The Bakers of Baseball
By Stephanie Doyle
Prequel Novellas: Playing the Game and Making the Play
(February 1, 2016)
Book 1: The Comeback of Roy Walker (March 3, 2015)
Book 2: Scout’s Honor (October 1, 2015)
Book 3: Betting on the Rookie (June 1, 2016)
Publisher: Harlequin Superromance
The series opens with a couple of prequel novellas. In
“Playing the Game” sports journalist Pete Wright is irate when the Minotaur
Falls Triple-A baseball team in rural New York is bought by Jocelyn Taft, a
billionaire businesswoman who, in the words of the team’s manager, Duff Baker,
“doesn’t know squat about the game.” But as he begins to teach her about the
game he loves, he finds something more important than baseball. He just has to
convince Jo that she can have a life in Minotaur Falls with him. This novella
also introduces Duff Baker, a Hall of Fame shortstop and legendary manager of
World Series-winning teams, who in his retirement is managing this minor league
team, and his three daughters. The story thread involving Lane Baker and Roy Walker
sets up the first novel in the series. The second novella, “Making the Play”
uses the occasion of Pete efforts to move Jo toward a wedding to tell part one
of the love story of Scout Baker and Jayson LeBec, a former baseball player
currently training as a scout. Their story continues in the second novel.
The Comeback of Roy
Walker begins five years later. Roy, who was then retiring from baseball a
wealthy man with an enviable reputation as a talented pitcher, is broke after
sinking his fortune in a video company that failed. At thirty-seven, an old man in baseball, he
is attempting a comeback for financial reasons. Knowing that the odds of
succeeding are slim, he needs the help of a physical
therapist to get into shape for his comeback. Lane, the middle Baker sister,
was much in demand as a sports therapist when Roy met her, but when Roy
engineered a public disclosure of her husband’s infidelity, Lane divorced her
husband, cut her professional ties with sports, and declared her hatred of Roy
Walker.
The call from her sister Scout saying Lane is needed at home
because of concerns about their father’s health comes just after Lane, burdened
with guilt after the suicide of one of her patients at the veterans’ rehab
facility where she has worked for the last five years, has quit her job. The
sisters agree that Lane will accept an invitation from her father to work with
a pitcher who needs to gradually work up to full speed. No one tells Lane that
the pitcher is her former friend Roy Walker. Lane is furious, but Roy hopes his
second chance a baseball will also prove to be a second chance with Lane.
Jayson agrees to replace Duff as manager of the Minotaur
Falls team only at Duff’s personal request. Jayson’s recovery from his breakup
with Scout has been long and painful. He knows the risk being around her poses
to his heart, but he can’t refuse his mentor. He finds being Scout’s friend,
protecting her from others and from herself, while challenging her to move on
with her life, even more difficult than he expected. Just when it looks as if
the romance has been rekindled, Scout and Jayson are faced with the choices
they confronted before. Will he go? Will she stay? Or can they find a
compromise that allows them to turn a second chance into a happily ever after?
The series concludes with Betting on the Rookie. This is the story of Samantha, the oldest
Baker sister, the one with a big surprise in her history. It picks up two years
after Duff’s death. Sam, lawyer and hotshot sports agents to super stars, has
retreated to Minotaur Falls after her career fell apart when she believed a
client’s lies and publicly supported a man caught on video physically abusing
his fiancée. No one believes that Sam wasn’t part of the coverup. She lost all her
clients except the liar, and she ended that relationship. But Sam is determined
to restart her career, and her sister Scout suggests a rising baseball star as
just the guy to provide the reboot.
Scout discovered Evan Tanner, a twenty-seven-year-old former
college football player who taught himself baseball in order to coach a high
school team. Scout’s belief in Evan cost her a job with the New England Rebels,
but Evan is proving Scout was right. He has just been traded to the Rebels and
is going to play for their minor league team, the Minotaurs, but the buzz is
that before the season is over he will be playing on the major league team.
Evan was attracted to Sam when they met two years ago, but
he has bought into the common belief and has no interest in being represented
by someone defended a guy who abused women. But Evan’s own instincts and a
little pressure from Scout have him reconsidering. As their professional
relationship begins, the sparks between them gain power. But when the cautious
Samantha starts to trust that Evan is the good guy he appears to be, his
college girlfriend shows up claiming that Evan is the father of her seven-year-old
son and that she needs a cut of Evan’s major league salary to pay for young
Connor’s medical bills. Sam has been burned twice—once personally and once professionally.
Can she take the risk, trust Evan, and put her heart on the line, or will the
Ice Princess win the day?
I admit that the last novel is my favorite because Evan is a
wonderful beta hero, the kind that most easily steals my heart, but I love the
full series. Doyle gives readers a sweeping look at the world of baseball, not
through the view of a young star player or a former star dealing with a
career-ending injury, the typical perspectives in sports romances but through
nine perspectives from all areas of the sport. And none is typical. For
example, the owner is a woman, the rising star is almost thirty, and the
injured player finds a satisfying new career in management. She also showcases
the connection between a minor league team and the town that loves and supports
“their team.” More important to the romance reader, Doyle offers four
variations of the second-chance-at-love trope and makes each of them a
compelling and rewarding read. Finally, she makes the love between siblings and
between parent and child a vivid, vital part of these stories.
If you are a baseball fan, a fan of sports romances
generally, or a fan of contemporary romance series that combine sizzle and
sentiment with a rare skill, I highly recommend you try Stephanie Doyle’s the
Bakers of Baseball. I ended my third reading of the series more in love with
this world and its characters than I was the first time I read the books.
