Stealing Home

A Father, a Son, and the Road to the Perfect Game

"Five Stars. So much more than a memoir. It’s a grand road trip story as well as a real-life family saga--and at its heart, a consummate baseball story." — Jack Magnus, Reader's Favorite

The rarest outcome in sports is baseball’s perfect game. One team does everything right, forcing the other team to accomplish nothing. In 150 years of baseball, there have only been 23. Perfect is nearly impossible. As a divorced dad, Ron was trying to redeem his fatherhood with a baseball road trip with his Little League son Nicky. Their odyssey of nine games in eleven days, crossing eight states in a rented convertible, was supposed to salvage Ron’s life as an unsure father. One sign of salvation came unbidden in an unscheduled tenth game.

The adventures and revelations of the road led to a deeper reckoning of how Ron’s father had failed enough at fatherhood to take his own life. Thousands of miles and dozens of innings delivered a discovery: a drive toward perfect fatherhood has a destination that cannot be found on any map.

Seybold does a fantastic job of integrating experiences with his own father and their connections through baseball--very different scenarios than those he more mindfully cultivates with his son. It will especially appeal to male readers seeking enlightenment and ideas for their own approaches to fatherhood." - D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review