David Mutti Clark believes he was probably conceived and born between baseball and the blues. His father was a fanatic Yankee fan, and, in the year he was born, 1951, the Yanks were world champions. His father also loved Louis Armstrong. And in the same year Louis recorded "A Kiss to Build a Dream On". Clark conjectures that nothing could have been more romantic for his father than the confluence of the best in baseball and the blues. There's another reason Clark loves the blues: "In the blues, the real blues, there's a hint of hope in every cry of desperation." We all could use a little bit of hope. Life can be a relentless battle with despair. Clark's father committed suicide a few months after his daughter was born. And his father's father chose to end his life by placing the muzzle of a rifle in his mouth and squeezing the trigger. So Clark seeks solace in baseball and the blues. And there, between the black and white keys of the piano and in the sound of the bat cracking and the fans cheering the hitter home, he finds grace. "How do you capture beauty in your life?" Clark asks himself. "How do you learn to swing a bat like Mickey Mantle or sing a duet like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong?" Clark is still trying to figure it out. So he writes hoping that his characters provide him with the answer.