All Comments on 'Throwing Strikes'

Fun story!

5

I enjoyed the story, even though I haven’t the faintest idea about baseball. I’m not belittling the game but it isn’t played in the UK. Sloan goes to Sanford to do engineering and ends up in neuroscience- that’s quite a jump. Clever girl 👍

Nice

Roy Hobbs has been reincarnated in 21st Century Texas. An enjoyable fantastical story. Thank you very much.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Enjoyable tale. Nice to get a vicarious hit of Texas from your story. And yes, Tommy John surgery does have that “When Harry Met Sally” mystique to it, with healthy pitchers allegedly saying, “I’ll have what he’s having.” 5*

I see you there at the end, nerd! Great story.

Great story! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

They need to find a better clinic for testing. That one gets blown up a lot.

Great story,OK123! Loved it. Loved the X-movie reference too!

Love a great Baseball story. It being in Texas all the better. It would have been perfect had he played for the Astros. (Just kidding, great yarn!)

Fun story. Very much enjoyed it

Great story!

A nice fictional story; well written and fun to read. Of course the concept of someone throwing a baseball 118 mph is insane and the idea that someone could go to medical school and pitch in the MLB at the same time is more science fiction than a Martian landing on earth, but heh -- this is fiction, so just roll with it and enjoy.

What a nice fun romp where our hero leads a near perfice life. If only .....

Very nice read. 5 stars

If only they had a baseball category

What a wonderful story! Great writing!

5 stars....

Well told! A bit hard to believe med school and a pro ball career at the same time, but if a 116mph fastball is possible? Why not? Enjoyed the read. Thanks for sharing.

Good little story.

There are some nice parts and good writing, but you should dial back some of the details because they stretch believability far beyond the breaking point. 118 MPH??? And medical school is a beyond-full time "job", there is no way it could be combined with a baseball career; a PhD could be, because it's a lot more flexible (see: John Urschel), but not an MD. Also, as far as I know, college baseball players aren't, and can't be, free agents so he's only signing with the team that drafts him (certainly #1) and for far, far less than $100M - actually about $8-9M for 4 years.

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He also should have gone to Stanford. UT is solid academically, sure, but in addition to the chance to be with his girlfriend, Stanford also has a pretty good baseball program and academically there aren't many schools in the same galaxy.

Really enjoyed it, nice little story. It would have been interesting to hear what his life was like being a doctor in a hospital whilst being a very rich star althelte.

Well told - loved this tale.

Thoroughly enjoyable read. Technically correct as well as an engrossing storyline. Thank you.

Well done. Interlacing the two stories worked very well. 5!

Love the X-men reference. Except the adamantium procedure was done (fictitiously) in Canada. lol

Awesome read. 5 from me

Very good - although the last paragraph flew right over my head, as I’m sure it blew right by most of the baseball geeks who enjoyed this story.

Great story 5⭐

As a former pitcher and doctor, I know there is no way one could be a major league pitcher and full time medical student simultaneously. Medical school is itself a 60 - 80 hour a week job. Spring Training? No way. But this is fiction, and I loved it. What fun. Thanks for the story, and thanks for getting Mom & Dad back together. People make mistakes. To forgive is Devine. 5*****

Yeah... I also had to give this one 5 stars, even though there are several logic 'holes' in it...

...it was a fun read, in the "all's well that ends well !" category of LW stories.

Nicely done.

The main characters (Sloan and Lee) are very close to touching super hero tropes... Still entertaining.

Got an extra, honorary point for the X Mansion reference. Makes it 6 from me. Thanks, it's late and I needed the laugh.

Love baseball stories. Thank you!

Fanciful and well told bullshit. I’d normally overlook the unrealistic fantasy portion of a story because it’s.. a fictional story, and thus, fiction. But, when the writer allows such a massive continuity flaw to be published, I lose respect. Engineering and neuroscience are as far apart as Gandalf and Steve Jobs.

Oh a RAAC.

First of Offkilter123s stories that I thought was crap. Baseball way too overdone. Father took the slut back. More saccharine than a hallmark card.

An easy-reading fantasy

Great story, except it would literally be impossible to attend med school while playing for a major or minor league sports team. It just doesn’t work like that, especially during third and fourth year rotations.

What the heck this was just baseball commentary with a little bit of loving wives here and there.

That was by far the most riveting and perfectly executed baseball scene that I ever read. The pitch counter was brilliant. I played basketball but cried right along side my mom when the Sox ended the curse in 2004.

Truly, that was spectacular.

That last sentence makes me smile. I hear the head researcher has a hard time getting around but is brilliant and always seems to know what your thinking.

Loved it

Ted was a fool to get back together with Carol.

Reconciliation is always a terrible mistake with zero exceptions.

I loved this loving wives story, but I am puzzled about the clinic im New York. What gives?

Oh. Five stars.

JPB NOT BOB

The Sidd Finch side story!

Really good enjoyed.

Fun story to read and the parents resolution even worked somehow. Also liked the girlfriend knew what she had and wasn't going to risk it while apart at school. Five stars!

An extra star being a lifelong fan of that small private boarding school in upstate NY.

This story is a home run! 5 Stars.

4*

Lots of baseball minutia I browsed over. I'd be more interested in reading how Sloan and Lee made it work while separated for long periods of time. Their relationship seems too perfect. No temptations? Second thoughts?

18 to 24 months is tommy john recovery period these days for MLB. 11 months is impossible as ligament is not healed. Being cleared at 10 months, likewise impossible. Decent story except for baseball parts.

Bit too fairy-tale'ish but nice reconciliation anyway

Well bluefox007 , i not meaning to be rude but seems to me there is an NFL guy who did it not to long ago, forget who but the tv announcers were blabing about him, otherthan that I’d tend to agree with you on it being unlikely for a average human being.

A very enjoyable read, well done. 5*****

3 stars - WRONG CATEGORY - should be in NON-EROTIC.

BASEBALL is right up there on the boring meter beside courtroom drama, or watching paint dry, or GOLF.

You lost two stars just because you chose to write a boring story about baseball.

116 MPH, Seriously?

The only thing more unbelievable was for Ted taking his wife back.

The way you portrait him he would always have a mental image of his wife fucking the sleeseball in his marital bed. And that would deflate his dick faster than a hot needle would air balloon.

"This is not a BTB story. If that bothers you, please skip this story." - I have no problem with a story not being BTB,as long as the ending makes sense. I AM bothered by RAAC, because by their very nature they CSN'T make sense.

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"The batter got a hit off of Lee's first pitch; a slider." - Making contact with the ball for an easy out isn't a hit.

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We don't really need a play-by-play, pitch-by-pitcj description of the game.

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Why would the restraining order keep him away from his son? Surely he's no threat to his son?

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"It was so that an insecure, vain, selfish woman could prove to herself that she still 'had it'." - Why does it matter? Will it affect her life one way or the other if she "has it" or not?

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Several no-hitters and three perfect games, and nobody feared him?

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I don't think someone who has only played college ball, no matter how well, and won't be 100% committed to baseball is going to get a $100,000,000 contract.

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I was about to criticize you repeating him crashing his father's party, thought it was a goof-up, until I saw that it was his mother!

Loved the story. Although, the comic book nerd in me feels the need to point out that adamantium is poisonous to humans and should not be used in any surgery, unless the patient has a mutant healing factor.

another nice story! I played baseball all my life, while I wasn't a superstar I did have 2 really good years which coincided with my 2 best years playing hockey. something about my physical peak maybe, who knows? I did end up having TJ surgery a bit later in life but it didn't have anything to do with sports, the "Government Job" I ended up with was the source of the problem. probably would make a good story for here. who knows, when I get some time I'll give it a long thought. cheers-TR

OP is one of the up-and-coming writers on this site with true talent. That he's a Texan and a baseball dude, are plusses, even considering he's given us hints that he like da' TU and Arlington Rags. Nobody can be perfect or completely congruent, which shows in his writing. One of the absolute banes of this category is that most of the betrayed males are what the film industry calls "Mary Sue," or in the case of males, "Gary Stu." These are simply characters who are perfect in every respect. A real fictional character needs to have some flaws, contradictions, bad habits... you get the idea. That's because fiction is all based on the Heroic Struggle, where MC confronts, fights, and overcomes, and in the process, grows, evolves, and matures. This story is full of that struggle. This story is good fiction yet still meets the LW category criteria.

*

Better still, this writer works to eschew the tired, worn-out, over-used clichés of most LW stories. Sure, the category dictates some of these clichés and tropes because of the category definition, but too many LW stories are A-to-Zed the same damn story. He folds them in subtly so they fit nicely inside the overall storyline.

*

This story is one of the best I have read in a long time. The baseball was realistic, as was the dialogue. No preaching, whining, and long, rambling passive-aggressive confrontations. This is five stars-plus.

One thing that bothered me was the 105-118 mph fast balls. Pretty much Imposible for somebody not endowed with super upper body and lower body strength. Aroldis Chapman, who had 205 mph range fast alls is a large and strong man.

Six foot four And 215 pounds, actually. No average size high school kid could throw 205 mph. 200 MPH is pretty unlikely. (Reminds me of the movie Rookie of the Year, actually.)

But still, it's a five star story.

JPB NOT BOB

Really enjoyed, maybe closer to reality in baseball statistics during college and pro. The exaggeration of his quality pitching is on par with alien intervention.....

While I thoroughly enjoyed the story, you made Lee way too much of a Superman baseball player and it robbed the story of a lot of reality. Seriously — you didn’t have to give him the ability to pitch 115 MPH to make him a superstar….just averaging 100:would have done the trick. Giving him outlandish pitching abilities turned that part of tne story into a joke.

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As well…the Lee and Sloan relationship was just way too perfect. Sickeningly so.

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The Ted and Carol story was pretty good….I don’t think he takes her back without having that long term fuckfest with the other blonde. At same time, I don’t see Carol not dating at all after the divorce.

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Adding it all up…a solid 4 **** read……that could have been a 5 with an injection of reality in several places.

Great story, but I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I t never did. EXCELLENT!! I like it when you can fool me once, etc., etc. But only 6 stars, because you know who is still walking around upright. ( Isn't he)) Maybe not. It is, after all, TEXAS.) Thank you, sir. More please.

The BEAR

I liked it, especially the reruns of the scenes, lol. Good, solid story.

Despite the amazing creativity of authors posting LW stories, many necessarily follow familiar paths. But every so often an author comes up with a with a really different way to tell the sad story of infidelity. I love reading those stories. And this was one of them. Great work.

To all you people who have a problem with the realism of the story because it has a professional baseball player who is simultaneously a medical student, two words: Doc Medich.

As a friend of mine says: "If something HAS been done, then it CAN be done."

Sorry, but Loving Wives stories rarely work from an outside perspective. Either the main character is a non-character or, like with this one, the main character's story overshadows the Loving Wives story. It started off bad with very non-erotic and overly in depth (and lengthy) coverage off a baseball game. It got a bit better after that, but not enough for me to even finish reading it.

I enjoyed this despite the fact that it's totally unbelievable and might win the award for the biggest fantasy story ever seen here.

Fun to read. Enjoyed it.

Lee must be from Krypton.

It’s that time of year. This is kinda stretched to the limits.

I think we a baseball fan here.

LOVE slap-hapy-papy #9

THAT"S YOU!! I didn't realize. Th JAG' WIFE, and assorted other stories. My apologies, sir. I'm old and sometimes I miss things. Again, MORE, PLEASE.

The BEAR

Up down or sideways…I don’t care. This is a solid, well written story.

Nice upbeat story

Just way over the top.

1. Baseball scholarships are partial scholarships. At a school like Texas, no one is on a full ride for baseball. Tennessee recently had a player who was a classmate in high school of my son. He threw 105.5 mph. In one outing for the Vols in 2002, he threw over 103 mph on 28 of 33 fastballs. He wasn't on a full ride.

2. No one signs a pro contract during the CWS. Pro teams can't sign players from college until after the draft which is after the CWS.

3. A 100 million contract for a college kid is silly in the extreme.

Story was blah. No drama. No realism. Just a silly baseball fantasy. I love baseball. But not this.

Awesome story. I have a particular love for baseball stories. I wrote one myself. You had a great plot, well developed characters, and a very well written story line. So much better than the 750 word stories we've been seeing so much of. Thank you for the great read.

I always like a baseball story. I hafta say that Lee's pitch counts were way too low. Especially the high school one. D

Thanks for your writing.

Over the top but fun. I don't mind over the top. Five stars

So, if you like baseball it was a fun fantasy or it was ridiculous! If you don’t like baseball it was nothing really.

Phenomenal, and the last paragraph tied it all up with a big ol bow!

Thanks for writing

That saying is that you need to suspend your disbelief and you need to do it with this story. Still, all in all, it is a very good and enjoyable story. 5 stars.

One of your best! At first I thought it was a standard trope introduction with Lee and Sloan being the focus, but you made a good transition to his parents. It still hard to do something new in this genre but you pulled it off. 5.0*

Such fun! Five stars!

This piece went down easily, but there was no, I repeat, no, tension and nothing to resolve. The parents split, she came to her senses, repented publicly, and they smoothly reacquired each other. The sports career was perfect, the marriage was perfect, the medical career was perfect. A bit too sweet of a confection, but it did go down easy.

I love sports stories mixed into the LW category and also the romance section comes to mind. There is one story called The Yips I think it was somewhere in there, it also is a very good story about good people meeting and loving good people. Excellent story without long boring sex scenes. Good stories don't need a bunch of salacious sex in them. 5 stars

Not a Rangers fan, but that’s a great story. Interesting note that some overly ambitious dad’s have been known to push for TJ surgery on their uninjured sons, supposedly to avoid future UCL injury.

Great story even if it was about the Rangers. Should have been the Red Sox lol but I really enjoyed it thank you 5 stars

Fun-to-read 5 star story. Enjoyed the playful bit when he walks in on his dad's date a second time, only this time it's his mother. Sure, the pitching stretched reality - but c'mon folks - it's fiction. Lighten up and smile. Thanks offkilter123, for this morning's smiles.

Very good

Over the top on Baseball ... achievements

Emotions and character arcs well-done

Needs eroticism, the mere existence of beautiful women with lovely bodies within the narrative is not enough

Still, Five for you

I love baseball stories. Even do specific searches for them on here. This one was just too much of a stretch for me. I was even ok with the lack of sex...just couldn't suspend imagination enough for this one.

So wide that it missed the park altogether. Certainly way too far from your best, maybe closer to your most mediocre.

Thank you all the same. Await your next submission.

Great story! Enjoyed the baseball, even though it was about the Rangers. Five stars. ;-)

i am with the BEAR MORE MORE PLEASE

This was absolutely fun! The dialogue was entertaining and well thought out, as were the lead-ins. Loved it!

It seemed like more of a baseball story than a LW story.

It is embarrassing when authors write about topics they are clueless about AND clearly did no research. Info about Tommy john surgery is very wrong. Takes 18 to 24 for mlb players to return. 11 months is not possible. It is impossible for him to sign for 100 million out of college. Every team has a cap they must adhere to that is a fraction of that. ?forgiving the cheating wife is silly.

There is precedent for one player transcending a sport and performing at a level nobody else has ever attained.

Might I suggest all you baseball fans Google "Don Bradman" to find the proof.

Nice story, well told. Thanks for posting it.

I enjoyed this a lot! Thank you!

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Be well!

At the beginning of the story you said not a BTB. I can respect that. Not all divorces need to be BTB. However, that doesn't mean it should be a RAAC. No way would he sleep with his ex wife. He would be cordial in public when they are with their son (ie. wedding etc.), but he would have no relationship with his ex.