The Champ Escapes — Michael Jasper

As if newly promoted coach George Grunion's job wasn't hard enough...

He has a team of men (and one woman) from around the world, from all nationalities, and they're barely scraping by in the early years of the first world war. And then, the team faces off against Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champ of the world, in a winner-takes-all baseball game.

Excerpt:
Once you've seen a man who's larger than life, you never forget him. You can tell who is he even from across a ball field, just by the way he walks or holds his shoulders. Even if years have passed since you last were in his presence him and time has taken more and more from you, greedy as a spoiled child, you can still tell he's someone special.

The sleeves of his borrowed Giants jersey looked ready to burst at the slightest movement, and his golden front tooth glinted in the sun whenever he smiled. Towering over the other colored men on the Chicago American Giants, he was hard to miss, and the Giants had some big fellows to start with, like John Henry Lloyd and Bingo DeMoss. Their coach and owner, cigar-chomping Rube Foster, was no slouch in the size department either.

But this man was bigger than them, with a laugh that echoed around the diamond and doused my hopes for victory today.

I took off my cap and wiped sweat from my forehead, feeling every one of my sixty-four years. We were going to be fighting for our lives today against the Chicago American Giants, whose roster now included the former heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson.

Note: This story is part of the novel The All Nations Team, available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0041HXNQG