The Dreyfus Affair: A Love Story

by Peter Lefcourt

When a star shortstop falls in love with the second baseman, the result is a provocative and rollicking odyssey through an unforgettable World Series Championship season. What this does to their lives, families, team, and the President of the US is hilarious, poignant, brilliant, and dazzling fun.

Genres: Fiction, Sports, LGBT, Romance, M M Romance, Gay, Baseball

290 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 1992

About the author

Peter Lefcourt is a refugee from the trenches of Hollywood, where he has distinguished himself as a writer and producer of film and television. Among his credits are "Cagney and Lacey," for which he won an Emmy Award; "Monte Carlo," in which he managed to keep Joan Collins in the same wardrobe for 35 pages; the relentlessly sentimental "Danielle Steel's Fine Things," and the underrated and hurried "The Women of Windsor," the most sordid, and thankfully last, miniseries about the British Royal Family.

He began writing novels in the late 1980's, after being declared "marginally unemployable" in the entertainment business by his then agent. In 1991 Lefcourt published The Deal -- an act of supreme hubris that effectively bit the hand that fed him and produced, in that inverse and masochistic logic of Hollywood, a fresh demand for his screenwriting services. It remains a cult favorite in Hollywood, was one of the ten books that John Gotti reportedly ordered from jail, and was adapted into a movie -- starring William H. Macy, Meg Ryan and L.L. Cool Jay -- that premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Subsequently, he has divided his time between screenplays and novels, publishing The Dreyfus Affair in 1992, his darkly comic look at homophobia in baseball as a historical analog to anti-Semitism in fin de siecle France, which The Walt Disney Company has optioned twice and let lapse twice in fits of anxiety about what it says about the national pastime and, by extension, Disneyland. He is hopeful that a major(or even minor) motion picture will be made from it in his lifetime. The book continues to sell well in trade paperback -- it's in its fifteenth printing, and, as such, acts as a small but steady cottage industry for its author, who, at this point, would almost rather keep optioning it than have it actually made. But not really.

In 1994, he published Di And I, a heavily fictionalized version of his love affair with the late Princess of Wales. Princess Diana's own stepgodmother, Barbara Cartland, who was herself no slouch when it came to publishing torrid books, declared Di And I "ghastly and unnecessary," which pushed the British edition briefly onto the best-seller lists. Di And I was optioned by Fine Line Pictures, in 1996, and was quietly abandoned after Diana's untimely death the following year. Someday it may reach the screen -- when poor Diana is no longer seen as an historical icon but merely as the misunderstood and tragic figure that she was, devoured by her own popularity.

Abbreviating Ernie, his next novel, was inspired by his brief brush with notoriety after the appearance of Di And I. At the time he was harassed by the British tabloids and spent seven excruciating minutes on "Entertainment Tonight." He was subsequently and fittingly bumped out of People Magazine by O.J. Simpson's white Bronco media event of June, 1994. In a paroxysm of misplaced guilt, the editors of "People," to make amends, declared it a "Beach Read," which helped put the book ephemerally on the Best Seller lists during the summer of 1994. Anecdotally, however, the author spent a lot of time combing the beaches that summer without seeing a single person reading his book.

Lefcourt's research on a movie for HBO about the 1995 Bob Packwood canard was the germ for his next novel, The Woody. He began to see that the former senator's battle with the Senate Ethics Committee was a dramatization of the total confusion in America regarding appropriate sexual behavior for politicians. Packwood became the sacrificial lamb -- taking the pipe for an entire generation of men. Basically, he got his dick caught in the zeitgeist. After President Clinton got his caught in a younger zeitgeist, nearly costing him his job, The Woody became all the more topical. It asks the question: What is the relationship between a politician's sexual competence and his popularity in the polls? If Packwood had been as smooth as Clinton, he would be the majority lead

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Publisher Says: When a star shortstop falls in love with the second baseman, the result is a provocative and rollicking odyssey through an unforgettable World Series Championship season. What this does to their lives, families, team, and the President of the US is hilarious, poignant, brilliant, and dazzling fun.

My Review: The eponymous Dreyfus, baseball star Randy, is an All-American Guy with a wife and two daughters. We meet him with that family as he opens a strip mall named for him near his suburban California home. Randy is a man with a problem, however: He's coming to know, at age 28, that he is really a gay man living a straight man's dream life. He's fallen in love with D.J. Pickett, second baseman to his pitcher (the joke here will become obvious in the review), despite the existence of a perfect wife, blonde and beautiful and hot for him. Not only is D.J. a man, he's a BLACK man! The scandal, the shock, the general all-around kerfuffle that ensues when the two men are caught in a clearly sexual situation! But true to Mr. Lefcourt's Hollywood writing pedigree, there is A Happy Ending. No, not *that* kind of happy ending, get your mind out of the gutter! This isn't a romance novel, it's A Love Story. Even the subtitle says so.

I'd love to live in the America of the ending of this book. In fact, what with some more adventurous sports stars like Ben Cohen starting to come out as against bullying and homophobia as cultural forces, it might *be* this world soon. Why, he's even started a foundation to combat these pernicious, ancient evils! Good on him, and his wife, and his two kids! But he was released from his international rugby-playing job after he started talking about these matters, despite being the MVP for his team. Plus he's over 30, which in rugby as in football means headin' for the barn. Still, bravo for doing it. Now, the reaction to this in the rugby-playing world has been muted because of his superstar status, but I note a singular quietude among teams in his former league.

Pro sports is not gonna welcome or acknowledge gay players if they're not even gonna let a gay-FRIENDLY guy work to change his childrens' world while working for them. So I find the Hollywood ending of the book, with the two men walking onto the field together to play a World Series game, poignantly amusing if improbable to the point of alternate-Universe-ness.

But the trip to get there is, well, amusing and improbable: the soon-to-be-ex-wife is all sympathy and understanding, a thing no woman of my acquaintance is when she's being left for someone else, and I mean *not*one*of*them* who've had it happen, the two daughters not being shown to be bullied mercilessly for having a fag-daddy (ha!), and the Salty Old Sports Columnist coming out (oops) in their favor...! Oh the glories of Lefcourt's imagination! Let this world come into being, and soon, if you please o kind and beneficent God! (Another improbable-to-the-point-of-humor concept.)

And then there are the odd choices, like making D.J. a black man who's the bottom and Randy a white top who plays *pitcher*! Top and bottom (pitcher and catcher, get it?), for the straight, are the sexual positions of the parties. They are also the source of stress and tension in the gay mating market, because logically two men having sex can't BOTH do the same thing at the same time, and a great big stigma attaches to the bottom (I hope I don't need to explain the source of these names...that would be too depressing...although Randy, our hero with the porn name {srsly, RANDY?!}, is specifically revealed to be clueless about how to satisfy his lust for D.J. until a specific moment quite late in his 28 years of life!), as it does to the effiminate man. In other words, homophobia among the homos is alive and well. And Lefcourt chose an ethnic minority for his secondary character that has historically been completely, utterly, and often violently unsupportive of gay life. I have to wonder why he did that. Oh, but never fear: We're not given any actual sex to wince over, straight people. It's all implied. Honest and truly.

And baseball is, I mourn to report, an ever-more-marginal sport. In Murrika today, the uber-violent and pointless and boring football (which involves feet only tangentially, so far as I can see) is the dominant sport. Why pick on poor, fading baseball? Although the venality, the coarseness, and the criminality of the management are played against that sport's backdrop, I feel very sure that the same behaviors, attitudes, and law-breakings would happen in any of the professional sports. They're handling a LOT of money here. No way in hell does that not attract, if not breed, criminality. It simply can't help but do so.

So why'd I read it? And why would I recommend it? Because it's upbeat and it's nicely plotted and it's got its moments of trenchant commentary. Everybody needs a fairy tale every now and then. In baseball season, let this be yours.

[Nikki Boisture · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think paperbackswap.com thinks I'm a gay baseball player, which is a side-effect of having a strong proclivity for Steve Kluger books. It makes no difference to me if it means they will be recommending books like this for me.

Randy Dreyfus, a star shortstop for the fictional LA Valley Vikings, is a married father of two, who finds himself in the awkward position of falling in love with his second baseman. He fights it at first, but gives in to the feeling and he and DJ Pickett start a secret love affair. Until it becomes not so secret, thanks to a little stupidity on their part coupled by a lot of homophobia on the part of a Neiman-Marcus security guard.

What follows is a quickie cover-up job by MLB, the Vikings organization, and to a certain extent the media. But when security footage of Randy and DJ emerges, just as the Vikings are headed to the World Series, there is a call by a lot of powerful people to invoke the same clause banning the two lovebirds from the game for life. That is exactly what happens until one brave sports journalist writes a beautiful opinion piece (modeled after J'cusse in the real life Dreyfuss Affair) that turns the tide of public opinion.

The book starts a little slow, and the explanations of what Randy sees in DJ (and vice versa) aren't explained that well. But once Randy and DJ are caught, the book picks up to the point I couldn't put it down without finding out what happened.

This book was published twenty years ago, years before Billy Beane became the first MLB player (and he was already out of the game) came out of the closet. There is no doubt in my mind there are plenty of active gay players, but I think we are still equally far from seeing an active player come out. In the meantime, if I want some good old baseball slash, I can always reread The Dreyfus Affair. (Or Billy Bean's autobiography, whichever.)

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still can't believe nobody told me this book existed. Slashing baseball players is a way of life in my household, so it was impossible not to like this book.

It wasn't the most artistic writing, but I believe it was intentially unsuperfluous. It was, after all, a book about two jocks.

The protagonist's emotions as he is going through the realization of what he's feeling were dead on. I had the same kind of experience, becoming overemotional and crying over the strangest things, before I finally allowed myself to realize what was going on.

I tend to think the book was more optimistic than I would be about the public response if these events actually occurred, but when I think about it, I realize that there were mention of the negative responses, it just wasn't dwelt on.

Overall, I definitely would re-read this book. And beyond the book's actual merit as a piece of storytelling (which it has), I'm also just excited that this book was written and published.

[Smith Barney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the shit out of this tame all-american jock star book..but would have reeeeally enjoyed it more with some descriptive man love action.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

(forgot something in my review, tagged on at the end...)

Shortstop Randy Dreyfus apparently has it all – a beautiful wife who is the envy of all his teammates, twin girls and a baseball career in the final year of his contract which not only has him on the path to the Most Valuable Player Award and the Baseball Hall of Fame, but a new contract which will pay him over $20 million – so what could go wrong? (Hold clarion call while the needle scratches.) He has fallen in love with his second baseman, D.J. Pickett – brings a whole new meaning to “double-play combination”, doesn’t it?

The author, Peter Lefcourt, is an accomplished television writer, winning an award for “Cagney and Lacey”, and this can be seen not only in the tight writing but a plot that seems to follow a TV movie bullet-point outline. There’s little character development, just a bunch of stereotypes we can easily recognize, but that’s not unusual in farce; since the book is from 1992, though, some of these fall a little flat: all of the Southerners are rednecks and crackers with names like Billy Bob Bob, there’s an Hispanic player, nicknamed “Spic”, who has been in the majors for years but still can’t speak any English beyond a string of obscenities, and a bored Egyptian psychiatrist who doesn’t seem to understand the weight of what’s going on but basically tells Randy to go with his feelings because they are what they are.

As can be expected, Randy tries to deny his feelings, and D.J. is gay and knows the grief that can come with this but falls for the big lug anyway. The truth is that this, and the feelings of Randy’s wife, are all handled sensitively - this is all done well – and the story follows predicable lines of clandestine meetings, misunderstandings, discovery and nationwide scandal - hence “The Dreyfus Affair” – and everyone divided along the lines of what’s technically legal but what’s not “in the best interests of baseball.” America just can’t have the reputation of the National Pastime sullied by this type of behavior, can it? (There is a Hollywood ending as homophobia strikes out, but this is hardly a spoiler.)

I chose this book because we’re in baseball playoff season and this is a sport which is perfectly suited to novels since the game isn’t so much continuous action as a series of plays; this is why in days gone by, sportscasters could invent a play-by-play off a teletype machine. (Such as in the famous Ronald Reagan anecdote about how the teletype broke down and he had the batter fouling off pitches for 20 minutes until they could get it up and running again.) It’s also a sport prone to sex scandals, including my personal favorite from 1973 when Yankee left-handed pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich made a spring season trade – their wives and children. Baseball was not ready for this in 1973 and I don’t think they’re ready yet. (For the record, Mike Kekich and Marilyn Peterson didn’t last long but Fritz Peterson and Barbara Kekich are still going strong.) I love baseball and the book was pretty damn good as well.

(When I was reading this, I remembered another sex scandal, with a literary connection. Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel "The Natural" - which was later made into a Robert Redford film with a completely different "Hollywood" ending, - was based on the shooting three years earlier of Phillies player Eddie Waitkus who was stalked and shot by an obsessed female fan. For what it's worth, I liked the book's ambiguity more than the film's cheesy finale, but that's just me.)

[ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so, so very deeply of the time and reminded me a lot of Aaron Krach's Half-Life which I read in 2019 -- the southern California setting, the shifting, omniscient third-person narrative, the time period, roughly -- except it had the benefit of being about baseball -- with lots of well-written baseball! -- and having characters I was just generally interested in or intrigued by so I never felt I was losing out by shifting to a different POV. I also laughed a lot more than I would have expected and ended up feeling very buoyed by how hopeful it all felt. I mean, I also have to reckon with the fact that it's 2021 and things are probably actually significantly worse than the world Lefcourt wrote in the early 90s, but isn't that true for most things? (As an... insane aside, I read the hardcover version of this book -- It has the original receipt in it still from a bookstore on the east coast from 1993! It rules! -- but cannot stand that the cover isn't populated for whatever reason, so my review is mis-assigned to the paperback. Thank you for understanding that I have many problems and issues that make me this way.)

[T. Philly · Rating 5 out of 5]

First there was The City and the Pillar. Then, Giovanni’s Room. Now, make room for another classic in the canon, The Dreyfus Affair: A Love Story. If you have any idea what I’m talking about, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Although a more openly humorous approach than either Gore Vidal or James Baldwin, Peter Lefcourt nonetheless blows the doors right off of the great American pastime, while at the same time leaving us laughing as the whole world comes crashing down.

Randy Dreyfus, star shortstop for a Major League baseball team (I won’t tell you which one), is not only on his way to the pennant, the world series, a batting title and a possible MVP award, he’s got the Hall of Fame in his sights as well. That is until one day when he takes a second look at his second baseman, and Randy’s life—the whole country’s, for that matter—will never be the same.

What happens next is a wild ride from Cleveland and Dallas to LA and the San Fernando Valley. Throw into the mix a murder plot against a dog, a private detective hot on the trail, and a life-changing event in a Neiman-Marcus dressing room, and life for Randy Dreyfus, and everyone else around him, is about to get turned on its head.

I won’t tell you what happens next; I’m not in the spoiler business. What I can tell you is things get so out of hand that the FBI, the Secret Service, the President of the United States, even Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf himself, all get swept into the story.

Peter Lefcourt’s The Dreyfus Affair is a topsy-turvy, out-of-control, mile-a-minute, laugh riot, with more ups and downs than a Coney Island roller coaster. Although originally written back in 1992, it hasn’t lost any of its bounce or bloom. It’s one of those rare books that is so outrageously funny, it stands the test of time.

I give Peter Lefcourt’s The Dreyfus Affair my Four Balls Up recommendation, with a free pass to first base and a stiff Louisville Slugger to boot. You’ll never look at Major League baseball the same way again. —Philip Loyd, Author of You Lucky Bastard.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

in terms of enjoyment, 5 stars, but im giving 4 because of some of the language. anyway this was DELIGHTFUL and hilarious and i mostly read it in one sitting

[Drianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread. Just as addictive the second time; I still couldn't put it down. Highly recommended -- it's one of those books that I just can never get quite out of my head.

[Reread again 12/15: Still love it. I actually am starting to think things have changed enough that it's no longer so plausible though! Which would be amazing.]

[Re-read 4/23: I still really love this book. It would be better without a lot of the 'ironic' racism, because it clearly is 30 years old in that regard (n.b., the n-word is used twice), and obviously some of the homophobia would be less today - but. Are we still in a situation where no current MLB player has ever been out while playing? Yes, yes we are. Also, the book has been optioned again, this time by NBC/Universal, and it would make SUCH a fantastic tv (mini)-series. It's clearly cinematic in the way Lefcourt wrote it; the whole time through I kept imagining how easy it would be to transfer to a limited series - perhaps framed by the Zola-character's letter? It almost felt like it was pre-broken into episodes for the convenience of someone wishing to film it.]

[Re-read 5/24: Will any other gay baseball book ever be this great? No, no, it won't. Man, I wish they had filmed it.]

[WhatAStrangeDuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a rule I am not fond of satires (and this book is to a large extent a satire) but what gets me every time I read this (and this was the third time, I think) is the fact that the subtitle is oh so true. It's a love story. Nobody in this book gets off lightly and there are cartoonish characters and whacky plot twists and an omniscient narrator (not my favourite - I hate those smug bastards) - still, it works. Yes, it is largely the fictionalized form of "I accuse" in full novel length but it also makes me root for the characters because I can't help but genuinly like them.

Also, there are some much needed awwww moments ;-).

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before Billy Bean came out, there were Randy Dreyfus and DJ Pickett. Lefcourt goes for laughs without minimizing the risks these baseball players take to be together. Instead of making fag jokes, Lefcourt finds humor in Dreyfus's new-love giddiness and by satirizing wide-but-narrow-minded worlds of sports and media.

[Vfields Don't touch my happy! · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be one of my all time favorite love stories ever. I didn't know what to expect but it was a pleasent surprise.

[Daniel Chaiket · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4

[Michael Joe Armijo · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It's OKAY to be DIFFERENT." That's the message here. I learned of this book while reading a magazine about this bestselling novel from 1993 which has been passed around to various movie studios. The film version still has not been made but Ben Affleck was interested in playing the lead role. I don't know if the film will ever be made due to the controversial subject matter for today's society. However, one day it will happen. It was an innovative story with a happy ending. An All-American blonde, blue-eyed, married baseball star falls in love with his good-looking black second baseman. It has all of the homophobic hoopla from executives and middle America baseball fans. It ends up being a story about tolerance. I wouldn't call this book a literary find or anything. I just read The Great Gatsby (one of the finest literary novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald) so, this was no competition. I will give it an "A" for being daring and innovative though. I am glad the book was written because there is definitely a heartwarming message here. If someone is different...there's no reason to make him out to be an outcast. If you read the book "right" you can sense the tenderness. I love how the author writes that all men are created equal; that they are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! It's very much a book about baseball, and the life of a professional baseball player - Randy Dreyfus, the league's preemptive MVP shortstop, just happens to be falling in love with his second baseman, D. J. Pickett.

Dreyfus is a great character - completely hysterical, while sympathetic and relatable. He kept trying to explain to his shrink how he was feeling using only baseball terminology, which won me over very quickly - he even dubbed himself a "lefty", wondering if he'll be easily recognized by other lefties.

Gay baseball players in love! Some truly hysterical inner monologues! The author seemingly predicting the 1994 baseball strike in 1992, when the book was published! A running gag with the name of a shopping mall! Neiman Marcus dressing rooms and the security guards who watch them! World Series games! The following exchange: "We got a couple of lost ballplayers." "Ballplayers, Mr. President?" "Affirmative, Norm. They're in a rowboat with a Dalmation. Find 'em." Much discussion over the significance of those copper plaques on a wall in Cooperstown!

Overall, funny and very clever, with a nice, subtle hint of satire.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great idea for a satire. The world of professional baseball is ripped apart by an affair between a second baseman and a shortstop. Lefcourt's idea was that prejudice against homosexuals in late twentieth century America was analogous to prejudice against Jews in late 19th century France. With a title that recalls the historic political scandal you expect a novel with some intellectual heft, right?

No, that is not what you get. Instead of a razor sharp satire, which is what this story needed, you get a broad farce. It is still a funny book, but with no psychological depth to the characters.

The reason I even read this book was that it was set to become a movie in the late nineties and fell apart. I was intrigued by the story and why it was not made. With the right director it almost certainly would have become a better movie than a book.

[Trin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book cheered me up immensely. It's about a Major League shortstop who suddenly realizes that he's falling in love with his second baseman. It's one of my favorite slash clichés—the slow tease of that first stirring attraction; the one guy teaching the other all he knows—and it builds really nicely. The writing's kind of slap-dash trashy, but I actually found the central romance to be rather sweet, and it's about baseball, a gay romance involving baseball, and that's just an unstoppable combination for me, really. I think you would all enjoy reading it. Especially Sheila. (And except Punk. *g*) I literally devoured it in one sitting—I don't think I even got up to use the bathroom.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I know about baseball you could write on the back of a stamp (well we don't play baseball in England and cricket is confusing enough) and from the moment I started to read the first page I knew I was in trouble. So why did I buy the book, well I bought it second hand and as always I read the back cover - "Consider the possibilities: In the middle of a pennant race, a team's star shortstop falls in love with his second baseman." How could I resist. So I did a little research on the basics of baseball, thank you Wikipedia, and dived in. I have to say that I really enjoyed this book despite my ignorance and who knows, when I come to read it again I might understand more of the baseball references and give the book five stars.

[Anat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle is very misleading. I expected romance- two ball players falling in love and the usual conflicts that go along with that. This story was more a hypothetical telling of the scandal that develops when two star players in the Majors (in a team that's contending for championship no less) are found out to be gay and the implications (basically, the Dreyfus affair is a fitting name, very clever pun). It was an interesting concept, but very dated, as it was written in the early 90s. Then again, there are no openly gay active players even now right? Not even in a minor team? But yeah, because it was so dated it was a bit lacking for me and the characters weren't all that fleshed out, I guess since the point was not the romance but the outcome.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit dated, but still a good story. Even for when it was written, I think it was an optimistic worldview and a bit of a fairy tale, but still enjoyable.

[Yuri Aoi · Rating 5 out of 5]

表紙からは想像できない面白さだった(^O^)　濃厚なストーリーに疲れたら、こんなのいいね。

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just a lot of fun!

[Jeffrey G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a gay romance...and, yes, it is based on the historical Dreyfus Affair. In that sense, the author comes across as perhaps a bit too self-satisfied with how clever he has been. He has to contort the story a bit to make it fit. Written in 1998, this probably felt dated when it came out. It reads as hopelessly dated now. With that said, it's fairly entertaining and certainly not dull.

The baseball stuff reads as very realistic. I feel like I am on a major league baseball diamond hearing the players talking. I feel that I am hearing conversations in the dugout, in the clubhouse and locker room, etc. All of that stuff is really solid.

I don't believe that you suddenly realize you are gay at age 28. I don't believe you switch from being straight to being gay, as the author has the mc so carefully explain to his wife and to his kids. He was gay his whole life, but did not want to admit it because of the shame. Every gay man knows how painful this can be, but I guess the author does not know because he is not a gay man. Before I looked him up, I already knew he was not queer because of the way he made the mc's suicidal thoughts the punchline of a joke not once but several times. He didn't get everything wrong, or even most things. There is a lot of hostility on the page towards gays...and I don't mean the characters who say anti-gay comments, etc. I mean the author himself has a lot of hostility in the way he constructed the story. It's not just the suicide jokes, but did the mc really need to be shot at the end? Some of this stuff crosses the tonal line when you are presumably writing a comedy.

Randomly, I want to say that there is a huge plot gap in this book when it comes out that a department store is photographing customers while they are in the changing room. No one comments on that fact, but rather they focus on the salacious video that emerges. But I think IRL ppl would be pretty shocked and angry if a major department store were caught doing that.

Overall, I mostly enjoyed reading this even though I didn't actually think it was funny. I just enjoyed the story and the characters. There is an amusing psychiatrist who is intended to be a comedic figure but who actually does a great job!

[UnusualChild{beppy} · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Randy is a major league short stop, married with two kids and a dog he doesn't like. His view of himself is thrown into disarray when he notices his attraction to his 2nd baseman one day in the showers. Nothing happens during that shower, but Randy embarks on a journey to first prove that it was an aberration, or to have it fixed, since there are no gays in baseball in 1995. But the feelings for DJ won't go away, and Randy is encouraged by his therapist to confront it, and Randy and DJ develop a relationship from there. But it is 1995, two years away from Ellen's coming out, and when DJ and Randy are caught on tape in a kiss, the country comes unglued at the "subversion of family values".

I honestly don't know how I feel about this one. I got REALLY mad at several points in the book, just because of the rampant racism and other attitudes. And it made me wonder: were attitudes really like this in 1995? Was it okay to call people "Frogs" and "Japs" and "Spic" (since I'm pretty sure that nickname got settled on him by his teammates)? Because growing up in small town (white) Canada during that time, it wasn't okay. (And were people really not considered American if they also spoke another language other than English?) But aside from my ire at the book, I'm not sure that I ever really bought the relationship between DJ and Randy. We're told quite often that they have feelings for one another, and they can't keep away from each other, but it seemed to me to be more of a surface thing.
I did like how popular opinion swung back and forth on Randy and DJ and their relationship, with even the highest position in the country caving to the populace. Still, I'm not sure what this story was supposed to be, in the end. Satirical? "Let this be a lesson to you"? Utopian? A love story? I mean, it says that in the title, but I'm not sure. I guess, whatever kind of story it is, and whatever it did, it made me thankful that times are changing for the better in a lot of ways, since a lot of the attitudes and sentiments just seemed wrong to me.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Original Thoughts (1999):

Very entertaining! Shortstop falls in love with the second baseman. Has to accept his sexuality. Very funny and readable. Would make a great movie.

My Current Thoughts:

I have no memory at all of this book, but it sounds like it might be a fun re-read. The publisher's blurb is brief, so I'll leave you with a blurb from Publishers Weekly:

This seriocomic second novel by the author of The Deal tells the offbeat story of baseball star Randy Dreyfus, whose life--on the surface, at least--seems a winning streak that will never end. His manager tells him, "You're 28 years old. You got the best swing since Ted Williams. You're the fastest white guy in the league. You've got a nice wife, a family, you're pulling down two point three a year, not to mention the TV and merchandising money." However, Dreyfus has one big problem--he has fallen in love with D. J., the team's second baseman--as well as a few smaller ones: his wife thinks he's sleeping with another woman, his shrink is driving him crazy and he wants to kill his unruly Dalmatian. When Dreyfus and D. J. are caught in the act under most bizarre circumstances, the political and professional fallout affects the World Series and the White House alike. Lefcourt employs a smoothly smart-alecky tone reminiscent of Dan Jenkins's football fiction, albeit without Jenkins's expert handling of the locker-room milieu. The tone grates after a while, but the novel is not without moments of genuine wit. Although the finale is more whimper than bang, the book's zany charm has a cumulative impact.

[Lou]

I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would. Definitely more of a comedy/satire than a romance, despite the "love story" mentioned in the title, and there were times that things escalated to farce so much that I couldn't help but cackling. I grew fond of the characters as the story went on and was overall pleased with how it came together. As somebody who's read a lot of sports romance, it's interesting to read something that is definitely not that, but is sharing space with that. I've read other books where two characters are teammates and get outed and have to deal with that, but those are modern sports romances and the beats and story structure are just a whole different ball game.

This book is also very dated, especially in terms of attitudes around a whole bevy of things, so it's definitely a YMMV situation as to whether you can enjoy some things while leaving others. But sometimes it's fun to read something older and kinda be immersed in a specific moment in time, and this really felt like "the 90s, but early enough in the decade to still have a hangover from the 80s." And it's too bad that a film version never got made, because I think they could have done something funny at the time, but it simply would not hit today.

[Thor Twinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I have such mixed opinions about this book.
I had a fun time reading it, but I can't deny that it had quite a few problems.

The one that was the biggest letdown was probably the framing in which this story is told.
Even though the protagonist is clearly Randy, the book is written for multiple POVs. Almost all of them have still somewhat to do with him, but in the end, they just felt like a waste of time. Most notably, the private investigator. He adds so little to the story that midway through it, he just disappears.
What's worse of it all was that Randy's love interest, D.J., doesn't get a POV. We enter his mind only a couple of times, so by the end of the book, he doesn't really feel like a two-dimensional character.
It doesn't help that we don't truly know why Randy fell in love with him. The only thing he keeps repeating is that he finds him so hot.

A shame because overall the book was quite funny. It really felt like a 90s comedy. And like I said, I really liked the character of Randy.
I saw that in 2020 the books right were picked up by Universal for a tv show. It's probably a dead project by now, but I think it would have worked. Especially if given more space to D.J.

[Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this book for like a year, if I'm not mistaken and 6 hours ago, I decided to start reading it, and oh boy, I was blown away. I laughed so hard, I lamented, I cried. And all the other in-betweens only a good book can bring. First of all, I enjoyed the various points of view from all these characters Mr. Peter used; I got a fully rounded story out of them. Secondly, the story never dragged at all; kept flowing all through to the end. Thirdly, I appreciated all the baseball jargon, even though this is not a game I'm familiar with; the foundation was well researched, I think. I cannot add a fourthly, that would be weird.
But, a big part too was the special way he used wording for cliff hangers; especially the one at the end of Chapter 17. I literally screamed there.
Weirdly though, I felt the most emotion coming from Susie even though it out to be centered mostly on Randy and D.J, in my opinion.
I realize now the book reminded of The Front Runner, especially there towards the end with that climax, but then all turns around.
In conclusion, a very entertaining read, I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Mr. Peter.

[Ken French · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book 30 years ago and remember enjoying it, so when it popped into my head again, I checked it out from the library. What a disappointment. For one thing, the main character is extremely unlikable. I think we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he's tortured over his growing feelings for another man, but he's racist (his comments about his Egyptian therapist are appalling), sexist (so many inappropriate comments about Pia Zadora), and totally self-absorbed. Also, I've read a lot of queer fiction in recent years, and this book reads like a straight cis guy's take on what being gay is like. The book left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Matt DeTurck · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I bristle a little bit at some of the language used when describing queer love, homophobia, and race, the fact that this book from 1992 tackles these topics, deftly evolves the language over the course of the book, and still comes out wholly satisfying by the end is such a win.

Starting from a place of brand names, name-dropping, and status, and ending in a place of evolution, care, and love is impressive, and makes for a heckuva page turner. Read it once before, more than a decade ago, and was thrilled that it’s still a great time. (Inexplicably I also have a soft spot for baseball as a setting, so….)