baseball with the austere emotional intensity of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, John Wells’ powerful novel tackles complex issues of money, power, greed, loyalty, jealousy, drug use, sibling rivalry, and in the end, love for the game and one another.
BASEBALL WEST OF EDEN
A Novel by John Wells
Copyrights @ 2023
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law
He stood at the window of the empty café and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else, they’d have no heart to start at all.
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
PROLOGUE
Autumn, 1948
Somewhere between Wilkesboro and Charlotte, North Carolina
Sonny Boy West barreled down the two-lane back road in a super-charged 1940 Ford with two revenue agents chasing him in a stock V8 Chevy. Suddenly, a large marsh rabbit darted across his headlights. Sonny Boy yanked the car to the left and downshifted to second gear, sending the Ford bouncing and clattering over roadside debris, skidding dangerously close to a darkened precipice. The front tire crunched loose mounds of dirt on the edge of the abyss as he jerked the steering wheel hard, the left rear slipping down with a sickening thud. He hit the gas pedal, twisting the wheel harder, trying to gain traction with the wheels still on the road. The car lifted away from the edge, and he slammed on the brake as the vehicle lunged forward, shuddering and buckling to an abrupt stop.
Wiping his sweaty brow with his sleeve, Sonny Boy loosened his grip on the steering wheel, sucking in a few deep breaths. He took a moment to check if his rattled bones had settled back into their proper alignment. It was nearly pitch dark; the forest illuminated only by the light of a half-moon shining through a cluster of tall pines. The car sat broadside in the middle of the road. Sonny Boy cut the engine and turned to his left, where the road trailed off into hollow darkness. He glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed the incident, although he knew he was in the middle of nowhere. A dull, enervating numbness seeped into his body—from where, he didn’t know. Folding his arms, he rested his head on the steering wheel. The immense silence was broken by the sound of small birds trilling in the woods. Sonny Boy had never felt so lonely in his life.
He shook off the jitters, started the car, and straightened it out. Looking in the rearview mirror, he spotted the revenuers’ headlights bearing down on him. He smashed down on the accelerator. The tires squealed, spitting out a cloud burst of gravel and dirt.
Speeding once more along the dusty backroad, Sonny Boy couldn’t remember hearing any of the moonshine jars breaking during the rabbit mishap, and he figured the cargo stored in the customized tank was probably undamaged.
As the miles flew by with no further sign of the federal agents, Sonny Boy relaxed. He reached into the pocket of his B-15 bomber jacket for his Lucky Strikes. Tapping the pack on the steering wheel, he extracted a cigarette with his teeth, then deftly lit it with a flip and snap of his Zippo. He took a deep drag before exhaling slowly, gazing into the mirror once again. “Christ,” he muttered to himself. “Why are you risking your life for a marsh rabbit?”
SUMMER 2014
1
Although bleary-eyed and blotto smashed, Jimmy West realized it was ridiculous for a grown man to be riding a bicycle in the middle of the night searching for his old Little League field. A carton of Budweiser beer cans rattled in the front basket as numerous cars whizzed by, honking their horns and yelling at him to get the hell off the road. Maybe Saint Francis, the patron saint of drunks, was looking after him, or maybe he was just lucky, but he arrived safely at the field without being struck by a passing vehicle.
Stumbling off the bike, Jimmy attempted to prop it against the backstop, but he lost control and it crashed to the ground. He bent down and grabbed the remains of the twelve-pack before staggering through the gate of a chain-link fence. Swaying in the darkness, he gave his head a vigorous shake to reassemble his scrambled senses. His legs felt rubberized beneath him as he staggered over to his old home team dugout, where he plopped down on the bench, spilling half the beers on the ground. With a heavy sigh, he gazed vacantly at the deserted infield.
It was a beautiful, balmy summer night, calm and quiet, except for crickets chirping in the weeds and a pleasant breeze whispering through the leaves of the nearby dogwood trees. A full, gleaming moon illuminated the brilliant cloudless sky, splashed with a galaxy of glittering stars.
Jimmy fixed his gaze on the mound, as if he expected someone to emerge from the bushes and start pitching. He grabbed a loose beer from the carton, popped the tab, and took a huge gulp. “Fuck shit,” he muttered to himself, and then, “Shit fuck.”
Standing, he stumbled over to the batter’s box, polished off the beer, and tossed it on the ground. Stepping into the box, he simulated holding a bat, poised to receive the pitch. “Okay, you bastard,” he muttered, “let me see your best stuff.” He took a mighty imaginary swing, pirouetting like a drunken ballerina before losing his balance and collapsing on the ground.
Jimmy gazed at the sky above him, overwhelmed by the multitude of dazzling stars, feeling isolated and alone, just another solitary soul adrift in the vast enormity of it all. Then he rolled over, passing out in the dirt, haunted by recurrent images in a vivid, tormenting dreamscape.
A wispy shroud of fog lifted from Jimmy’s vision, revealing Yankee pitcher Andy Pettitte standing on the mound, poised to deliver the pitch. A young Jimmy West stood in the batter’s box, gazing at the historic brick warehouse beyond the right-field stands of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He twisted his back foot for traction, raising his bat high in the air as Pettitte hurled a blazing fastball toward the inside of the plate.
He took a mighty swing, crushing a high-arching liner over the second baseman’s head, the ball rising swiftly toward the right-field stands. The outfielder streaked toward the ball, but before he caught up with it, it ricocheted wildly off the wall. Jimmy rounded second base, heading for third as the third-base coach waved him home. The second baseman grabbed the cut-off and drilled a strike.
As Jimmy slid head-first into home, the catcher lunged after him. Dust and dirt exploded into the air while the fans held their breath. Time froze. Jimmy lay on the ground, the thick fog returning, enveloping him like a sodden blanket. Then it drifted away, revealing the umpire hovering over Jimmy screaming, “You’re out!”
The umpire still had his mask on, and he was staring at Jimmy through two hollow black holes. Then he removed the mask, revealing a terrifying, ghostlike figure with stringy silver hair. The fog rolled in once more, the fans falling silent, the field receding from Jimmy’s vision, growing darker. Shadows swallowed up the last remnants of light.
“Hey, mister, are you, all right?”
Jimmy opened one eye, blinded by a dagger of harsh sunlight as he strained to see. Three young boys stood in front of him, clutching gloves and baseball bats. He rolled over, struggling to sit up, and then took an awkward fall back to the ground, shaking his head as if warding off a pesky fly.
He glanced at home plate. “I guess I was out, huh?”
“Do you need any help?” asked one of the boys, wearing a Boston Red Sox cap.
“No, I’m fine,” Jimmy said.
He was still lying in the dirt, his head erupting volcanically, his watery eyes glazing over. A sudden revulsion of the senses assaulted him as he clutched his stomach, trying to prevent acidic bile from hurling out his mouth.
Drawing in a deep breath, Jimmy exhaled through sluggish lungs. This hangover was serious, and it was beginning to bite. An unholy glimpse of an unwanted memory flared into his deadened consciousness. He tried forcing the image back to where it came from, but it smothered his mind’s eye, exposing yet another bitter misfortune bleeding into his waking life.
Sitting up painfully, like a woozy, knocked-out boxer, he propped his hands on his knees. The boys stared at him as if he were a homeless tramp. “We have practice this morning,” one of them said, holding a bat across his shoulders.
“Don’t worry. I was just leaving.”
“Is that your bike?” asked the youngster in the Red Sox cap.
Jimmy nodded.
“We thought you were a bum, or maybe dead,” said the third, who was wearing a Detroit Tigers T-shirt.
“Well, at least I’m not dead,” said Jimmy, rubbing his throbbing temples with both fingers.
The boy holding the bat glanced at the cap Jimmy was wearing. “Hey, you’re the manager of the Red Hawks. Geez, no wonder your team stinks.” The boys shared expressions of mutual disappointment with the man lying on the ground, and then they turned to leave.
“Wait a minute!” Jimmy cried, beckoning to the boy in the Red Sox hat. “Let me see your glove.” The kid handed him a new Mizuno-model glove. Jimmy looked it over, declaring, “This glove is blue.”
“So what?” said the kid.
Jimmy put the glove on his left hand, flexing the fingers. “And it doesn’t have a player’s name on it.”
“So what?” he repeated. “It cost eighty bucks.”
“Who’s your favorite player?”
“Manny Ramirez.”
Jimmy tossed the glove back. “You should have his name on your glove.”
“Why?” the kid asked.
“Forget it. I guess that’s an aluminum bat too.”
The boys ignored him and headed toward the dugout. Jimmy was going to say something else, but then he coughed, swallowed, and vomited a sickly rasp of sour bile, which tasted exactly like the shitty residue of his life.
2
Jimmy rode his bike back home to his modest red-brick house on a chestnut tree-lined street four blocks from Red Hawks Stadium. He lived in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood. Other than a regular wave to the guy next door as he mowed his lawn, Jimmy had little contact with his neighbors.
His house had a small, well-kept lawn, plus a one-car garage storing a midnight-blue 1969 Mustang Cobra. Jimmy had bought the place after divorcing his ex-wife Amber, whom he’d gotten pregnant in high school. Amber had been awarded their upscale home in the affluent part of town, as well as custody of their son Chris, who was now seventeen years old and practically a total stranger. Jimmy had left it up to Amber to raise him, admitting to her that he was an irresponsible, unstable alcoholic. He never failed to send her his child support payments, but the father and son never developed much of a relationship, either. Jimmy had been able to keep a few basic possessions from the divorce—the Mustang, the bike, and some tools from the garage. He didn’t complain about the settlement; he never said it wasn’t his fault.
Jimmy, his assistant coach Larry Bernstein, and his girlfriend, General Manager Michelle Richards, ran baseball operations out of two rooms adjacent to the Grand Slam Bar, a mile from the stadium. It was operated by his childhood housekeeper and nanny, Harriet Johnson, who’d been given a percentage of the bar from the West family fortune. Jimmy liked his living and work arrangement. He was a creature of convenience, telling everyone he got nervous if he was more than two miles from a 7-Eleven. In practical terms, his world existed within that radius.
He took a quick shower, changed clothes, left a message for Michelle, and drove his Mustang over to Larry’s apartment.
The man opened the door, still wearing a Red Hawks jersey, holding a cigarette in one hand and a Miller Lite in the other. “Well, look what the cat drug in. Come on inside.”
Jimmy entered the apartment, taking a seat on the living room couch, which was littered with scouting manuals, scorebooks, baseball books, and magazines, as well as a radar gun and a stopwatch.
“You look like shit,” Larry said, grinning. “Where the hell did you go last night? The guys were asking about you.”
“I didn’t feel like being around anybody.”
“Not even Michelle?”
“She was at the hospital. Her father’s still sick.”
Larry flopped down in a brown La-Z-Boy, crushed the cigarette out, and took a swig of beer. “Fuckin’ last place, again.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“You want a beer?”
“Just water.”
“Christ, you must have put one on.” Larry got up, went into the kitchen, and retrieved a glass of water. “Here you go, slugger. So, where did you go?”
“I went for a bike ride,” Jimmy said, chugging down the entire glass of water. “The Little League park.”
“Don’t tell me.” Larry sat back in the chair. “Reliving old glory days?”
“Just feeling sorry for myself.”
“Hell, I don’t blame you,” said his friend. “Eighty-four losses—a new low.”
Jimmy dropped his head between his palms. “Let’s forget about it. Monday morning, we’ll start fresh, shake things up, get a new strategy.”
“Like what? Steal players from the Yankees?”
He lifted his head, his voice barely audible. “We can’t keep playing the same old losing game. Anyway, I can’t deal with anything right now. Can you give me a lift to my parents’ house? My head is exploding, and it’s Allison’s birthday. I’m late.”
“Sure, Coach.”
***
“Blood on the Scarecrow” blared from the radio in Larry’s cherry-red 1970 GTO as he drove Jimmy to his niece’s birthday party. Jimmy stuck his hand out the car window the whole way, a hot breeze flowing through his fingers as he gazed at the countryside, dotted with colonial-style houses, red barns, split-rail fences, fertile farmland, and patches of red maple, loblolly pine, and fruit trees. Horses, sheep, and cows grazed lazily in the sweltering heat.
Jimmy was telling Larry about his encounter with the three youngsters. “. . . and the kid had a no-name Japanese glove.”
“And it was blue?” Larry asked.
He nodded. “As bright as Dodger blue. I guess the word cowhide doesn’t mean anything to them.”
“I don’t think they’re attached to their gloves like we were,” Larry said.
“I’m sure of it. They probably don’t wrap a ball inside of it over the winter, either.”
“Right!” exclaimed Larry, smacking the steering wheel. “After they smother it with neat’s-foot oil!”
Jimmy shrugged. “It’s a different world.”
Without warning, the assistant coach hit the gas and jerked the GTO into the passing lane, blowing past a slow-moving Toyota before easing back into the right lane. He looked over at Jimmy. “And the other kid had an aluminum bat?”
Jimmy nodded glumly.
“Christ,” said Larry, reaching for a pack of Marlboros on the console. “They don’t even know what a line drive sounds like.”
Approaching a large, fenced-in area, Jimmy spotted a young woman with long brown hair dressed in classic English riding gear working out a glistening, coffee-colored thoroughbred. She gently tapped the horse with a riding crop as the stallion jumped fluidly over a series of wooden beams. “You’re right about the line drives,” said Jimmy. “They’re more interested in their launch angle than getting on base.”
“That’s why they can’t hit over .220,” Larry said, lighting a cigarette while glancing at the package under Jimmy’s feet. “Is that her gift?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“The Willie Mays biography—and a baseball card.”
“Which one?”
“Willie Mays, of course. His rookie year.”
“Wow, lucky girl,” said Larry. “She’ll love it.”
“I hope so.”
“Of course, she will,” Larry insisted. “She’s a big fan, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing back at the regal young lady as she leaned forward to pat the horse’s neck. High above her, a broad-winged sky hawk sailed majestically in the bright blue sky before circling and touching down on top of a sweetgum tree.
“Did you tell them you’d be late?” asked Larry.
“No.”
“You need to get a cell phone.”
“I don’t know . . .” Jimmy muttered.
“Then you could call them, let them know. Besides, every manager of a minor league team uses one. It’s like another arm.”
“I have one at home and at the office. It works for me, doesn’t it?”
Larry shrugged. “Sure, if you call finishing in last place working.”
Jimmy West is on a mission to save America’s national pastime from the dehumanizing threat of sabermetrics. In one of his many tirades throughout J.D. Wells’s novel, “Baseball West of Eden,” Jimmy fulminates:
“Analytics is killing baseball—at least baseball that is exciting, fun to watch, and doesn’t last four hours. Major league hitters are making millions batting .220 if they hit thirty home runs. A lot of strikeouts. That’s boring. No stolen bases, hit and run—and when there’s a ton of strikeouts, that leaves fewer defensive plays, and less exciting plays… Anyway, it’s f*cked up.”
He’s entitled to his opinion, but as an alcoholic manager of the bottom-dwelling minor league Riverdale Red Hawks, his credentials for the job of baseball messiah seem dubious. Still, when the Red Hawks lose their major league affiliation, Jimmy seizes the opportunity to establish a new league with more razzle dazzle.
The Monarch League eschews analytics and enacts rules to encourage a more dynamic game. While many of Jimmy’s reforms are desirable, his methods are sometimes questionable. For example, to speed up play and promote contact hitting, batters will be fined for failing to swing at a first pitch fastball—just five bucks, but the point is to foster a new mindset. Compared to the bloated major major league game, this new product, Jimmy promises his partners, will be like “the difference between good sex and a quickie at the office.” Uh, okay.
Meanwhile, Jimmy must navigate multiple demons and complex personal problems. His brilliant girlfriend, who is also the team’s general manager, worries their relationship is a dead-end unless he controls his drinking. His domineering mother, who runs the family auto parts business, coldheartedly dismisses him as a failure. His ex-wife is a coke-addled stripper and his meth addict son considers the serial killer in “American Psycho” to be a role model. As Jimmy launches his new baseball league, familial tensions erupt around a tragedy, and he must search his soul to figure out how to respond.
The author depicts Jimmy as a man with conviction, but also contradictions. Wells pulls no punches in conveying his flaws, which at best makes him relatable, but at worst, unlikeable. Readers sharing Jimmy’s passion for baseball will tend toward the former, while dilettante fans might view his zeal as self-righteous. In effect, Jimmy is preaching to readers in the choir of baseball purists. May they find this book.