Rapid Dreams

It's the summer of 1957 and a small Western city is thrilled with its new ballpark and its new team - the Rapid City Chiefs -- a motley collection of highly touted collegians dreaming of Big League stardom, and ex-pros, salty veterans, hoping for one last shot at the 'Show.'By their exploits on the ballfield and pursuit of the Basin League crown, the Chiefs unite the community in a kind of baseball fever. But their amorous involvements off the field threaten to tear asunder three...
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It's the summer of 1957 and a small Western city is thrilled with its new ballpark and its new team - the Rapid City Chiefs -- a motley collection of highly touted collegians dreaming of Big League stardom, and ex-pros, salty veterans, hoping for one last shot at the 'Show.'By their exploits on the ballfield and pursuit of the Basin League crown, the Chiefs unite the community in a kind of baseball fever. But their amorous involvements off the field threaten to tear asunder three local families at the heart of the story--one white, one Black, and one half-Jewish. Familial and marital bonds are put to the test, friendships formed and challenged, and racial prejudice and anti-Semitism revealed, as the team travels the state in pursuit of the League Championship.Two ballplayers have principal roles in the novel: one, a Brooklyn-born Jewish pitcher from Columbia University; the other, a veteran catcher from the Negro Leagues, now a B-52 mechanic at the nearby airbase. Following the ballplayers on their team bus and in their daily contacts with the community, Rapid Dreams explores life in a changing America grappling with the racial, religious, and social tensions of the 1950's. The novel also draws on historical events and features cameos by Groucho Marx, South Dakota favorite sons George McGovern and Tom Brokaw, members of the Jewish mafia of that time , and nine collegians that season who went on to star in the Major Leagues. Rapid Dreams is part road trip, part bromance, part baseball ode from two writers with decades of playing, coaching, and observing the sport.And, unlike most baseball novels, the women in the story--wives, daughters and girlfriends--have life-altering journeys of their own. For lovers of baseball and baseball history, including that of the Negro Leagues and the Cuban winter league, and for students of midcentury American culture and mores, Rapid Dreamsis an enthralling saga of family crisis, racial and religious prejudice, sexual discovery,and the transformative power of dreams.