Fighting Fish Outfielder Eidem Releases Beyond
the Fence
PRESCOTT – Fighting Fish outfielder Josh Eidem has released his first book, Beyond the Fence, a fictional novel loosely based on stories told and experienced over ten years in the St. Croix Valley Baseball League.
Beyond the Fence is a novel about small towns and small town baseball: about the men who choose to continue to play ball despite not being paid a penny to do it, about the small towns that cheer and support their local teams, about what it’s like for young men to find a place to fit it, and about what it’s like for those same men to ultimately have to let it go.
The book is set in Western Wisconsin’s St. Croix Valley Baseball League, following characters that surround the Spring Valley Hawks baseball team from 1989 to 2010. While all the characters are fictional in nature, local author Josh Eidem draws upon true stories from his past eleven years as an amateur baseball player in Wisconsin.
“There have been non-fiction books written about town ball, but this book is meant to share more about what’s behind those facts and statistics. It’s a look at the men who play, the characters, as well as the small towns who support them,” Eidem said.
While the characters are fictional, all of the places in the book are real, from Plum City to Osecola to Ellsworth, over to Menomonie, and all the hangouts in between. According to Eidem, anyone affiliated with either a small town or familiar with small town amateur baseball will identify with Beyond the Fence.
“It was important that the book contained truth,” Eidem said. “There are certain archetypes in small town baseball that you see everywhere you go. You shouldn’t have to be from Western Wisconsin or have even heard or Spring Valley to enjoy the book – someone from Michigan, for example, could pick it up and see parallels to the same characters they know, just with different names.”
The book is currently available on Amazon.com and as an eBook through Smashwords.com. For more information about the book, and to read a sample chapter, visit: www.aspencreekpublishing.com.