William Elliott azelgrove's Blog, page 34

September 12, 2013

Sports Rack Review of The Pitcher

So, have you ever had a dream? That’s a question that every person is asked time and time again. Do you have a dream. If you’re Ricky Hernandez, your dream is the same dream as everyone else. He wants to be the American Dream. A kid from nothing that turns into something.

“The Pitcher” is a book about dreams. The dreams of kids. The dreams of parents. The dreams of immigrants. The dreams of a man who’s lived the dream. And it’s all brought together in the mind of William Hazelgrove. After the cut, find out how.


As you can see from the picture, the Junior Library Guild has selected this book as a must read. And it really is. And so, let’s put myself into Ricky’s shoes, shall we? I am a 3rd generation Mexican American, as is Ricky. My family isn’t from this country, and my grandmother came to this country to find a better way of life, as did Ricky’s. And as a Mexican American, imagine the scrutiny faced by a culture that is xenophobic.

Ricky’s constantly in the bottom of the 9th with nobody out in this expertly crafted story. His mother is dying. His father is worthless. He wants to be a pitcher, just to fulfil his mother’s wishes. But his mother cannot afford the lessons needed. Hence, comes in the surprise character, nicknamed “The Pitcher.” A down and out former MLB pitcher who was a World Series MVP. A man trying to forget squandering his dream.

In this story, Ricky and The Pitcher come parallel. Two people who aren’t interested in school or life. All they want is the game. All while dealing with Mrs. Payne, the representation of that Tea Party mom and Sports Mom who drives us nuts. Coach Devin, her seemingly spineless husband. And their “perfect” son named Eric, who represents that “perfect” kid willing to step on everyone on his way to the top.

From the opening pitch in Ricky’s life to his final triumphs, William takes you on a journey that you’ve been on before. The journey of love, doubt, and self-searching. All through the eyes of a Mexican boy who thinks the world is against him.

So, get ready to root for the underdog in a social and sometimes political commentary of the kid’s journey. Kids will pick up the theme of beating the odds. Adults should pick up the underlying themes of our xenophobic nature. Everyone should be rooting for Ricky.

William Hazelgrove weaved this book together with mastery, and you should pre-order this now from Amazon. It’s available for $11.56 USD, so definitely put in your order and get ready for one heck of a baseball story. Like my last pre-release, this one is a love book, folks. And that doesn’t happen often.

Cheers, Mr. Hazelgrove. I’m rooting for this book to make it, too.
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Published on September 12, 2013 11:15

September 11, 2013

Authors Paying For Reviews

Someone asked me the other day if I paid for my review in Kirkus. I did not. But the review was very good and the assumption was that I did pay for it. Which brings up the whole thing of paying for reviews. Lets face it the dam has been opened and we are now awash in authors willing to pay for just about anything to get their books noticed. You cannot blame them but these type of reviews along with the people who pop up with hundreds of Amazon reviews do not really help the cause. The truth is books are still sold by word of mouth or word of internet.

Lets start here with this. People envy money but they admire talent. Money can get you a lot of things and people want those things. We do envy the guy with the Porche or the guy with the nice house or nice boat or nice anything. We want those things too. But we don't admire the person. In fact we might detest the rich person. Look at the way the one percent is treated. We certainly don't admire the rich people but we sure envy them. So it is in the literary world.

We envy bestsellers. Who would not. But we admire a talented writer. We admire them when we read their books and we know that only a few people can do this. It is the way we feel when we read Fitzgerald or Faulkner or David Foster Wallace. There is something there has nothing to do with money. Since Fitzgerald died broke it must be something beyond the monetary. It is talent. And all the paid for reviews and ads and shoutouts and blitzing will not give us that admiration.

There are some things believe it or not that money cannot buy.
The Pitcher by William Elliott Hazelgrove
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Published on September 11, 2013 10:13 Tags: authors, books, publishing, reviews, the-pitcher, writing, you

September 10, 2013

When did Kid Sports Stop Being Fun?

I coach my daughter and we don't keep score. Everyone wins. And the kids ask: are we winning? And we tell them oh don't worry about it lets just have fun. Now she is second grade and of course the whole lets just have fun thing is on a time limit. Some of the kids do keep score and there are whispers of we won or we lost. And some of the girls care and some don't.

But I know it is coming. I can already see the parents and the coaches and the players screaming across the way. The older girls are playing and you would think it is for life or death. But it is just to win and the parents are glaring at the other team and the other team is yelling and that whole thing of lets just have some fun is gone. I went though this with my son and went through the years of parent fights and kids fights and coaches nearly coming to blows.

But for now we are just not keeping score. If only life were that way. Sigh. The Pitcher by William Elliott Hazelgrove
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Published on September 10, 2013 12:26 Tags: baseball, baseballnovels, kid-sports, pitching, softball, the-pitcher, youthsports

September 8, 2013

Gearing up for The Pitcher --Kane County Chronicle Article

Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald had the profound duty of being writers – arguably some of America's finest. Fast forward to the 21st Century, and their transcendent tales have stood the test of time, inspiring the storytellers of today to abandon all else for the sake of the written word.

One such writer is William Hazelgrove, a bestselling author and St. Charles resident, who decided to follow in the footsteps of his favorite literary icons (Hemingway and Fitzgerald) when he ditched his corporate job in the city for the often unstable, unreliable and cutthroat profession of a full-time writer.

"You don't choose to be a writer, it's just who you are and the question is can you accept that?" Hazelgrove said, adding that he's held down every imaginable job from being a janitor to working in a bakery in order to feed his need to write. "Talent has to be developed, and you have a responsibility to your talent."

After nearly two decades of honing his talent, Hazelgrove has managed to publish five novels – "Rocket Man," "Ripple," "Tobacco Sticks," "Mica Highways" and, most recently, "The Pitcher." His work has been optioned for movies and earned him starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Book-of-the-Month selections and the American Library Association's Editors' Choice Awards.

He also spent nine years as the writer in residence at Hemingway's Oak Park home, where he "penned" the story for "Mica Highways" while cooped up in the "dusty, dirty" attic of one of his literary idols. From the attic, he also created the blog "The View from Hemingway's Attic," which he still writes for on a near-daily basis.

Hazelgrove's latest novel, "The Pitcher," was released Sept. 1 donning a golden, embossed seal labeled by the Junior Library Guild as a select young-adult novel for the fall.

"The gold stamp on [the book's cover] tells librarians and teachers that this is a book for [them]," Hazelgrove said. "It takes the guesswork out of it."

"The Pitcher" tells the story of a poor Mexican-American boy who encounters a broken down World Series pitcher grappling with the death of his wife. In the midst of the impending deportation of the boy's mother, the unlikely pair team up to help bring the boy's baseball dream to fruition.










http://www.kcchronicle.com/2013/08/30... The Pitcher by William Elliott Hazelgrove
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Published on September 08, 2013 13:02 Tags: baseballnovels, baseballstories, pitcher, pitching, sportnovels, sportstories

September 7, 2013

Money in High School Sports

You go along like I did as an assistant coach starting in T Ball. And then you move along through the In House Leagues. The playing gets more intense and more fun. The kids are starting to know what they are doing and talent springs eternal and you start to think your kid really has something. There are the standouts. The kids who in sixth grade are pounding the ball into the outfield. And then there are the kids who can pitch and have a fastball that freezes kids at the plate. All of this is with Dad Coaches and the parents are way into the games now and people scream because they are glimmering something bigger. High School ball.

And then it happens. Everyone troops off in the ninth grade and the numbers move in along with a reality that just seems so unfair. The majority of kids who have been playing baseball for nine years will not play anymore. They will either not make the team or they will make the team and sit on the bench. The chosen few continue on in high school but for most kids it is the end of playing sports. How did it come to this?

Too many people. The large high schools of the Chicago land area are a good example. The level of competition is such that only the very best of the best get to play. The influence of personal coaching and high priced sports clinics and programs. The parents who shell out the heavy duty cash just have a better chance of seeing their kids play in high school. Maybe it starts with the mentality of travel ball where kids wear uniforms like major leagues and parents again shell out thousands for the best teams.

So the reality of high school sports is that for most kids is marks the end of playing not the beginning. Gone are the days when everyone could get a chance to play. That belongs to a time when there just weren't as many people.

The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have
The Pitcher by William Elliott Hazelgrove The Pitcher
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Published on September 07, 2013 17:47 Tags: pitching-highschool-sports, sports, youthsports

September 5, 2013

Interview with Seattle Post Intelligencer on The Pitcher

William Hazelgrove's earlier-released novel, Rocket Man, was a seriocomic look at the angst of suburban life. His new novel, The Pitcher, has just been released.

Your earlier novel Rocket Man was a harshly cynical look at life in suburbia. What made you decide to write about that?

When I moved to the suburbs from the city, I looked around and saw no one was really making it. In fact, people were not even keeping up, and houses were falling into foreclosure. This led me to question the whole concept of the American Dream and how only a few can attain it. So I took this character Dale Hammer and made him an everyman for each person who goes for it with the house and the kids and the dogs. And of course, he cannot keep up, but he does find a resolution at the end.

Rocket Man reminded me of the works of Richard Ford, author of The Sportswriter and Independence Day. Ford has resisted efforts to compare him with other great writers by stating, "You can't write. on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself." Do you agree?



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Yes. You have to write with your own vision, but I must say I was influenced by Ford and Russo. Both men take a hard look at the American landscape and see its dips and crevices and all the pitfalls built into our middleclass culture. When you sit down to write though it is only you and your voice.

Rocket Man started out as quite humorous but then turned more serious as it went along. Was this intended, or did the story simply play itself out in this fashion?

It began as a lark and the voice was just rolling but then the book took on bigger themes. I didn't really intend that to happen but I just follow where the story takes me and that is what happens to Dale. Ultimately he has to decide if his life is authentic and if it is not, what he is he willing to do about it.

The PitcherWould you provide us with a brief synopsis of The Pitcher?

A boy with a golden arm but no money for lessons. A mother who wants to give her son his dream before she dies. A broken down World Series pitcher who cannot go on after the death of his wife. These are the elements of The Pitcher. A story of a man at the end of his dream and a boy whose dream is to make his high school baseball team. In the tradition of The Natural and Field of Dreams, this is a mythic story about how a man and a boy meet in the crossroads of their lives and find a way to go on.

You are not Hispanic, so how is it that you decided to make the protagonist of The Pitcher a Mexican-American teenager?

I am not Hispanic, but I have gone through hard times and I know what it is to hang by your fingertips where everything can fall apart at a moment's notice and the odds are stacked against you. That is really the character of Ricky. Also, I have written novels about African Americans in the South, and it is the same thing. Once you have the voice you have the story.

Have you had experience with playing sports in general or baseball in particular?

I participated in football, wrestling and track in high school. The baseball knowledge came from coaching my son who was a pitcher.

Do you concur with the notion that one's essential nature is demonstrated while playing sports?

Yes. I think you are tested on the field in ways that squeeze out every emotion you have. And certainly the person you are comes through.

Ricky and his mother are discriminated against in their community because of their ethnicity and poverty. Did you draw on personal experiences in writing about this?

I used the racism I see and read about in everyday life. It is not hard to imagine being a minority in this country because every day we see what happens to people who are discriminated against.

In the novel, the protagonist Ricky states that, ".we are equipped to handle all the bad (stuff), you know. But good things are a little trickier." This reminded me of Truman Capote's view that more lives may have been ruined by answered dreams than unanswered ones. Could this be true?

Yes. I think when you are struggling you go one day at a time. When suddenly you can breathe, you look around and evaluate where you are. In a way the struggle keeps you protected.

In The Pitcher, a former pro baseball hero decides to help Ricky, whose dream is a relatively humble one. You novel seems to affirm that a personal dream or goal is essential. But is there a danger when people, young or otherwise, attach themselves to goals that will not come to fruition?

The tragedy is if you don't dream big. Failure is inevitable for everyone, but for you that doesn't mean you should not dream or go for it. Just strap on your backpack and run as fast as you can. You never want to say you did not try.

View the original article on blogcritics.org
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Published on September 05, 2013 08:47 Tags: interview-william-hazelgrove, seattle-post-intelligencer, the-pitcher

September 4, 2013

The Will of a Mother

I wrote a baseball novel but it is a different type of baseball novel. It is about a mother who has a dream for her son to make the baseball team and she does this by becoming his coach. And then when she cant coach him any further she gets a broken down World Series Pitcher to help him. And she does all this with Lupus. And she never gives up .Ever.

And I based it on my own wife and other mothers I had seen where they will do anything for their sons. Anything. And it was confirmed with the reviews that have come in from mothers. I originally thought this would be testosterone novel with boys and men as the primary audience. But it is not really men that are reading this book as much as women. The reviews are mostly by women and they respond to the Maria character and what she wont do for her son Ricky.

All good fiction deals in universals and this must be one of them. A mothers love that knows no bounds when it comes to her son. A mother who becomes a coach and then gets a reluctant old grouchy pitcher to come out of his garage and quit drinking beer and coach her son. It is an amazing testatment to will. The will of a mother.

Review of The Pitcher The Pitcher by William Elliott Hazelgrove
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Published on September 04, 2013 10:31 Tags: baseballmoms, mothers, mothersinsports, pitching, youthbaseball

September 1, 2013

The Pitcher in on FREE Download Through Labor Day

Amazing Good Reads Review of The Pitcher
Review

I am blown away by this novel. It gave me more chills than "The Field Of Dreams" and "The Natural" combined. I choked up more times reading this, soon to be classic tale, than a team that leaves 11 men on base during a game. I kid you not; it's that moving.
This is much more than a story of the love of a game, or a mother's dream for her child. This is a perfectly crafted piece of literary fiction that is relevant to contemporary issues of the day.
You will come to respect and admire Maria and her son Ricky. If you're like me, you will be fascinated by the Pitcher Jack Langford. All I could see when I read about him was Clint Eastwood (about 25 years younger). You'll love his evolution and root for him as well as Maria and Ricky. If this isn't made into a movie, Hollywood is missing out on a potential blockbuster as big or bigger than "Sandlot" or "The Natural".
It weaves in hot button issues like illegal immigration, health care, and domestic violence in a way that isn't preachy or over the top. It is sentimental but not maudlin.
These issues and the dream of a mother and child to have "their moment to shine" is brilliantly done in a manner that is at times humorous, tension filled, and totally satisfying. The last 25 % of the book will have you in angst as the the twists of the story unfold into a totally fulfilling conclusion.
This novel is a must read for men and women of all ages. I just can't put into words how impressive this book is, but I have no doubt that this future best seller is Mr. Hazelgrove's
"moment to shine".
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pitcher-ebo...
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Published on September 01, 2013 09:11 Tags: amazing-book, baseball, baseball-novels, hazelgrove, review, the-pitcher

August 29, 2013

The Pitcher is on FREE KINDLE

Hello. Six hundred people have my book to read and I wanted to let everyone know that today and tomorrow they can get it on a one time promotion on Amazon.It is a free kindle download. The Pitcher was just named Book of the Year by Books and Authors.net and is a Junior Library Guild Selection. The story of a Mexican American boy with a golden arm who is coached by a broken down World Series Pitcher the book just received a rave review from Kirkus. Here is the link for a free download. Enjoy.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pitcher-ebo... The Pitcher by William Elliott Hazelgrove
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Published on August 29, 2013 14:17 Tags: free-novel, freeebook, freekindle, giveaway