If I Never Get Back

I really enjoy baseball and it is one of the few sports that I casually follow and might enjoy watching a game or two of. I also love historical fiction and time travel. Put them all together and what have you got? A book I'll love!

Sam is a newspaper reporter down on his luck. His marriage is over, his kids barely see him, and he drinks too much. On an Amtrak ride, he hits his head and comes to in 1869. He makes friends with the Cincinnati Red Stockings and follows them around during their unbeatable 1869 season. The beginning started out hard since there were a lot of names to learn and arcane baseball rules that didn't make sense, but after about 30 pages in, I got into the swing of things and really started to enjoy it.

The book has a show more fair amount of intrigue - spies, mysteries, and conspiracies, and there is a romance, so if baseball isn't your thing, there is enough of the other aspects to hold your attention a bit. By the middle of the book, the pace had picked up enough that it was hard for me to put the book down. show less

OK. If you buy the premise that a down on his luck newspaper writer, taking a train to Cleveland, wakes up at a station in 1869 - 130 years earlier, you will enjoy this work! He makes acquaintance with, befriends and finally accompanies pro baseball's original team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings through their undefeated inaugural 1869 season. It rings true to the records of the time and offers fascinating eye witness account of events. But beyond that, the adventures are fast and furious and mostly believable. However, some are not. This stopped me from rating this 5 stars instead of 4. Enjoyable, fast paced and recommended for folks who enjoy a good novel that includes baseball, time travel and post Civil War America.

A superbly researched book, I give the author 5 stars in his research on the history of baseball and life in the 19th century. Although the story failed to grab my full attention I loved the concept within the plot. A man whose life has taken a drastic turn for the worse with a divorce, etc miraculously travels back in time where he finds himself again.

The bulk of the story is about the protagonist's life in the 19th century and the people there that become his friends, oh ya, plenty of Baseball, you really feel like your living back in time experiencing life as it was.

If you love baseball and enthralled about the early days of baseball read this book. The story didn't move that fast for me with too much detail between the lines I show more just wasn't as enthralled as much with it to give it more than 2 stars. Maybe 2.5 but seeing I skimmed most of the book it can't be much higher for me. show less

I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. It is a great time-travel book as well as an intriquing and engaging way to write historical fiction as adventure.

Group read in Time Travel

2/3 through. Sam is implausibly talented, lucky, brave, clever... ugh. Marty Stu.
All the research Brock did isn't making me like the story or the characters.
The plot is non-existent.. there's some sort of mystery, but it feels like it's building to something I'm going to find to be totally anti-climactic....
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Done. Glad I can check with the group - the ending was so abrupt I'm not even sure I understand it. Def. lame. If you have a keen interest in 1869 baseball, or a very keen interest in general history of 1869 and trust Brock (who taught history), you might want to read this. I'm just glad I'm finally done with it... it took me a relatively long time because I could never immerse myself in show more it; I never felt engaged. show less

This is just embarrassing author wish fulfillment - gets sent back in time, becomes a player on the best baseball team in the country, gets the girl, etc.

3440. If I Never Get Back: A Novel, by Darryl Brock (read May 3, 2001) This is a book published first in 1989, and is laid in 1869 and seems authentic as to early baseball, and the first pro team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The device of having the "I" character be of the present day but living in 1869 I found somewhat annoying and fantastic. As I read this I was underimpressed, but at the end I concluded it could have been worse. Immoral behavior by the supposed hero did not aid the book, though one I suppose could say he was hallucinating all the while.