When a girl from South Chicago meets a boy from South Dakota, the result is Rapid Dreams.

Debbie Kling and Jim Quinn, both volunteers with the West Side Little League, met on the ballfields of New York’s Riverside Park. Years later, on the first of many trips to Jim’s home state, he showed Debbie the ballpark in Rapid City where his parents ran the concession stand and he served as batboy for the Chiefs, a team in the semi-professional Basin League.

There, in that very ballpark, constructed in 1957, they envisioned Rapid Dreams.

With extensive research of midcentury middle America and trips to the small towns and cities of the Basin League, Rapid Dreams required more than a decade to write. During that period, Jim and Debbie also coached girls’ softball teams and Debbie became President of the West Side Little League. And she appeared in the movie What Happens in Vegas along with players from their teams.

Debbie and Jim live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where Debbie continues to serve as League President.