Screwball

Screwball, David Belisle, Amazon Digital Services, 2016

Hayward Templeton is your average psychology graduate student at the University of Iowa. Coerced into pitching in an intramural baseball game, Templeton consults Google. He finds directions on how to throw a screwball, and he wins the game. The school's baseball coach notices, and puts him on the team. Templeton still has just the one pitch, that no one can hit. During a post-game celebration, he is accidentally dropped on his head. He recovers, with no ill effects, or so everyone thinks.

By now, he is playing for the Kansas City Royals. Templeton starts acting very strangely. In the middle of a game, while on the mound, he is convinced that everyone in the stands is staring at a zit on his face worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records (there is no zit). In the middle of another game, while on the mound, Templeton tells his manager that he wants a sex change operation (he doesn't get it). The phobias and neuroses start coming more frequently, but his screwball remains unhittable, so the Royals keep winning. They also hire a lady psychologist to keep tabs on him.

The Royals are in the World Series. Templeton is going through an A-Z list of phobias and neuroses, even while he is on the mound. Can Templeton, and the rest of the team, keep it together and win the World Series? Does Templeton completely lose his mind?

This is an interesting look at baseball and neuroses, and it's also a very fast read. Not just baseball fans will enjoy it.