The Fireballer
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Shea Taylor
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By:
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Mark Stevens
About this listen
A poignant story about hopes, dreams, and how far one man’s talent takes him before he realizes it’s about what you do—and how you do it.
Frank Ryder is unstoppable on the baseball field—his pitches arrive faster than a batter can swing, giving his opponents no chance. He’s being heralded as a game-changing pitcher.
But within the maelstrom of press, adulation, and wild speculation, Frank is a man alone. Haunted by a tragic incident from years past, he yearns to be the best but cannot reconcile the guilt he carries with the man everyone believes him to be. Frank’s path to redemption leads him on a journey back to where his life changed forever, to visit his family, his high school coach, and his brother. Through reconnection and reconciliation with those also deeply affected by the devastating event of Frank’s youth, he finds peace and his place in the world both in and outside the game.
The Fireballer is a lyrical, moving story of undeniable talent and the life-changing power of forgiveness and a subtly romantic ode to America’s favorite pastime.
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Critic reviews
“Shea Taylor is outstanding with every voice. He excels at differentiating men's and women's voices and keeps straight Ryder's two girlfriends, a widow, his mother and brother, a team owner, and assorted players and executives. Author Mark Stevens, while a bit heavy in the cynicism department when it comes to the media, has created a well-written book with an intriguing premise and a fascinating plot that is shaped wonderfully by Taylor's narration. Great baseball action, great writing, phenomenal narration.”—AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner
“Readers looking for sports fiction heavy on the baseball will enjoy this book.”—Library Journal
“Like the game of baseball, the great American pastime, there is much to love in The Fireballer by Mark Stevens…a book to enjoy like it was the seventh game of the World Series and your team won.”—New York Journal of Books
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Story
A baseball rules book. A tape measure. A lottery ticket. These were in the pocket of Bengie Molina's father when he died of a heart attack on the rutted Little League field in his Puerto Rican barrio. The items serve as thematic guideposts in Molina's beautiful memoir about his father, who, through baseball, taught his three sons about loyalty, humility, courage, and the true meaning of success.
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A book about life
- By P. Griswold on 06-11-15
By: Bengie Molina, and others
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The Bad Guys Won
- A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform - and Maybe the Best
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Jeff Pearlman
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake-hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.
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Maybe 3.5
- By Lifeisshort on 02-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Last Best League, 10th Anniversary Edition
- One Summer, One Season, One Dream
- By: Jim Collins
- Narrated by: Jim Collins
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Every summer, in ten small towns across Cape Cod, the finest college baseball players in the country gather in hopes of making it to "The Show." The hopes are justifiably high: The Cape Cod Baseball League is the best amateur league in the world, producing one out of every six major league players. Over the last decade, baseball's hard truths became evident for the Chatham stars who went on to play professionally, and the final chapter of their story can now be written.
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Jim Collins: Great American Storyteller
- By M. Leavell on 07-01-14
By: Jim Collins
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The Chicago Cubs
- Story of a Curse
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the Chicago Cubs have always been more than a team: they've been the protagonists of a King Arthur epic, in search of the Holy Grail that is winning the World Series. A chronicle of the last few miraculous seasons as experienced through the prism of Cubs history, The Chicago Cubs tracks the famous curse, which was placed on the team in 1945 by the infamous owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who was ejected from Wrigley Field when he tried to bring his goat into the grandstand for the fifth game of the World Series.
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just listen and it all happens again
- By Z. Kuhn on 10-28-17
By: Rich Cohen
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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Pete Rose
- An American Dilemma
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others--a figure at once magnetic, beloved and polarizing. Rose has more base hits than anyone in history, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Twenty-five years ago he was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports, a layered, slippery and ever-relevant moral conundrum.
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Good book, not so good production.
- By david d. on 05-01-14
By: Kostya Kennedy
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One Shot at Forever
- A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season
- By: Chris Ballard
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Ironmen would play a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.
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Outstanding.
- By Cartman18 on 08-02-13
By: Chris Ballard
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The Last Boy
- Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood
- By: Jane Leavy
- Narrated by: Jane Leavy, John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.
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The Man Behind the Myth
- By Ray on 11-12-10
By: Jane Leavy
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The Keeper
- A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them
- By: Ali Benjamin, Tim Howard
- Narrated by: J.D. Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 2014, Tim Howard became an overnight sensation after more than 10 years as one of America's leading professional soccer players. His record-breaking 15 saves for the United States national team against Belgium in the World Cup electrified a nation that had only recently woken up to the Beautiful Game after decades of hibernation. In this inspiring and candid memoir, the beloved US and Everton goalkeeper finally allows himself to do something that he would never do on the field: He drops his guard.
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Tim Howard Saves more then Goals!
- By Ron on 12-16-14
By: Ali Benjamin, and others
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Million-Dollar Throw
- By: Mike Lupica
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Brick
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist and ESPN personality Mike Lupica crafts a moving tale of perseverance, loyalty, and of the hope that rides on one pressure-packed football toss. If 13-year-old Nate Brodie can throw a football through a small target at a Patriots game, he will win a million dollars. Since his dad just lost his job, Nate welcomes the opportunity at first.
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Best book ever!!!
- By kelly on 03-13-15
By: Mike Lupica
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Bottom of the 33rd
- Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game
- By: Dan Barry
- Narrated by: Dan Barry
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. What began as a modestly attended minor-league game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings became not only the longest ever played in baseball history, but something else entirely. The first pitch was thrown after dusk on Holy Saturday, and for the next eight hours the night seemed to suspend its participants between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys....
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I love baseball
- By Sher from Provo on 04-08-13
By: Dan Barry
What listeners say about The Fireballer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charles Callari
- 05-13-23
Great book
I didn’t know what to expect when I first got this book. I had never heard of it before, but it was a great read. For anyone who is a true baseball fan, a great book for you.
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- Andrew
- 05-14-23
Edit out the children's camp.
Edit out the children's camp and this would be a solid 5+ rating. That part didn't fit and detracted from an otherwise enjoyable audiobook.
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- Mars
- 01-05-23
Just Wonderful
I have read the Fireballer on my Kindle, I have also read it in the paperback edition, but listening to it performed by Shea Taylor in Audible format really brought home to me more of the energy and feelings that Mark put into his characters, especially concerning Frank.
I felt like I was at an actual game in many chapters. I love baseball. The whole story is just excellent and Mark's writing is, again so descriptive just as his other novels are, so 10 stars to him!!!!
Bravo to Shea for an excellent narrative and to Mark for a great baseball book!!!
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13 people found this helpful
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- Sandy Brooks
- 01-06-23
Great Book
The combination of a good story and an excellent narrator makes this book a page turner.
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3 people found this helpful
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- A Face From the Past
- 05-29-23
This is a first for me
I did battle with myself the first three days I was listening to this book. I simply could not get into it and had it already marked on my return list and was writing a poor review in my head. However, I also have a tough time not finishing books, because I always want to give them a chance to redeem themselves. This is actually the first time I have ever had a book start so badly that I almost gave up on it and had it turn out to be a good story in the end. Especially if you enjoy baseball, and you like stories that remind you that there are good people in this world, give The Fireballer a go. It all comes together beautifully in the end.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kevin
- 04-03-23
Fantastic! I will definitely listen to again!
I am not an avid follower of Major League Baseball, I follow it lightly and played some baseball in my early teens. This book was totally interesting and absorbing to me on many different levels. Mark S is a talented author who knows his baseball. Fantastic read!!!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Judy
- 05-21-23
Great story for fans of baseball & life
This started a little slow, but I slowly fell under the spell of Frank Ryder, and I hope & suspect that you will too.
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- Dale Gosser
- 08-21-24
Great for baseball fans
This was a very enjoyable book, especially for baseball fans. I enjoyed so much of the mental aspect of the main character and his thoughts while playing. Somewhat disappointing ending. Not super realistic and could’ve been so much stronger.
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- Charles L. Sisk
- 04-18-23
Glad my friends recommended this book
Much more than a baseball story Gripping but poignant- it was a book I didn’t want to end
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12 people found this helpful
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- Dave
- 02-07-23
Great book!
I really enjoyed this book! I learned a lot about baseball, life and more! I’m not a baseball fan at all but this story might just make me tune in this spring!
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7 people found this helpful