Recently widowed and now retired, Billy Bryan is "coming to the end of many things". Then a long-forgotten scrapbook stirs memories of a distant past -- and beckons him and his grown daughter on a reluctant journey to relive his role in history. In 1947 Billy Bryan is playing winter ball in Cuba, his future as uncertain as that island country's. Then one fateful night Bryan witnesses a young student radical named Fidel unleash an amazing curveball. So begins Billy's tug-of-war with destiny....

Tim Wendel is an award-winning writer whose articles and columns have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today. He teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University and is the author of The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite Sport. For more information on Tim Wendel, visit his Web site http://www.timwendel.com.