"When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she's ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she's been prescribed can help her get there. The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good. With a new circle of friends--fellow injured athletes, others with just time to...

"In baseball there are superstars and stars and everyday players and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players and specialists and journeymen and then there are the backup catchers. The Tao of the Backup Catcher is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster and the end of the bench and between the numbers in a sport-and a society-increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics." -- inside front jacket flap. "This...

""The best all-around catcher in black baseball history"--Cumberland Posey, Owner of the Homestead Grays National Baseball Hall of Fame catcher James Raleigh "Biz" Mackey's professional career spanned nearly three decades in the Negro Leagues and elsewhere. He distinguished himself as a defensive catcher who also had an impressive batting average and later worked as a manager of the Newark Eagles and the Baltimore Elite Giants. Using archival materials...

Mudders' catcher Rudy Calhoun is having a bad season behind the plate until, at a yard sale, he buys a used catcher's mask that greatly improves his playing.

An unlikely friendship ignites between two baseball players. One is the team's ace pitcher and social charmer; the other is the catcher, a farm boy from Georgia who lacks sophistication. During their last season together, the two men grow in manhood and respect for themselves and each other.