Title: All is Not Fair in Love and Baseball

Blurb: A companion piece to my story "Love and Persuasion in the Times of Baseball," this story explores a world in which each of Jane Austen's major heroes is a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers. These six men go through their own journeys to love and a World Series championship together.

This story focuses primarily on Pride and Prejudice but features interactions with characters from most of Austen's stories.

Prologue

All is not fair in love and baseball.

Eric Wentworth knows this as few others do. You are not guaranteed an easy life just because you have a contract that requires the Detroit Tigers to pay you $5 million per year. Sometimes, you get off your game. Sometimes you get injured. Sometimes you suffer great personal tragedy. Life is about a heck of a lot more than just being able to throw a baseball 95 mph.

Eric Wentworth was 18 when he was drafted into Major League Baseball. He was also 18 when his heart was broken for the first time.

George Knightley was 22 when he was drafted, 27 when he learned what it's like to watch your parents bury your younger brother, and 29 when he knew for absolutely certain that if you make yourself completely vulnerable to another human being you can end up finding yourself more fulfilled than you had ever before imagined.

Will Darcy won a Cy Young award, was the American League MVP twice in three years, and threw two no-hitters before the age of thirty. But even making $20 million per year couldn't make Eliza Bennett fall in love with him.

Henry Tilney, on the other hand, could get Catherine Morland to love him, but he couldn't guarantee anyone, least of all his overbearing father, that the Tigers wanted to (or needed to) keep him in the Major Leagues.

Ed Ferrars loved baseball, but he always knew that it wasn't the end for him. He always knew that when he retired there would be another career. And while George Knightley was planning on working as a manager or a team president, Ed was planning on teaching high school science someday.

And Edmundo Benoit was quickly learning that if you didn't protect your brain, you could end up being useless. You could have the most wonderful wife in the world and the most beautiful baby in the world, but if you were constantly in pain from post-concussive damage, you were useless.

All of these men came together in Detroit, Michigan to play baseball. They were going to bring the World Series Championship back to Detroit. They weren't necessarily men who would have chosen to be friends. But instead, they became brothers and together they walked through dark times, good times, and some incredible adventures.