Guide to Baseball Novels: N
"Best described as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime meets The Natural," according to the flap copy.
- Nemo, John. The King's Game. n.p.: www.johnnemobooks.com, 2006. A veteran pitcher competes in a key game, with his life history told in counterpoint.
Of the same general family as For Love of the Game.
- Neugeboren, Jay. Sam's Legacy. New York: Holt, 1974. A small-time Brooklyn gambler finds his life intertwined with the memoirs of a former Negro League pitcher.
A static novel that never generates any plot momentum. It's notable as an attempt to draw fiction out of Negro League experience, but the memoir sections tend to focus not on the black players but on a bizarre obsession with Babe Ruth.
- Newlin, Paul. It Had to Be a Woman. New York: Stein and Day, 1979. Dark night of the soul for middle-aged fan, abandoned by his wife, obsessed with the suicide of Willard Hershberger.
Vigorously unpleasant.
Routinely plotted mystery with minute local Houston detail.
- Norman, Rick. Fielder's Choice. Little Rock: August House, 1991. A pitcher tells the story of his rise to major-league infamy and of his sufferings--inflicted both in a WWII prison camp and by his own family.
Colorful yarn with a strong ear for dialect. 
