20 million men and women in this country play softball. on the surface, the softball game is about men and their need for battles. aggression is as coded in our dna as is our need to reproduce. it is a fun game with laughs recalled from years playing softball. the old storyteller is reluctant to do battle. he tells the confrontation in the first person singular, episode by episode. the game is a tribal struggle played by redneck, bad guys and middle class, semi-affluent, anti-heroes. coming to the rescue is beth - - a woman! beth reduces the male struggle to a farce. the driving timbre is the storyteller’s experiences with three females whose lives are indirectly, obliquely, and directly affected by his wars at softball. the softball game is about these women. phaedra literally hands the young warrior his first sexual experience. entering the “man world” still a child, he meets bridgette his playtoy. she is a transition to adulthood and the paragon of summer love. playing at sex with adult bodies and a child’s maturity, they both lose. then comes beth. if you read one chapter, it should be 11. there has never been a hero like her.