You can't make this stuff up

 You can't make this stuff up and that's the beauty of it all...

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Pop Fisher...Billy Ray Reynolds and the real-life Little Leaguers from St George, Utah

Wilford Brimley, who passed away in St George, Utah in 2020 at the age of 85, was the great actor who played the lovable Pop Fisher in The Natural (1984), the manager of a slumping baseball team, until Roy Hobbs appeared and changed all that.

Brimley's buddy, Robert Duval, pushed him into acting and the lovable actor went on to be Pop Fisher in The Natural, but also co-starred in Cocoon (1985),Tender Mercies (1984)...well the list goes on, including a series of commercials for Quaker Oats.

Brimley lived in St George, which just happens to be the home of the current Santa Clara Little League, and the Snow Canyon team that is one win away from Williamsport and the 2022 Little League World Series.

As I said you can't make this stuff up.

Now I did a fiction book in 2007 called Billy's Victory about a 11-year-old boy named Billy Ray Reynolds, who led the Johnsonville Little League to the District finals in a southern Colorado town, some three-hundred miles east of St George.

Of course, in my cluttered brain, it all makes perfect sense: Wilford Brimley, Robert Redford, Robert Duval, Billy Ray and the real-life kids from the Santa Clara Little League.

Santa Clara needs to win on Friday to punch their ticket to Williamsport and, you guessed it, I'll be rooting for the Utah team to go all the way.

Of course, that's all non-fiction and the world will see how things unfold, August 17 through August 28.

As for my little book, Billy's Victory, the book keeps on swinging. It is hard to believe it's been 15 years since the fiction yarn was first in print.

You can find Billy roaming around on Amazon somewhere.

You gotta love baseball, especially this time of year.

Below is the cover and sketch of my December/2007 book, Billy's Victory. Billy wore number 8 and please don't yell at me...he was a Yankee fan.

Photos above: Top - L/R Robert Redford, Richard Farnsworth and Wilford Brimley from The Natural and at the bottom the sketch for the cover of Billy's Victory.

Update: (8/12/22) Utah advances to the Little League World Series in Williamsport with a 7-3 win over Nevada today in San Bernardino, California. Snow Canyon from the Santa Clara Little League in St George, Utah becomes the first team in the state of Utah to qualify for the LLWS.