THE FACE OF BASEBALL is a collection of linked stories about the way baseball and its heroes thread themselves through the loves and losses of three women in unexpected ways. For the characters in the small town where the stories takes place, baseball is the beating pulse of their everyday lives.

In the central story, twelve-year-old Jean is on a mission to make sure her hero, Reds first baseman Joey Votto, wins the face of major league baseball contest on Twitter, but it isn’t going to be easy.

The second story moves back in time to when Aunt Bea was a young woman and in love with the catcher for the Vevay Riverboat Captains, a team in the Ohio-Indiana League. It’s 1953 and Bea’s wearing pants for the first time. Anything can happen.

In the final story, Jean finds out what really happened to her father. Loretta, her mother, has to face the consequences. As the two watch Derek Jeter’s final at-bat for the Yankees, they wonder whether happy endings are just for baseball players.