Ranch Road to Cooperstown (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798295402449)

An autobiography of Buck Marshall, a fictional character using the actual single season records of Major League Baseball pitchers. The book highlights the performances of pitchers who did well in relative obscurity, perhaps in a short period of time, often overshadowed by others. It is about players who may have had their careers ended just as they were hitting their stride, feats you believe you heard or read about but cannot associate with a name, maybe names you vaguely remembered but don't know why, perhaps players and performances you never heard about, period. For none of them are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, neither are there Cy Young award winners among them, no Rookie of the Year designation, and none of them won over 100 games during their careers. Each season-chapter recaps Buck's team for the year, the city he calls home for 7 months, his teammates and their common quest... winning baseball games. His modus operandi.. multiple variations of arm delivery, ball movement and final location. And he does it all while registering an arm-saving 87 miles per hour or less on the speed gun. That said, his changeup is an occasional - and surely surprising - straight as an arrow 91 mph fast ball right down the middle. Then too he becomes, in his 11th year in the majors, what he calls ambi-arm-rous, as in, a switch pitcher. And then there are the off-season wanderings, when Buck Marshall spends some time back at the family ranch, then oft times roaming about the country in his pickup truck or, on occasion immediately after the season in a rented vehicle, capturing the essence of places and sights not often known or visited by others. Buck developed a passion for backpacking trails, nights in a tent on mountain ridgelines, maybe wilderness areas, perhaps a wildlife refuge on occasion. He would stop at a highway rest area if necessity required it, to lay out the pad and sleeping bag on a picnic table and doze off under the stars. During his winter respite with family and friends, Buck gets busy finding his next single season employer, a Major League club with whom to ply his trade and resume his illustrious career. For yes, he is a free agent lifer.