This image is the cover for the book Going to Williamsport

Going to Williamsport

What would you do if you were the 12-year-old new ace pitcher of a very small town baseball team, and you and your teammates went on in one magical year to represent your far western Oklahoma panhandle roots at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and you were much too embarrassed beyond mere words to see your own mother cheer you on in the bleachers as you take the big stage hundreds of miles away?


This is Sooner’s situation, and his story is Going to Williamsport, as he experiences his mom suffering through acute paranoid psychosis during the early years of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the Eisenhower administration. Without the option to “just put her away” anymore, the only child Sooner sees his own embarrassment and severe contempt for a Semper Fi father who will not deny his marriage vows, nor his unbelievable love for his own son.


Going to Williamsport matters more than anything to Sooner, but definitely not at the expense of seeing “her” in those stands. In his own words, he takes as much as he possibly can, and then makes incredibly clear in the clearest of places that he alone, with his Cimarron Coyotes team is Going to Williamsport, without Dad and certainly without Mom.

Rich Agnello

It’s Time to Introduce
My New Almost Best Friend




And he is our author, Rich Agnello!



Now he likes to be called Rich, so don’t forget that! He’s a native of Webster, New York, outside Rochester, so I guess he’s bummed; my pitching whupped his hometown’s snowy ass.


Rich holds an undergraduate degree in speech communication from Marquette University and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Denver. That basically means he can’t figure out what ‘boomer sooner’ means, so whoop-de-doo to him, too!


Whatta mean he resides in Worthington, Ohio outside Columbus with his wife Theresa? Agnello, have you ever been to Keyes, Oklahoma, you booger bear! Oh, we’ve had so much fun this year—haven’t we, Rich! Smile when you say that, mister!


But seriously, I hear Rich’s life experience growing up is just like mine! He saw his own mother suffer this way for 37 years, and yet he also saw his two sisters and himself earn two graduate and three undergraduate degrees, and Rich also has 15 years as a select youth soccer coach and Marquette soccer letterman. Okay, can’t figure any of that out, but fine!


This is Rich’s first full-length book, and also his first children’s novel. No way—yes way!



Austin Macauley Publishers