Darryl Brock's *If I Never Get Back* is a time travel baseball novel where Sam Fowler inexplicably finds himself pitching and traveling with the Cincinnati Red Stockings during their legendary undefeated 1869 season. As a baseball fan, I found the game sequences highly entertaining, packed with wonderful details about how baseball was played back in that era. A real treat for any baseball history buff!It does lean a bit into male fantasy territory, I will admit. Every woman Sam meets seems utter...

Darryl Brock's *If I Never Get Back* is simply wonderful. It's a brilliant blend of time travel and baseball, where our narrator takes a tumble in the present and wakes up in 1869 Cincinnati. He then gets involved with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the very first professional baseball team. While many baseball fans seem to genuflect to Kinsella for his time-traveling tales like *Shoeless Joe* and *The Iowa Baseball Confederacy*, *If I Never Get Back* is, in my opinion, far superior. It’s brimmin...

"You'll love this! My favorite book, given to me by my son. Send it back when you are done," said my friend Jim during my recent trip to NE Georgia, handing me a well-read hardback novel. We had been discussing baseball, as Yankee fans (him) and Red Sox fans (me) are often wont to do, so this book, Darryl Brock's *If I Never Get Back*, depicts a time traveler zipping back from 1980s San Francisco to 1869 upstate NY in the presence of the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional team. It’...

I'd probably rate this 4.5 stars because the time travel elements are a bit flimsy and the ending could pack more of a punch. However, I just couldn't dock it a whole star because, as a writer myself, the sheer amount of research Darryl Brock poured into "If I Never Get Back" absolutely blew me away. If you're a fan of baseball, the 1800s, and a good dose of nostalgia, that'll get you hooked. You could easily just stay there and enjoy the ride, but if you want to dig deeper and maybe do some qui...

I understand that If I Never Get Back might not resonate with everyone as deeply as it does with me. This fantastic book has so many things I love: baseball, especially the pre-National League era; American history, particularly the 19th century; Mark Twain; Irish history; paranormal phenomena; ghosts; time travel; and, yes, more baseball. The main character, wrestling with contemporary issues like divorce, legal troubles, anger management, and alcohol abuse, suddenly finds himself hurled back ...

Darryl Brock's highly entertaining tale, *If I Never Get Back*, blends a sudden trip back in time with baseball, and it even spawned a sequel. Throwing a modern man into an earlier age to see what happens is hardly new, echoing stories like Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."The Twain reference is fitting because the main character in *If I Never Get Back*, Sam Fowler, actually meets a young Twain on a train after being inexplicably transported from the late 1980s to 1869...

I'd heard a lot of good things about Darryl Brock's *If I Never Get Back*, and there are definitely positives, but what sticks with me now that I'm finished is just how long it took me to get through it. A friend joked that it should be called "If I Never Get Finished," and it felt pretty accurate. For 424 pages, it felt more like 600+. This book definitely tested my patience, something to consider when reading book reviews. I've always liked stories about time travel, from "Back to the Future"...

Darryl Brock's *If I Never Get Back* isn't, and never pretends to be, a literary classic or masterpiece. But reading shouldn't always feel like a chore or an academic exercise. For pure entertainment, for a delightful escape into a novel, *If I Never Get Back* grabs you from the start and holds your attention throughout. It's a balanced and believable time-travel adventure, filled with enough history and plausible reality to deliver fun, entertainment, pathos, and even potential tragedy – all wi...

Old-school baseball, time travel, Mark Twain, Irish gangsters, and, naturally, romance – what more could you ask for? I've read "If I Never Get Back" by Darryl Brock several times and never get tired of the post-Civil War setting as the baseball teams, still quite the novelty, travel the country by train. The colloquialisms specific to the period are entertaining. This would make a great movie.I love how at the end the title takes on greater meaning..."if I never get back"....to which time perio...

I've revisited "If I Never Get Back" by Darryl Brock countless times over the last decade, and it never fails to entertain. Each read sparks a fleeting obsession with baseball and an irresistible urge to don lace-up boots. Brock's writing is sharp and engaging, painting vivid pictures with delicious Victorian-era details. The protagonist's encounters with a host of famous figures might stretch credibility, but the story never veers into the absurd. It's a delightful summer read, blending time tr...