The Tarantulas Best Season
A Quirky Baseball Story
Four American minor league baseball players are sent to Mexico during the off-season to play baseball for the Tupequena Tarantulas, a hapless member team of the Central American Baseball Association. The Tarantulas are owned by two of Tupequena’s most respected residents, Señor and Señora Renaldo and Dolores de Castoriana Sanchez, and represent the last privately owned team in the league. The rest of the teams in the league are owned by an Arabian conglomerate run by El Aya Fat Kabat, a powerful and unscrupulous sheikh. The story chronicles the Sanchez' efforts to fight off the acquisition of the club by Kabat during the first and only winning season in the team's 35-year history.
Coincidentally on the same day the ball players arrive in Tupequena, archeologist and specialist in the study of accidental phenomena, Liberty LaChance shows up to research the one and only case of accidental cannibalism in recorded history. Her interaction with the Tarantulas, the Sanchezes, and the infamous Santiago Gang (led by 12-year-old Juan Santiago), takes many twists and turns as she tries to discover the truth behind Professor P. D. DeWitt's bizarre case.
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Cover art and jacket design by Arcane Book Covers.
What people are saying about The Tarantulas Best Season
“I was weary of the negative news feed, the daily tragedies, and the loss of joy. Imagine the relief and delight when surprised by The Tarantulas Best Season. It is a mixed bag of oddball characters who come together in an obscure Mexican village. Four American baseball players are "sent down" for the winter season, and they find a dedicated team and their fans who, nevertheless, endure one loss after another. There are home runs, errors, flat tires, conspirators, accidents, dust, romance, superstitions, suspense, and mystery. The gossip, secrets, and competitions of small town life are endearing. There is a comical villain and an enterprising group of young boys who are rather good at outfoxing the grown-ups. There is even a rumor of cannibalism deep in the jungle. This is the debut novel of James Sarvadi, a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and it celebrates the universal desires to belong, to achieve, and to have some fun.”
— Charles L.
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