Customer Reviews

If I Never Get Back

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

what an awesome book! I was on the comp and my grandma had this book and she was showing it to my dad, saying she had only got it because me and my dad were like obsessed with baseball. He didnt want to read it and set it on the bed, which was where i picked it up. Dude! this was a good book! i'm only 13, and it was easy too read and a good story! Sorta like a history book...now i'm reading everything i can about the red socks undefeted season thing...why the heck is this book out of print?? it was awesome!

The story was tremendously appealing. Sam Fowler, a washed up reporter drinking his life away suddenly finds himself making a Twilight Zone-like leap into post Civil War America with the first professional baseball team, The Cincinnati Red Legs. Joining the team as a substitute player and assistant, he begins a roller coaster ride involving political scandal, organized crime and even a get rich scheme with Mark Twain! There's something for everybody in this novel and you'll find yourself unable to put it down. Every bit as good as Field of Dreams or The Natural.

"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 was having such a great time, I hoped he would never get back! Baseball, apple pie,old trains, wonderful colorful characters...and a refreshing look at historical America....enjoy!.....Laurie

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Baseball addicts, casual sports fans and non-sports fans alike will enjoy reading this highly entertaining work by author Darryl Brock. This has to be one of the best fictional sports books ever. It certainly is my favorite and one which I've enjoyed re-reading during spring training. The variant backdrops - time displacement, political conspiracy, historical characters, love affairs and, oh yes, baseball - will keep every reader totally engaged.

The basic story begins when protagonist Sam Fowler steps off a modern day Amtrak train and finds himself transported back into 1869 where he becomes involved with, amongst many other things, the legendary Cincinnati Red Stockings. But in this era baseball is in its infancy. The game, the rules and the players are not the same as today. Just how Fowler manages to cleverly integrate the modern game with its colorful past is but one of the many intriguing storylines in this wonderful novel. Throw in a couple of gamblers, treasonous villains and romantic love interests and you pretty much have something for everyone.

"If I Never Get Back" is a captivating fast-paced book that shouldn't disappoint any avid reader. It's no fluke that the vast majority of Amazon.com reviewers give it their 5-star rating. Highly recommended for a great summer read.

I've read this classic book four times, the only novel I've read more than once. Brock combines a fascinating account of baseball's infancy, a close-up look at special friendship and love, and a touch of adventure. The result is a remarkable book that is impossible to put down. Baseball has such a rich history, but most people know nothing about the game that existed prior to Babe Ruth. The fact is, however, that Brock used the history lesson on baseball simply as an avenue to tell the tale of Sam Fowler's discovery of himself. Mr. Brock, if you're out there, I would love to see this book reprinted. My copy is showing it's age.

Brock won me over with the many layers of his fine novel. I enjoyed baseball as it was played by "real people," and I'm not even a current day fan. I enjoyed the well-drawn characters as much as I delighted in the curiosities of 19th century America. I loved the "exotic" locales of Troy and Elmira and Cincinnati, as well as the more standard San Francisco and NYC of 1869---not the stuff of average tales, and all the better. But mostly I enjoyed the ending, because this was above all else a love story, the love of life and the love of a woman, and the ending has to carry it. I approached it as a reader, drawn along by events and circumstances, but Darryl Brock was wiser than that. He approached it as a writer who knew better. The more I think about it, the more I admire the author's skill in crafting it just so. It was perfect. My thanks to Amazon.com for making this "Out of Print" volume available through their excellent search service. And thanks to other online reviewers for bringing this book to my attention in the first place!

I picked this book up at my Mom's yard sale, and had a hard time putting it down. I've been to a few baseball games, so I can visualize the game, but I'm not a fan by any means. Still, I enjoyed the protagonist; he is a rough and tumble guy--very masculine, and it was fun inhabiting a man's world for a while. I mostly skipped over the details of the ball games, but enjoyed the glimpse of 19th century life. I was convinced he was there, I was even persuaded that Mark Twain would have talked and acted as he was described. I think the author did his homework. Very enjoyable and highly entertaining.