Stealing Home: A Father, a Son, and the Road to the Perfect Game

"Tenderly poignant, wise and affecting." Kirkus

In an epic road trip with his Little League son, a divorced dad's eight-ballpark journey tries to rescue his fatherhood – and learn how his dad's suicide might not doom him to repeat a father's mistakes.

The rarest outcome in sports is baseball's perfect game. One team does everything right, forcing the other to accomplish nothing. In 150 years of baseball, there have only been 23. Perfect is nearly impossible. As a divorced dad, Ron was trying to redeem his fatherhood with a road trip with his son. Their odyssey of crossing eight states in a rented convertible was supposed to salvage Ron's life as an unsure father. Custody fatherhood demoted him to the second team – he was certain of that. One sign of salvation came unbidden in an unscheduled tenth ballgame.

The adventures and revelations of the road lead to a deeper reckoning of how a father could fail enough at fatherhood to take his own life. Thousands of miles and dozens of innings deliver a discovery: a drive toward perfect fatherhood has a destination that cannot be found on any map.

"Authentic, emotional, and brave, this is a timeless journey of the universal struggle to rise above the past. Stealing Home is a beautiful testament to the power of a father's love." - Claire Ashby, New York Times best-selling author of When You Make It Home

"Part baseball, part fatherhood, and all boyhood, Stealing Home plays out the mystery of love and family. The magic lies in the storytelling that travels the road to something perfect." - Donna Johnson, author of Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir

© 2020 Skin Horse Press (Audiobook): 9780985006792

Release date

Audiobook: 11 March 2020