Review: Not for Million Dollars: A Highly Improbable Tale of a Baseball What-If by Jayna Baas

Not for a Million Dollars: A Highly Improbable Tale of a Baseball What-If by Jayna Baas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

4.5 stars

Not being a baseball fan, I came into this novella a little clueless. I still don’t really understand baseball, but you don’t have to enjoy the sport to enjoy this story!

Characters: Since this was a novella, there wasn’t a lot of focus on only one or two characters, but several emphases on a few characters. Gil Major, the owner of the team, definitely was a good leader, and I loved how he really “put his money behind his mouth” in regards to running his team. Freckles was such a great guy – I loved how his faithfulness, along with a couple of the other guys’, helped change the whole team! And the villains … yeah, they were nasty guys, but I’m so glad Max got a good ending! Overall, the characters weren’t massively fleshed out (because of the length), but we saw enough of them to get to know them somewhat.

Plot/Writing: The plot was definitely an interesting one – and altogether impossible, as the author attests! But hey, what-if situations are fascinating. I really enjoyed the team’s emphasis on the love of the sport over the love of money. Their tenacity in the face of challenges was great to watch, and the ending kind of caught me off-guard! I wasn’t expecting that kind of climax. The writing fit the story well, and for some reason, it gave off 1950s vibes to the story. I’m not really sure why I felt this way, but I thought it worked great.

Moral/Theme: Obviously, a big one here is avoiding the love of money. But I also loved the other morals – how obedience can reap great rewards, and the beauty and simplicity of the Gospel. I loved how gently and simply the Gospel was given to Gil – because, amen, all of the work has already been done by Jesus. Also, watching the whole team grow closer to the Lord was amazing. There’s so much more than just the enjoyment of a sport in this story!

So, to sum it up, you don’t have to love baseball to read this book. I didn’t understand a little bit of the lingo (yep, I’m that clueless), but I enjoyed the story nonetheless. Check this one out if you’d like to read a bit of what-if scenarios filled with real-life truths!