Doug Welch — “The Ashippun Trap: A Novel of Baseball and the Milwaukee Braves Final Season”

Former MSBL of Southern Wisconsin player/manager Doug Welch has written an exciting new baseball novel that captures the essence of 1960s-era amateur baseball hustlers and the final season of the Braves in Milwaukee.

The Ashippun Trap: A Novel of Baseball and the Milwaukee Braves Final Season, set in Southern Wisconsin’s Rock River amateur baseball league in 1965, was released January 30, 2014 by Texas book publisher Black Rose Writing. The book blends baseball fiction with baseball fact to paint a portrait of life in the Rock River League when teams in small towns such as Ashippun, located near Oconomowoc, routinely drew several hundred fans each Sunday. The popularity of small-town baseball often blurred the lines between amateur and pro players and Rock River League players and team managers could hustle the game for their own financial gain.

The novel intertwines its fictional characters with the path of Gene Oliver, a catcher for the Braves in 1965, to retell the story of that star-crossed, lame duck season at County Stadium.

Welch, who manages the Milton Junction Pub Raptors in the Rock River League and recently ended a 30-year career in journalism, relied on first-hand and newspaper accounts of the Braves’ 1965 season at County Stadium  to recreate  a unique story about the team’s one-of-a-kind final summer in Milwaukee.

“There were a couple of stories I wanted to tell with this book,” Welch said, “not the least of which is the tale of the Braves’ lame duck season in Milwaukee. In terms of fan-team relationships, it is truly one of the most unique circumstances ever seen in professional sports.”

Welch was a charter member of the MSBL of Southern Wisconsin and played in the league from 1993 to 2009. He also played in national MSBL tournaments in Arizona and Las Vegas from 2004 to 2011. A stroke suffered on Thanksgiving Day, 2011, ended Welch’s playing days.

Welch said the tale of the final year of the Braves in Milwaukee is a story that needs to be kept alive, revisited and retold in as many genres as possible.

“When you talk to young baseball fans in Wisconsin, so few have an appreciation for the importance of the Braves to Milwaukee and Wisconsin,” Welch said. “I’d yet to see that story retold in novel form. If readers can find a renewed appreciation or enthusiasm for that wonderful time in Wisconsin sports, then this book has fulfilled one of its goals.

“I set out to retell the sad story of Braves leaving town through the perspective of the hearts and minds of Wisconsin baseball fans at the time,” Welch said. “I tried to remain true to the era and show how much the Braves meant to the Wisconsin baseball community.”

The result is a humorous and touching nostalgia ride certain to entertain and enlighten any fan of baseball and the Milwaukee Braves.

The book is available to order online from Black Rose Writing at the following link http://www.blackrosewriting.com/sports/the-ashippun-trap  

A full synopsis of The Ashippun Trap can be found at the site.

Doug Welch lives in Milton and can be contacted for reduced-priced author copies or conversation at 608-359-6516 or welchd39@hotmail.com.