This is just embarrassing author wish fulfillment - gets sent back in time, becomes a player on the best baseball team in the country, gets the girl, etc. ( )

Group read in Time Travel

2/3 through. Sam is implausibly talented, lucky, brave, clever... ugh. Marty Stu.
All the research Brock did isn't making me like the story or the characters.
The plot is non-existent.. there's some sort of mystery, but it feels like it's building to something I'm going to find to be totally anti-climactic....
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Done. Glad I can check with the group - the ending was so abrupt I'm not even sure I understand it. Def. lame. If you have a keen interest in 1869 baseball, or a very keen interest in general history of 1869 and trust Brock (who taught history), you might want to read this. I'm just glad I'm finally done with it... it took me a relatively long time because I could never immerse myself in it; I never felt engaged. ( )

I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. It is a great time-travel book as well as an intriquing and engaging way to write historical fiction as adventure. ( )

One of the best, most engrossing baseball novels I've ever read (twice, so far). ( )

I really enjoy baseball and it is one of the few sports that I casually follow and might enjoy watching a game or two of. I also love historical fiction and time travel. Put them all together and what have you got? A book I'll love!

Sam is a newspaper reporter down on his luck. His marriage is over, his kids barely see him, and he drinks too much. On an Amtrak ride, he hits his head and comes to in 1869. He makes friends with the Cincinnati Red Stockings and follows them around during their unbeatable 1869 season. The beginning started out hard since there were a lot of names to learn and arcane baseball rules that didn't make sense, but after about 30 pages in, I got into the swing of things and really started to enjoy it.

The book has a fair amount of intrigue - spies, mysteries, and conspiracies, and there is a romance, so if baseball isn't your thing, there is enough of the other aspects to hold your attention a bit. By the middle of the book, the pace had picked up enough that it was hard for me to put the book down. ( )