BALLPARK BLUES

"I had no girlfriend, a job I was beginning to actively loathe, few close friends, and a car so ugly that no one would steal it," laments Russ Bryant, the agreeably morose, 30ish baseball reporter who narrates Tooke's well-turned debut novel. Russ is down on his luck until he befriends a promising minor league player, Casey Fox, who has monumental talent—and a chip on his shoulder the size of Fenway Park. As Casey rises to stardom with the Boston Red Sox, he gives interviews only to Russ, who becomes well known in his own right. The novel follows their career dilemmas (Does Casey care enough about baseball to put up with the creepy agents, greedy owners and cynical media? Does Bryant really want to write for Sports Illustrated when he despairs about the state of mainstream sports journalism?), but it is also a love story. The orphaned Casey introduces Russ to his foster sister, Molly, not thinking that the shy, clumsy Bryant could have any romantic intentions. Russ becomes infatuated, but Casey has feelings for Molly as well. Unlike the rest of Tooke's cast, the humorless, forgettable Molly ("I have to be with someone who isn't afraid to see the whole me") is too thinly drawn to give the love triangle much spark. But the novel has plenty of compensatory charms: hilarious moments, especially when a tabloid dredges up a man who may or may not be Casey's biological father, and realistic treatment of the tough questions facing baseball fans, owners and players about the future of the game. (Mar. 18)