Testimonials and Letters.

Michael,

It was a pleasure to meet you at Mount Hermon this year, but an even greater pleasure to read Sermon on the Mound. Very few writers can command the English language in a way that elevates their skill from craftsman to artist. You intertwined humor with eloquence, and carried the reader on a personal journey into the past. It was like reading poetry set to the rhythm and timing of prose. Your style reminded me of David Gutersen's "Snow Falling on Cedars." When I finished his novel I wanted to say "how nice," feeling I had been bathed in luxury.

Like reading a good novel, I was immersed in the biography, relating to your childhood and this most basic of games. As I will forever remember John Fischer's wonderful application of the word "pure," I will now remember baseball for your love of it.

Early on, you tempted me with the knowledge that the 1986 World Series changed your life. At first I was disappointed that you left me hanging. But soon I realized, with each small addition along the way, you were dropping bread crumbs to lead me out of the forest. Well done.

Reading of your deep-felt sorrows reminded me of my own, and as such produced healing. I think it's because your recollections are not bitter but bittersweet. You travel back into your pain, but carry with you a perspective of God's love and healing, and take us along for the journey. I flashed back on rejections and failures, cuts taken in panic at balls that were so far beyond the strike zone the bat tip couldn't reach them, and recalled how I more than my fair share of time in right field. I too am a lefty, and amazingly, my mother was born in Scotland (north of Edinburgh). I thought maybe God meant you to write this book just for me, Michael. But then, isn't this a mark of any great book?

With all the criticism of major league ball and what's happened to the game, in your special way, you helped bring "heart" back to the game in its truest form.

God Bless You!
Bob Russell.

Hey Michael,

My copies of "Sermon on the Mound" just arrived a couple of days ago.  Great timing, too, one copy was for an avid baseballophile friend of mine who is off to Hawaii today and wanted some reading material for his trip.

I have to confess that I was a little worried that I might not connect with your book.  As a boy, my feelings about baseball were the antithesis of yours. Baseball was entirely off of my radar! It's not that I hated it or anything, it's more like in my little world it didn't even exist. I never attended a game, never watched it on TV, didn't know the names of players or teams, never played it (except a miserable softball game or two during high school P.E.), and couldn't care less about it! The only time it seemed baseball ever crossed my path was once a year during the World Series (hadn't a clue about this either) when I was bemused by those who were sneaking transistor radios into class.  So, I was kind of figuring that your book would appeal to me as much as needlework to a football jock.

Surprise, surprise!  I REALLY enjoyed the slice of your life that you shared through your first book.  I appreciated your honest reminiscence of your feelings as a boy growing up and as a young man being shaped by the vicissitudes of life.  It is so reassuring to me that this Michael O'Connor that I knew only from a high school "Johnny Carsick" monologue had a tender, sensitive heart. As adolescents I think that boys, especially, have a

distorted perception that all the other boys are confident, self-assured, and have their trip together -- at least I did.  I found that I easily connected with this part of your story.  And, I've always enjoyed reading and hearing the stories of other's lives.

Secondly, as a single man I loved to hear married couples recount the events surrounding their meeting, courtship and commitments to marriage. I so longed to be married myself that I found some sort of bittersweet, vicarious enjoyment of that for which I could only wistfully yearn.  Even now, after nine blessed years of marriage I still love to hear these stories. Here again, I  was delighted to find that baseball was only the underpinning for a greater, though apparently painful, part of your life's story.

Michael, I had so many different thoughts pop up while reading your book (I sucked it down in a day) I began to realize I couldn't share them all with you ... so, instead I just want to offer encouragement, compliments and congratulations on your work.  It is so pleasant to see the brethren exercising their God-given gifts!

Your brother,
Karl Styrsky
Sacramento, CA