Book signing at IE 66ers Game/San Manuel Stadium

On September 7, I appeared at what was supposed to be the Inland Empire 66ers’ penultimate game of the 2024 season (it wound up the season finale after “wet grounds” forced the Sunday affair to be canceled), a Saturday night game against the Lake Elsinore Storm. My girlfriend, Puneet, and I set up a booth in the concourse, just about 50 feet to the left of the main entrance. Despite the let’s just say “elevated” temperatures, we had a great time interacting with fans and selling some books. Everyone was friendly and interesting, but the highlight may have been one young fan named Ezekiel (easily) convincing his grandmother to get a copy. He admitted that he didn’t read much and said it was largely because he had to be interested and inspired in order to sit down and do it; this story, he said, made him want to read, something that was really nice to hear. Also memorably, we left a copy for Christe Chavez, the daughter of Tony Barnette’s former teammate Jesse Chavez.

A microcosm of the 66ers’ unfortunate season, they would lose the game, actually falling despite one-hitting the Storm; they recorded eight hits to Lake Elsinore’s one, yet wound up losing 3-2, six walks in the sixth and seventh innings leading to their demise. Despite the result on the field, we loved our experience and would be happy to come back next season.

Earlier in the day, we stopped by the Redlands Barnes & Noble located in the Citrus Plaza Shopping Center. There, I signed three hardcover copies for prospective readers visiting the store. Pictured at the very bottom, it was merely a coincidence that I was wearing Heat shorts on an afternoon well north of 100 degrees.

Book signing and presentation at The Open Book Topanga

On Saturday, September 21, 2024, The Open Book Topanga, a used book store located on the second floor of The (Topanga) Village outdoor mall, hosted me for a book presentation and ensuing signing. The presentation featured a rundown of a few relevant topics, a reading of excerpts and a closing Q&A. This was an excellent experience. Thank you to The Open Book and everyone who attended for making it a special afternoon.

Sports Overnight America Interview w/ Fred Wallin

I joined Fred Wallin and co-hosts Laura Snoke & Art Sorce for a spirited 15-minute discussion that begins at the 24:23 mark.

The Origins of the Book

Let’s start at the beginning. How’d this project, my first book, actually come to be? I’d be honored to share with you the serendipitous sequence of events that set it into motion.

Back in the spring of 2008, I was a freshman at UC Davis, just starting out in sports journalism. At the time, I hadn’t yet begun to participate in broadcasting for the campus radio station, KDVS. I was, however, contributing to a small, independently run website called Davis Sports Deli (Fun fact: My first-ever published piece of sports writing, was a 2007 NBA Mock Draft for DSD that I submitted that June. … And yes, I did have Greg Oden going No. 1. What? So did everyone else, and he did go first overall.). For the site, I concocted a college football bowl season series, for which my brother, who was in DC attending George Washington University, and I collaborated. As our Winter Breaks approached and unfolded, we took pleasure in trying to interview as many key players as we could, preferably at least one participant before each and every bowl game.

When spring rolled around, I decided to reach out to particular starting pitchers to blog (biweekly, I believe; the once-every-two-weeks kind) for the site. I chose Tony Barnette, whom the forthcoming book is centered around, and a handful of other Double-A pitchers, purely because they’d posted impressive K-per-9 and K:BB ratios over a decent number of innings. Double-A may seem like an arbitrary level, but the reasoning went this way: These guys were ascending up the minor league ladder, yet not so far advanced that they’d be less likely to ignore my request. Long story short, not one pitcher agreed to an interview – most didn’t even respond – with one exception: Tony Barnette. He was an innings-eater in the Diamondbacks organization for the Mobile BayBears of the Southern League. I got lucky. Not only would Tony stay consistent and timely with his blog entries, but he was also hilarious, opinionated, charismatic, quirky, brutally honest and just plain interesting.

As we kept in touch over the years, the Arizona State alumnus’ story became increasingly fascinating. It was in late 2009, not much more than a year and a half after we first “met,” that Tony was persuaded by the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and his soon-to-be agent, the legendary Don Nomura, to leave North America at age 26, just as he stood at the doorstep of achieving his lifelong dream of playing in the major leagues. Japan, specifically the Swallows, was offering the young pitcher a chance to increase his salary dramatically, a chance to develop his skills on the mound, and, possibly most exciting but not as much on his mind at the moment, an opportunity to experience a completely new language and culture in a land where baseball could, on occasion, be treated as a religious experience. Naturally, we asked Tony to blog about his funniest and most memorable experiences in Tokyo, and man, did he deliver! He skillfully blogged about many amazing, fascinating topics, but certainly the most poignant post recounted his experiences on the day of March 11, 2011, when the devastating earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster infamously struck northeastern Japan.    

Around this time, ahead of Tony’s second Japanese season, Yakult converted him into a relief pitcher, which in retrospect seems to have saved his career. While in grad school at USC, as part of a project for an Advanced Sports Writing class and a Magazine Writing class, I conducted interviews with Tony, his girlfriend, Hillary, his mentor and former teammate, Aaron Guiel, his interpreter and friend, Go Fujisawa, and other key figures from his story. So I produced two Tony Barnette stories of varying lengths for school, but these were purposely never published. Tony’s career turnaround as well as his growth as a person on and off the field were impressive and worth writing about. With that said, I don’t believe his story would have been marketable in the U.S. had he not been signed by the Texas Rangers in late 2015 and shortly thereafter fulfilled his lifelong dream of pitching in the big leagues. What’s more, in Arlington, he performed quite effectively as a 32-year-old rookie while his team finished with the best record in the American League.

Anyway, a couple months after Tony signed with the Rangers, I reached out, asking if he would like to turn this thing into a book (By then, we’d known each for nearly eight years.). He enthusiastically agreed. We were confident it was a tale worth telling, and I felt good about the likelihood of a North American publisher agreeing with our assessment. Ultimately and fortunately, that turned out to be the case. This exhilarating true story centered around Tony Barnette is set to be released in hardcover form on June 18, 2024.

*Feel free to contact me directly (via email at aaronfischman519@gmail.com or text) for more information on how to pre-order from me. Check back here for more content coming soon, and thanks for your interest and/or support.  

The book is also available for pre-order on Indiebound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and wherever else books are sold.

Life Lessons

Panel of Kings communicate hope

As we welcome in the month of October, hope springs eternal (at least publicly) for every single NBA team. The Lakers and Heat have precisely the same spotless record as the Timberwolves and Nets. So do the Kings. Last Thursday, the Kings not only shared their hope for the upcoming season, but also had the opportunity to display an insightful panel discussion, concerning their hope for our nation’s future.

Yes, the discussion centered around kids, and, more specifically, how to foster winning as well as healthy competition in society’s youth athletes. In order to make this event a smashing success, the Kings partnered with the Positive Coaching Alliance and Leadership One.