Season's End: A Novel
An entertaining tale of minor league baseball, Zen philosophy, death, fame, and statistics.  Mike Williams is a minor league player looking to make it big by attaining the ultimate measure of success: a remarkable batting average.  George O'Kane is his Buddha: a fellow minor leaguer who plays like an all-star, yet is unconcerned with the scrambling for success or the constant incremental measures of his performance.  He develops a method of hitting that inverts the standard injunctions of batting coaches: he takes his eye off the ball and knocks them out of the park.  O'Kane teaches his philosophy of baseball to Williams before being called up to the big leagues.  Tom Grimes's novel is the story of Williams's own rise into the majors and his ascent in understanding the real lessons of baseball.