Book Review: Love or Baseball? by Jesse A. Murray

Reviewed by J.P. Antonacci

Canadian Baseball Network

What price are you willing to pay to be the best?

That’s the central question in Love or Baseball?, the debut novel from Saskatchewan author Jesse A. Murray.

Ozzie Shaw has the physical tools to make it as a major leaguer. And for motivation he has his father, who was on the cusp of being a star with his hometown St. Louis Cardinals when he quit the game after his wife got pregnant. Ozzie’s father never gets over what he sees as the “mistake” of choosing family over career, and he becomes hell-bent on making sure his son reaches the highest echelon of the sport while avoiding “distractions” like love.

Murray paints the elder Shaw as a domineering figure who drills his son with beanballs in their backyard and orders him to throw a Little League championship game to learn to put himself first and not worry about letting teammates down. These lessons work – Ozzie gets over the sting of the ball and the shame of losing – but at what cost?

There are moments of humour in Love or Baseball?, a coming of age story that explores the usual trials and tribulations of being a teenager, albeit a prodigiously talented one. But the character of Ozzie’s father looms over every page. Ozzie can’t spend time with his girlfriend, Elizabeth, study at the library or go to a party without hearing his father’s disapproving voice demanding to know why he’s taken his eye off the ultimate prize. There’s something messianic in the way Ozzie’s father tells his son to forget about his friends because “no one can go where you’re headed.”

Suffering from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, Ozzie buys into his father’s dream for him to follow in the footsteps of his namesake, Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith. He’s so consumed by this idea that even when he’s angry with his father, he responds by swinging his bat or doing push-ups until he’s exhausted – advancing toward their shared goal even in rebellion.

It’s easy to criticize the father’s harsh treatment of his son, but there is a tragic side to this lonely, embittered man whose sole purpose is to turn his son into the player he was never allowed to become. Ozzie’s father would seem like a caricature if there weren’t so many real-life stories of obsessive parents pushing their kids to excel at the expense of their childhoods.

Murray’s novel explores what it means to straddle the thin line between good and great, and what is left behind while pushing to the top. Much like his father did, Ozzie comes to a crossroads and has to decide which of his loves – baseball or Elizabeth, and by extension the chance at a regular life – he will pursue.

Well-drawn baseball scenes and an abundance of detail about how a player moves up the professional ladder make clear that Murray has meticulously researched his story and has boundless enthusiasm for the topic. While some of the peripheral characters could be better fleshed out, he takes care to let the reader inside Ozzie’s head to see the mental toll inflicted by his seemingly glamorous life.

Murray crams a few too many plot points into the novel’s 423 pages, especially as so much time is spent on Ozzie’s childhood and teen years that the rapid pace of the book’s final quarter feels disorienting. But the book’s main premise is well-suited for teenage readers to comprehend and evaluate, and there are enough insights – a fascinating description of how pitches appear different during a batting slump, for example – to entertain baseball fans of all ages.

If not exactly a home run of a debut novel, Love or Baseball? is a solid double to a gap by an author who clearly loves the game and the written word in equal measure. Murray has two more books on deck, and it’ll worth checking back to see what story he tells next.

Love or Baseball? (423 pages, Off the Field Publishing) is available through all major online bookstores. Learn more at jesseamurray.com.