That's been the biggest one, just since he's a Cardinal pitcher and he's a local guy and actually in the show. He's just a class-act guy. Watching him throw bullpens has been cool, not just for me, since I'm a Cardinal fan, but for the kids.

We actually stepped in and got a few upsets. They went in and didn't care how the guy was ranked.

It was disconcerting, since I'm a ground-ball pitcher. At least they were solos.

The basic premise is a guy has been in jail for being one of the biggest gangland thugs in many years,

I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, "Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here."

The choice to open the contest in March wasn't deliberate but, when we considered the timing with Small Press Month, we thought it worked. A small independent bookseller and a small independent publisher joining together to celebrate independent publishing by searching for new voices in fiction — not bad, huh?