In His New Novel, "The Batboy," Mike Lupica Tugs at Your Heartstrings

Mike Lupica thinks he’s written 23 books, but it doesn’t matter because the only one he wanted to talk about today was his latest one, The Batboy, a young adult novel about a 14 year-old boy named Brian who gets to be a batboy one summer for the Detroit Tigers.

“I always thought this was like the coolest possible summer job, to be a batboy for a Major League Baseball team,” said Lupica. In Brian’s case, he’s also hoping the job will bring him closer to his oft-absent father, “an itinerant, left-handed relief pitcher,” who once played for the Tigers.

“His dad wasn’t around very much, and the only thing they had in common was baseball,” said Lupica. “And even that wasn’t enough to have the boy feel as though his father loved him.”

He divulged more of the plotline—Brian befriends his baseball hero, who has since fallen from grace after testing positive for steroids; his dad comes back from coaching and scouting in Japan, only to marginalize Brian even more—and led Imus to one conclusion.

“Our emotions will be toyed with in this book, won’t they?” he asked Lupica, a sports columnist for the New York Daily News, and one of Imus’s best buds.

In reality, it doesn’t matter what Lupica puts his antagonists up against, at least not as far as Imus is concerned. “I’ve never read one of your kids books,” said Imus, who has read--and enjoyed--Lupica's adult novels that had dirty language and steamy scenarios.

His attention span out the window, Imus moved on and asked Lupica his thoughts on Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger being charged with sexual assault for the second time in a year. When his opinion mirrored that of Warner Wolf (“that’s two times too many”), Imus verbally assaulted Lupica.

“Do you have something new to bring to the equation in your role as America’s premiere sports commentator?” he wondered. But Lupica should have known the interview would take an ugly turn when Imus’s first words to him this morning were, “Don’t touch me.”

Those words were not, however, used very often by Tiger Woods. Lupica told Imus that Tiger has begun working with a swing coach, and instantly regretted the statement.

“So the guy introduces him to waitresses, or what?” Imus said.

As for how or when Tiger redeems his destroyed image, Lupica used Alex Rodriguez as an example. “Last spring training, he is in the pits because of these steroid revelations,” said Lupica. “Eight months later he’s riding through the canyon of heroes.”

In conclusion, Lupica added, “The greatest medicine for all this is winning.”

And not 12 more women on the side.

-Julie Kanfer