'One Last Season' Becomes Young Colts Neck Author's First Novel

It all started when Steven Jacobson was 8-years-old and he decided he would write a book before he turned 20.

Jacobson, of Colts Neck, is three years early with his goal. At age 17 he has a novel on the shelves. 'One Last Season' is Jacobson's first full-length story, about a baseball player, his estranged son, and the relationships that unfold.

Jacobson said he always wrote short stories, but this plot was something he had in his head when he was 13 and started writing it.

"This was the first story that I knew where the story was going, I knew what I wanted to do with it."

Jacobson attends Ranney School in Tinton Falls and plays baseball for both the school and the NJ Marines travel team. For Jacobson, baseball was a natural jumping point for his first book.

"I started playing when I was 8, I went to my first Yankee game when I was 6. I was kind of a baseball-fan-in-name-only. But when I was 10, the summer after 4th grade, I was a bored kid and I was looking for something to do."

And from there, Jacobson began researching the history of baseball, memorizing statistics, and even memorizing ever World Series winner in one night so he could win a bet with a 5th grade classmate.

But the young author said his novel is about much more than baseball. It begins with a 43-year-old catcher for the San Diego Padres, a Hall-of-Fame caliber athlete that is finding himself mesh into the background behind younger players.

Fred, the novel's main character, gets another chance to start for his team. The twist? He ends up competing for the spot with his estranged son. 

"It may be a baseball book, but I think even non-sports fans can read it. It's got a lot of non-baseball action, it's just a good book about the relationship between a father and a son."

For baseball fans, Jacobson said there is plenty of the sport in the plot. 

"It deals with steroid use in baseball, and management philosophies for teams, the aging athletes issue. It takes on a whole myriad of issues."

Jacobson is the first student in Ranney history to have a book in the school library while still enrolled. And while the young author plans to take a bit of a break from writing during a busy teenage life, he has no plans to stop forever.

"When I get the time to write it and I get that itch again, I know what the next book will be about," Jacobson said. "It's going to be a science fiction book. For now I'm just writing short stories."

'One Last Season' can be ordered in Barnes & Noble and online, in both print and eBook, on Amazon.com. Jacobson will have a booth at the Made in Monmouth event in September where he will sell signed copies and meet his inevitable fans.