No. 275 - Diamond Ruby

My daughter and I met Joseph Wallace, author of Diamond Ruby, today at a local reading series event.

Diamond Rudy is a novel about a girl who could throw a ball as hard as the greatest pitchers in baseball at the time. The story was inspired by the short career of Jackie Mitchell, who, after striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, was barred from organized baseball in 1931.

My daughter has told me that she wants to be the first pitcher on the Philadelphia Phillies. The author was excited to hear this and personalized her copy of the book with "I can't wait to hear all about your great baseball career."

I learned that the idea for the book came when the author was at the Baseball Hall of Fame doing research for another nonfiction book. He came across a photo of Jackie Mitchell shaking Babe Ruth's hand with Lou Gehrig standing next to the Babe. He asked someone to tell him about what he was seeing in the photo and learned the story of Jackie Mitchell. I have often heard that the hardest part of writing a fiction novel is coming up with the story. I thought that it was pretty cool that a historical photo provided such inspiration.

To research the setting in the novel - Brooklyn, New York in the 1920s - the author read several daily local newspapers to accurately portray the era and location.

I haven't yet read the book, but it has now moved up significantly on my to-be-read pile. I also learned that the book has been optioned for a movie. I'm not a big fan of books being made into movies, but I think this one would make for a great one.