In Belle of the Ball, we are taken into the intimate world of sports fiction by an author with a track record in the genre. Norman Keifetz is the author of The Sensation, a highly admired and successful baseball novel widely praised by book and sports editors around the country. The New York Times Book Review called it "a nimble and witty tour de force" and later included Keifetz's work in a list of the best baseball fiction. A baseball-centered story of his appeared later in an issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. In Belle of the Ball, the reader is up-front at the trials and tribulations of the first woman umpire in the Major Leagues, observing her working life as it is being disrupted by those defending what they deem traditional values. Today, the most keen observers of the sport say a woman umpire in will soon be roaming the baseball field. Belle of Ball offers a look at just how difficult that pursuit may be. In the novel, the author says a lot of things about baseball for profit in America and the powerful pressure behind the scenes that fans rarely sense.