If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

Book Overview

Sam Fowler is taking a modern-day Amtrak home to San Francisco when an unscheduled stop somewhere west of Cleveland gives him the opportunity to stretch his legs. Instead, Sam finds that time has stretched and mysteriously transported him back to 1869. Bewildered at first, Sam soon meets up with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first all-professional team, and begins to ride the rails with them on their first national tour across post-Civil...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517573458
• ISBN13: 9780517573457
• Release Date: December 1989
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Won't be reading the sequel....

I never write book reviews, but this book was just THAT disappointing. The only bright side, as a baseball fan, I can give one star for the details about the 1869 Cincinnati ball club. Beyond that... it's one far-fetched adventure after another, following quite possibly the least likable character in any book that I have read. The book could be about 100 pages shorter, with the elimination of several pointless absurd tangents... instead it rambles and wanders, and follows the invincibility of bulletproof Sam, who still manages to come off as a weak, drunk, deadbeat dad that is desperate for attention, and even distant female relatives will do... If you like baseball, and you get it for $4, you can endure the rest.

The Boys Of Summer...Summer Of 1869 That Is....

"If I Never Get Back" by Darryl Brock has something enjoyable for everybody. It's a historical novel with adventure,danger,action,humor,fantasy and romance, but will be especially loved by those who love time travel and baseball(and train enthusiasts as well). You'll go back in time and escape to a time with no electricity,phones, credit cards, TV, radio or cars, but in the just post civil war era of 1869, there was our National Pastime - Baseball. Sam Fowler does not start out as the most likeable character. He's a drinker,has a bit of an anger management problem, and is brooding over the separation from his beloved little girls due to a messy divorce. On top of that he has just been notified of the death of his own absentee father(no great loss to Sam) but has the dubious job of burying him. The boozing had led Sam to "milky" periods where things are just not quite in focus. While at the train station on his way back from dealing with his father, he is having one of his episodes and falls into unconsciousness. He awakes on the same platform but things are quite different. He hops the train - some old classic - and finds himself aboard with one of the first pro ball teams - The Cincinnati Red Stockings. Not knowing at first, if he is hallucinating or just having a bad day, he eventually comes to realize he has somehow gone back in time and forms a relationship with the team. He travels with this extraordinary group of young men and becomes a big part of their world.On his transcontinental travels- using the early RR system, horse and buggys, etc)there is one adventure after another. He falls in love with a woman he feels a deep connection, gets in hot water with some real toughs who are after him throughout, befriends the great Mark Twain, has a spiritual connection with an apparition,and plays baseball 19th century style - a might rougher and faster then today's version of the game. He's even involved in a shoot out in a poker game in a western saloon! While searching for the reason he is there(an enjoying the change of pace quite a bit), he becomes a new man. One we can't help but cheer for as his life is in danger at so many turns. The book is a page turner. You can't help but become attached to Sam and the boys. Brock puts you right there in the 19th century, with remarkable detail of each city,the trains,food,clothes,dress,etc and through Sam we are living the life of someone who has gone back over a hundred years(this book was published in 1990, so there are even more differences now!).The Civil War plays a small but integral part of the story too. And then there is Baseball - we are treated to a real look at how the game was played, and feel the intensity with which they played.Even then, the game was popular and the players heroes. But think of never seeing them play unless you were fortunate enough to actually be at a game. Also available in hardcoverIF I NEVER GET BACK. A Novel. check for best deal and availability I for one

Perceptive, well-written time-travel baseball novel

Darryl Brock has hit a home run with this well-crafted time-travel novel that revisits the early years of baseball in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Brock is transported from contemporary San Francisco to 1869, where he encounters the first great professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The resulting story is engrossing and is chock full of information and lore concerning the early years of our national pastime. As a bonus, Brock writes perceptively about social and cultural customs and attitudes from this earlier time, and this renders *If I Never Get Back* more than just another baseball yarn. The romantic aspect of the story borders on the corny at times, but within the context of the overall novel a bit of schmaltz is certainly forgivable. All baseball fans with an interest both in good reading and the history of the game will enjoy this book.

Great Time Travel Book for Baseball Lovers

Is this science fiction? It is science fiction in that If I Never Get Back is a time travel book like you have never read before. This book takes Sam Fowler from modern San Francisco back to the early days of baseball (post-Civil War) and the newly formed Cincinnati Red Stockings. What makes this book so interesting is the description of how baseball was played in 1869 - so different than what it is today even as to the way pitchers pitched.Sam Fowler begins riding the rails with the fledgling Cincinnati Red Stockings and their trip around the U.S. to play other early baseball teams. It also goes into the atmosphere of the time, as in the description when the team played in New York City in a park that now is no more in these modern times.Ah, but then it is also a love story. But is it unrequited love? Is it a lost love? And does Sam ever find her again? Great baseball book and would make a great movie also.

If I Only Read One Baseball Story/This Would Be It !

Darryl Brock's " If I Never Get Back " acount of a young sportswriter who through incredible stress goes somehow back in time is without question one of the best stories I ever read .Each chapter mixes fact with delightful fiction . From the song "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" to the first baseball stadium hot dog you are rooting for Brock's characters.Imagine if you could go back in time and positively direct the game you love while finding at the same time a woman with great love and affection who's willing to share her life with you.Yet there is a background dilemma that involves the 'present'.I'm reading this book and trying to figure out if Brock's character should "walk back" to the present or remain in the past ? Brock guides you throughout the pages and decides on a heart rendering ending . My brother ,father and I read this book 10 years ago and still talk about it . If you like baseball; I don't mean the 2000 version of spoiled millionaires but the truly great players before " out of control " free agency then you will love this book; placing it in a first rate position on your shelf. Mr. Brock you need to do a reprinting .This deserves to be a best seller, and now with 252 million dollar contracts it's worth the read.It would also be a tribute to those who played for the love of the game. Chuck Hurley budlaurie@aol.com

My favorite baseball novel.

My baseball loving wife bought me this book and for years it sat on my shelf. Finally I picked it up and was enamored with it. It rekindled my love of old time baseball. I thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of George & Harry Wright along with the rest of the original Cinc. Reds. I also loved the plot line about Mark Twain and the Fenians. A few years after I read the book I visited Cooperstown and on the top floor was the very same picture of the Reds that was on the cover of the book. I had to then reread the book and enjoyed just as much. I wish brock would write another.