Tartabull's Throw »

Henry Garfield was born in Philadelphia and moved with his family to the Maine coast in time for the 1967 pennant race. A role in a fourth-grade production of Antigone gave him insight into the tragic nature of human existence and prepared him for life as a fan of the Boston Red Sox.

Garfield has attended three colleges and held numerous jobs. At various times he has worked as a journalist, school bus driver, sailing instructor, construction laborer, writing teacher, fish packer, telemarketer, and member of a grounds crew. He is an amateur actor and an even more amateur guitar player.

After spending sixteen years in San Diego, California, he moved to Belfast, Maine, in time to watch the Red Sox lose the 1999 American League Championship series to the Yankees. He lives with his son and daughter. Tartabull's Throw is his third novel. The others, Room 13 and Moondog, continue the story of Cyrus Nygerski and both are available in Aladdin paperback editions.

In the summer of 1967, Cyrus Nygerski, nineteen and "the best left-handed second baseman in Wisconsin," unsuspectingly meets his first werewolf.

Six hours later, she is sitting next to him in Comiskey Park, watching the Red Sox play the White Sox on August 27th, but by the time Boston outfielder Jos - Tartabull fires his famous, game-winning throw to home, the mysterious beauty is suddenly disappearing into the crowd. Nygerski is frantic. The next morning he reads about her in a Chicago paper, though not by name: there's no mention of Cassandra Paine-only of a vicious murder back in Beloit of a man who, in another version of events, appears to be very much alive and out for Nygerski's blood.

Among Cassandra's abilities is time travel. Nygerski learns of this later (or is it earlier?) on the seacoast of Maine where she introduces him to her family and the tantalizing legend of Howley's Deep Hole, a portal into an alternate time line that sweeps him to the heights of rookie season stardom. It's then-and at a terrifying cost-that he earns the nickname "Moon-dog." Even Cassandra can't foresee the prophecy in that.

Henry Garfield interweaves a classic Red Sox pennant race, the supernatural, a love and coming-of-age story, and a memorable cast of earthly and unearthly characters into a treat for baseball fans, horror buffs, devotees of science fiction, and lovers of suspense.

Publishers Weekly

This third entry in the Moondog trilogy continues the story of Cyrus Nygerski, combining the Red Sox 1967 race for the pennant, time travel and the hero's crush on a mysterious werewolf named Cassandra. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Contents

PART ONE: August

1. Out Like Ted Williams
2. Rhonda
3. Cassandra
4. Tartabull's Throw — I
5. On the Streets of Chicago
6. The Morning After

PART TWO: The Dream Season

7. The Kid Brother
8. Aunt Polly
9. Jake Weed's Story
10. The Hole
11. A Deer in the Woods
12. Full Moon
13. New York, New York
14. The No-hitter
15. The Best Left-handed Second Baseman in Wisconsin
16. The Fire
17. Home Run for the Money
18. Hector Falls
19. Nine Days in August
20. In Rhonda's Room
21. Last Game in Beloit
22. Tartabull's Throw — II
23. The End of the Dream
24. The Fall

PART THREE: September

25. Mendocino, California, 1995
26. Metamorphosis
27. Season's End