Celebrate MLB’s Opening Day with a Baseball Short Story!

Greetings! Today is the day baseball fans have been waiting for: Opening Day! As a huge baseball fan, I’m stoked to watch my Cubbies get back in action (sure, we had the two games in Japan last week, but now baseball will be back for good). To celebrate the occasion, I’m publishing a Redux version of my 2018 baseball tale, “Scapegoat”, initially penned under the pseudonym Neal Vandar. It was only available as a free PDF in the past, but as of today, it’s now available on all Amazon markets on Kindle at the low price of $0.99 US / $1.42 CAD. I hadn’t read it since I first wrote it in 2018. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m just as proud of it now as when I wrote it. In fact, I’d say “Scapegoat” is one of my Top 3 best short stories. I polished it a bit and gave it a brand-new cover from a photo taken by yours truly at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. And it’s not just for baseball fans; I can promise you that even if you don’t know anything/or don’t care about baseball, if you like suspenseful time travel tales, then you’ll get a kick out of it. Here’s the official synopsis:

SCAPEGOAT is a short fantasy tale about baseball, the curse of the Cubs, time travel, and a whole lot of nostalgia. Sam Burke is a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan. He has a special gift—or curse—depending on how one looks at it. If he concentrates hard enough and if the circumstances are just right, he can time-shift to transport himself to a different time and location for a few brief moments. More often than not, he fails and nothing happens. One afternoon at Wrigley Field, he attempts to time-shift to a fateful Cubs game in October 2003. To his surprise, he succeeds, but something goes wrong and he seems to be stuck there. He’ll soon realize that he’s in way over his head after he tries to change History. Will Sam be able to fix things and return to his own timeline?

You can purchase it through this link on Amazon.com for folks in the U.S.

Or you can pick it up via this link on Amazon.ca for my fellow Canuck readers.

Enjoy “Scapegoat” and the 2025 baseball season! I’ll keep you posted in the weeks to come on more updates about my sci-fi short story, “Anomaly”, including some artwork reveal. Until next time, happy reading!