By Ravi Rao

Abandonment is the toughest pain to endure.

Baseball is gone.

When play finally resumes after a year-long dispute between players and owners, the fans do not return. Fans have lost trust, and they demonstrate disaffection by their absence from games.

Seven individuals find their lives and relationships changed dramatically as a result of the nation's lost interest in its pastime. They encounter personal challenges while enduring through an arduous season.

The difficult year impacts the players and coaches who work in the empty stadiums, as well as the owners who face financial ruin and the television networks that stand to lose much more.

Seven Lives, Seven Games is not only a story of baseball and romance, but is also a critical examination of the power of the media to shape public perception.

Hard cover; 6 x 9, ISBN 1-885003-92-7; $24.95 plus $3.50 S&H.