A Baseball Prospect

On this week's show, Bill Littlefield, host of NPR's sports magazine show Only a Game, spoke about his new book "Prospect," a novel about baseball and hope.

The book's main character, Pete Estey, is a lifelong baseball scout, who finds himself divorced, retired, and prematurely consigned to a retirement home, where his only diversions are the nightly baseball games on the radio, his memories, and his droll observations of his fellow pensioners. But, when an attendant at the retirement home presents him with one last prospect for the major leagues, Pete discovers it to be the most important of his career.

Littlefield read excerpts from the book, spoke about the book's main character, the sport of baseball, and what inspired him to write this novel.