Title: The Elements of Hitting
First published: 1994
Description: In this heartwarming story of dreams and redemption, acclaimed writer Matthew F. Jones celebrates America's national pastime and the power of the human spirit. With his distinctive voice and unforgettable characters, he has managed to capture in writing the secret that ages of fathers and sons have discovered in grandstands across America.

Walter Innis, the son of a frustrated and violent fallen baseball star and a tragically unhappy woman driven to infidelity, carries his family's legacy of torment into his own adult life - with disastrous results. Unable to let go of a childhood trapped between his father's violence and his mother's secret love affair, Walter has lost his own wife and job. Now he must come to terms with his past or allow it to destroy him.

In desperation he hatches a scheme that will vindicate his mother's mysterious death and his father's valueless life, and might just make him a rich man in the bargain. Ultimately, it is as a Little League coach that Walter discovers a route to happiness and hope beyond the reach of his past. Jones reveals with bold sensitivity and humor the bond that both ties him to his past and frees him of its pain.

. Setting its characters' achingly real and oftentimes hilarious lives on an unforgettable course, The Elements of Hitting weaves together pain and humor, sadness and salvation. The spirit of baseball and the spirit of the human heart - these are The Elements of Hitting.
Subjects: Fiction, Baseball players, Fathers and sons, New York Times reviewed, Men
LC classification: PS3560.O52244 E44 1994