The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball by Frank Deford is an interesting read, even for people like me who aren’t baseball fans.

The main character is Howie Traveler, manager of the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Howie never made it as a player – his short legs, average hitting, lack of power and being right handed – kept him as a top player in the high end minor leagues.  Now he has his one and only chance to make it as a manager.  He knows that if he can crack the big league manager circle he’ll be able to stay in baseball indefinitely.  As he says it, the teams keep recycling managers from one team to another.  But he has to win.

Howie’s team isn’t too bad and has a few really good players. We see one of them, Jay Alcazar, along with Howie as they both deal with disappointments and a rape charge. Jay is especially well crafted character. Deford could have made him a stock superstar or a backdrop for Howie, but his dialogue and his search for his mother in Cuba give him depth.

Jay is accused of rape by a woman who visited him in his hotel room. Did he rape her? Or did they have consensual sex before she decided to get a little revenge and maybe a little pay off?

Howie is the only potential witness and he saw only an ambiguous scene that could be interpreted the way Jay describes, or as the woman describes. Howie faces a moral dilemma: Does he tell the police investigating what he saw or does he keep quiet? Initially he stays silent but his conscience nags at him until he confides in his daughter, Lindsay.

I don’t want to spoil this for you by telling what Lindsay did. It’s worth reading.   The Entitled is short, only 238 pages, and fast enough to read in one evening.

I recommend this but please be aware there is quite a bit of foul language.