The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach [1]

This compulsively readable novel is about a handful of people at a small college in Michigan whose plans, dreams and ambitions are thrown off course. Mike Schwartz is more than the captain of the baseball team; he is its heart. Acting as the assistant coach the school can’t afford, he pushes his teammates to do more and better than they ever thought they could. He discovers shortstop Henry Skrimshander at a summer Legion game and, impressed by the boy’s astounding fielding ability, engineers...