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Garret Mathews has written a 32-minute audio play, Swing, Batta, about a ragtag team of 9-year-old baseball players whose prankster coach believes kids' baseball should be fun. Along the way the players learn a bit about being a team. It’s available for free here.

“You enjoy little kids’ baseball. Maybe a child or a grandchild plays. Maybe you were a Pee-Wee second baseman back in the day, and you savor the memories,” said Mathews, retired columnist for the Evansville, Ind., Courier and Press and author of 12 books. “Maybe you have no personal connection, and just like to sit on the end of the bleachers and take in a game. But you’re bummed out. In most places, the pandemic put an end to the 2020 season.”

Garret’s audio play is based on his book of the same name. “Much of what happens in the G-rated project took place during the several years I coached at this level when our boys were younger,” he reminisced. “The players are quite real. No angels in this outfield. One boy has cystic fibrosis. Another is a budding scientist who asks if he can dissect a baseball. The fun-loving coach encourages the boys to come up with their own team names for practice games (Snottybutts versus Navel Lints) and asks unsuspecting players to search the equipment bag for a three-two pitch.”

Garret’s website includes links to some of his favorite columns as well as material he wrote about Appalachia and the civil rights movement. Over his career, he wrote 6,500 features and columns on every subject from murderers and moonshiners to the members of a snake-handling church. The IndyFringe Festival has featured his one-act plays every year since 2015.