Play Ball

Play Ball
CB Potts
Torquere Press
ISBN: 1-933389-92-3
Fiction, Erotica
Reviewed by Jean Roberta

The seventeen stories in this collection blend sports (baseball, basketball, boxing, cricket, fencing, horse-racing, hockey, judo and more) with the sport of male-on-male sex. What better place for two healthy young men to meet but on the playing-field? Except that not all these sports are played on a field, not all the sex is one-on-one, and not all the characters are young or in peak physical condition.
The tone of these stories ranges from the playfulness of “Football & The Beach” by Sean Michael to the somberness of “Center Pocket” by Emily Veinglory, in which a veteran pool player discovers a reason to go on outliving the dreams of his youth. The contrast between games played by the rich and those played by the less-advantaged who dream of fame is brought out in “Volleys & Touchdown” by BA Tortuga. The traditional relationship of coach and player is featured in several of these stories, sometimes as a mutual fantasy made real, sometimes as a bittersweet transfer of power from one who is past his physical prime to one who needs to practice his moves. In “Ringside” by editor CB Potts, a promising young boxer and the coach who saved him from the ghetto face a heartbreaking dilemma. Sticks, bats and balls of all kinds are described from an exuberant fan’s viewpoint in most of these stories, and the smell of sweat almost rises from the page. This e-book is guaranteed to satisfy lovers of guys in action.