Guide to Baseball Novels: F
- Farrell, James T. Dreaming Baseball. Edited by Ron Briley, Margaret Davidson, and James Barbour. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2007. Scout for the White Sox hears of the death of his former teammate Buck Weaver, and relives the vexed 1918-20 seasons.
Drab chronicle of a novel. Abandoned by Farrell and left unpublished at his death, the draft manuscript has been painstakingly reworked by its three editors, but their careful job cannot salvage an interesting novel from the material. See my review for the Sport Literature Association.
- Feldman, Jay. Suitcase Sefton and the American Dream. Chicago: Triumph, 2006. Jaded scout for the Yankees stumbles upon a no-doubt prospect in the Arizona desert, and falls in love with the prospect's sister; the catch is that the prospect is Japanese-American, and pitches behind the barbed wire of an internment camp.
Pleasant historical novel that helps readers go vicariously into the past and imagine themselves, like Suitcase Sefton, acting much better than most Americans did at the time.
- Ferrell, David. Screwball. New York: Morrow, 2003. When the Red Sox go on road trips, a trail of headless bodies follows them . . .
Can't decide whether it wants to be manic comedy, thriller, or dark satire, and so falls between (at least) three stools.
- Forbes, DeLoris Stanton. One Man Died on Base. Unity, ME: Five Star, 2001. "This is Zack Amidon's story. Through the innings of a crucial game, Zack reflects on his life and how the people and events in it shaped him – and led inexorably to one horrific, irreversible moment."
- Fowler, Karen Joy. The Sweetheart Season. New York: Henry Holt, 1996. In the summer of 1947 in a cereal-mill town in the Midwest, the young women who work for the mill's patriarchal founder form a baseball team.
Very few baseball novels do as well in bringing a team of nine different personalities to life. A beautifully told, incisively feminist novel, The Sweetheart Season depends on its narrator--the star player's daughter--who brings to the story a sense of how different her world is 50 years later. 
Criticism: Sullivan
- Frank, Morry. Every Young Man's Dream. 1984. Chicago: Silverback, 2006. Life and loves of a minor-league infielder in the tumultuous 1960s and 70s.
- Freligh, Sarah. Sort of Gone. Cincinnati: Turning Point, 2008. Pitcher Al Stepansky rises from scrappy working-class Buffalo to become the toast of the major-leagues; the way back down is quicker but rougher.
First-rate verse novel, with sharp observations of both sport and private lives. Read more at lection.
- Friedman, Mark. Columbus Slaughters Braves. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. The brother of a star ballplayer tracks his brother's glorious, doomed career with emotions that veer from envy to compassion.
The perspective of the narrator gives Friedman the chance to create some original scenes, the best being a surreal vision of the city of Cincinnati. About halfway through, however, the story lands in extremely familiar territory.
- Fromm, Pete. How All This Started. New York: Picador USA, 2000. A West Texas high-school pitcher is mentored toward stardom by his bipolar elder sister.
This is a plot direction we haven't seen before. It is similar to many a Young Adult fiction, but with a gender twist and some local color.
