The Perfect Rookie

THE PERFECT ROOKIE is the fourth novel in the George Grant Series. George was struck by lightning as a teenager. The doctors said the tingles in his arms and hands would fade away as he recovered. That was almost 40 years ago. He's 55 and still has them.

The tingles were initially known to his family, a few close friends and the doctors who examined him. Now only his wife Marcy, his brother Roy and Roy's wife Sally know about them. Marcy has always been able to sense and feel them in George's arms and hands. He doesn't understand how she can. No one else, not even the doctors, could do that.

When he's excited the tingles race through his arms and hands and he feels much stronger. He has phenomenal speed and accuracy when pitching a baseball and rarely throws anything but strikes. A strange result of the lightning strike is George sees baseballs moving through the air like they are in slow motion. Nothing else about his vision is affected. He can get a hit every time he bats.

George wanted to be a professional baseball pitcher but had to forego that dream to run the family farm. His chance to play professional ball finally came when he was 54 years old and he led the team to the World Series Championship. Then he retired to return to farming.

When George retired he committed to be at the next spring training in the Cactus League in Phoenix. He would coach a rookie pitcher who had been struck by lightning and had tingles in his arms and hands that didn't go away like the doctors predicted.

Under George's tutorage Bo Bowman becomes a pitching and hitting wonder. Early in the regular season George helps the team when the pitching coach suffers a broken leg. Then, late in the season George is again called on to help when two starting pitchers are hurt in a car accident and cannot play for the rest of the year.

What happens with Bo and George pitching and hitting for the team is beyond the wildest expectations of the team's owner, the players and all the teams they play against.