• Why Do Hitters Step in the Bucket?
• Sa-Faire'
• The Hobbyist Blacksmith
• Wizard Mountain
• Diamonds From the Sky
• The Milford Incident

Scroll down to view a short synopsis of each title.

Why Do Hitters Step in the Bucket?
Baseball hitting secrets and solutions from a pro.

My proven Correct Performance Zone method of analyzing and improving a baseball swing answers common questions with an easy to understand set of objective tools that work at any age level.  I know they work because I used them for five years in my Baseball Technical School.

Every book on baseball mechanics written to date leaves players, coaches, and parents with hundreds of instructions that are at best confusing and often conflicting.  Frustrated players, coaches, and parents struggle to understand why one player steps in the bucket, then another player pulls her head off the ball, another pops up every pitch, one pulls everything, and another hits everything to the opposite field.

Strife abounds in hitters, their parents, and coaches, because they don’t have simple tools with which to analyze hitting mechanics.  Hundreds of suggestions come from every corner but the suggestions don’t work.  Few of the advice givers really know what they’re talking about.

Why Do Hitters Step in the Bucket, for the first time in the history of the game, provides simple "prime" indicators that point to the problems then show how to fix them. Four imaginary rods, one each traversing the hitter’s body through the shoulders and hips, one extending from the belt buckle, and the other from the top of the head straight down to the earth, point to every common problem which hitters can encounter.  The rods, or Prime Indicators, in combination with Correct Performance Zones, define the relevant facets of hitting mechanics.  The indicators and performance zones were developed through my expertise as a ten-year Major League veteran who hit .300 twice in the big leagues, and who has taught hitting for more than 30 years.

My Baseball Technical School (co-founded with Jeff Knox) used these simple methods to teach hundreds of players, coaches, and parents over a five-year period.  Each student was videotaped and improvement was measured over a six-week class period.  Classes were 3 hours long, once a week, and students ranged in age from eight year-old Little Leaguers to college players in their early 20’s, including female players.

Most hitting manuals are technical tomes that are difficult to read, but Why Do They Step in the Bucket is filled with stories from my baseball career that help to keep readers interested. My purpose in using anecdotes is to instruct and entertain at the same time.  Relevant stories accompany most of the instructional discussions, and humorous anecdotes are interspersed for interest.

I know this book is needed because I’ve seen what other methods of instruction are doing to young hitters.  The goal of my work is to help any hitter, parent, or coach, learn what they need to know to become expert hitting instructors themselves.  Using my methods, dozens have already achieved that goal, and many more will learn from my book.

Contact me for a copy of the completed book proposal.

Sa-Faire'
Discovering the Writings of Jesus' Personal Scribe 

Sa-Faire' is a phonetic pronunciation of the Aramaic word for Scribe. 

Didn't you ever wonder why Jesus, one of the most influential figures in the history of the world, never wrote anything down?  Jesus read from the Holy Scriptures in synagogues as a youth, and taught from scripture more effectively than the Pharisees.  He came to fulfill the Law of Moses, to revamp an entire culture, but nobody wrote anything down until the letters of Paul, 25 years after Jesus' death.

The premise of this work of fiction is that Jesus did write things down, through a personal scribe (a boyhood friend who chose law over carpentry) who went with him everywhere.  The Scribe knew Jesus better than anyone, even the Apostles, and he recorded Jesus' adventures from his best-friend perspective.  When Jesus was crucified, the Scribe fled with Mary Magdalen, and sealed up the records to keep them from being destroyed like the temple of Solomon.

Modern day anthropology students stumble on the Scribe's cache' of ancient documents and embark on a quest of discovery complicated by highly organized treasure seekers in an adventure romp that might reveal the true character of Jesus.

The Hobbyist Blacksmith
If you can hammer a nail, you can be a blacksmith.

You’ve probably admired ironwork gates, fences, tables, candle-holders, sconces, fireplace tools, hooks, hangars, and a myriad of other useful as well as decorative hand forged iron pieces. You probably like the nostalgic, retro look; the weight, and durability of iron. But it’s too expensive so you pass it by, opting for a mass-produced piece of goza to hang your flower baskets, pots and pans, or to hold your candles.

That’s what I did before I learned to make those things myself. Now I can enjoy the classic, artistic, robust nature of forged iron, through the incredible satisfaction of crafting something with my own hands, at low cost.  And I found that it's not as difficult or as expensive as I thought.  Anybody can enjoy blacksmithing with a little instruction and a few basic tools.  This book shows how it's done.

Wizard Mountain

This fantasy pits a group of ordinary children against newly awakened dragons in the caverns of Washington State's Mt. Si.  It's a bit like the Boxcar Children running into Smaug, Tolkeins' famous worm.  Children with no special powers other than their keen intellect and an array of individual native capcities must awaken an entire underground city before the dragons regain full consciousness. 

The wizard who froze the city thousands of years before, did so to protect his people from evil.  The wizard had no choice but to suspend animation in all living things within his protected realm, which included himself.  All remained asleep through the millennia, long past the age of wizard wars and real dragons, waiting for the the pure at heart to awaken them.  How will a small group of modern era children protect the world from an ancient maelstrom they unwittingly released?

Diamonds From the Sky

When the "big one" hits the west coast, enough earth is moved to uncover an ancient kimberlite pipe in the Mt. St. Helens region.  A highly decorated military spy satellite image analyst discovers the pipe and has a decision to make, should he be true to his oath and creed, or succumb to the temptations of avarice beyond his wildest dreams? 

Of course, he succumbs, and so must betray his oath, making him an enemy of the organization that he loves - the US Marine Corps.  He devises machinations to conceal the discovery, and his identity.  He sets up a black market pipeline to move his diamonds and becomes a target for his former friends and associates in the military.  Entering the underworld creates enemies on that side as well, making him a target for the good guys and the bad guys too.  

Staying one step ahead of his pursuers and building a network of subterfuge keeps the pace high.  A new, secret life in the jet set crowd contrasts with "grunt" life as the main character struggles with separation from his former life. 

Are the benefits of immeasurable wealth worth trading for ones' family, friends, identity, and ideals?  . . .Oh yeah, rich is worth it, if you can stay alive long enough to enjoy the money.

The Milford Incident

Barney and Betty Hill claimed to have been abducted by aliens in 1961.  Their account appeared in LOOK magazine in 1965, and set a group of young boys on a quest to find evidence of flying saucers and alien life.   In the little town of Milford, Ohio, they formed a "UFO Club" with an adult adviser, the Reverend Kelsy, who showed them what to look for, how to report to the correct authority, and what to do in the event of a close encounter.   That summer the boys mingled pranks and pratfalls with moments of terror that would change them forever. 

This story takes the small town boyhood experience, reflective of Stand By Me, and slams it together with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a little bit of The Fourth Kind too.