Rob Wardell is a seventeen-year old who feels like he doesn’t quite fit in anywhere–not at home, not at school and not on the baseball field. The small, shy boy stays on the high school baseball team only to please his father since he knows he will never get to play. He’s living his life alone until he finds himself drawn into a friendship with the team’s new star pitcher, Josh Schlagel. The two boys hit it off instantly; maybe it’s because Josh isn’t exactly welcomed by the team either. But as Rob and Josh grow closer and start spending more time together away from the field, Rob realizes this his friend is hiding something. The bruises on Josh’s body and his reluctance to let Rob know about certain parts of his life have Rob suspicious. When Josh’s secrets are finally revealed and become life threatening, Rob and his family must step up to the plate.
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Praise for Rounding Third
I just finished reading Rounding Third. Thank you for sharing your powerful book with me. It clearly describes what young gay men experience in any school around the country, even today. The detail, the horror, the reality, along with the resilience and the loving intentions of good people create a story that touches the heart, eliciting many emotions. This is an important contribution to the understanding of the lives of our young LGBT people. Thank you for pulling no punches. I hope PFLAG and youth support organizations pick this up.
—Ronni Sanlo, Author of The Purple Golf Cart and who helped found numerous LGBT Centers at universities across the US.
Rounding Third is definitely a page-turner. It gripped my heart with its profound expression of young love, gay love, family life in both its grotesquely abusive and ultimately supportive forms. After getting to know Rob and Josh, the awful irony of love leading to hate crimes just because its between two boys cannot be lost on the reader. I’ve already given the book to a gay teacher in Ohio, who’s been dealing in-vivo with all these issues for decades. I’d like all my family and friends to read this book. And everyone else I can think of! It’s a great read and very important work. Thanks to Walter Meyer for so truly and powerfully telling this story, on so many levels, of so many.
—Jamie Leno Zimron / LPGA Pro, Executive Speaker
Walter Meyer’s clear and precise writing pulled me in from the first page. The lead characters, Rob and Josh, are familiar and heartbreaking. They challenged me. I found myself wishing the story had been set in the ’50s or ’60s because Mr. Meyer reveals through Rob and Josh, the baseball team, the high school characters and Rob’s parents, how little has changed with the passage of time when two boys are attracted to each other in high school. Rounding Third is a timely must read, because one thing hasn’t changed, the power of love and laughter.
– David H. Campbell
I recommend Rounding Third! Poignant and sensitive! And for me, a real eye-opener! It is a very compelling story. There were parts that were uncomfortable for me as a heterosexual, but then I imagine that you experience that in the reverse. I also found it heart-wrenching, know that those things do happen to people and it makes me just sick. Thank you for having the strength to tell the story. I look forward to the sequel. – Sharon Wiederrich Miller Odden
“Another solid addition to the growing canon of gay teen lit. I’ve been wondering when someone would write a book about the gay teen experience for athletes–a sort of TAKE ME OUT for gay teens. This just may be it!”
– Brent Hartinger, author of Geography Club and The Order of the Poison Oak
