As ridiculous as it may have sounded then, the thought never fully left his mind, and 34 years later, it has formed the basis for his debut novel “Baseball Spy,” which is aimed at older elementary and middle school readers. Reister, a Dallas native and University of Texas alum who has served as the sports director at KCCI since 2018, entertained a lively crowd of kids, parents and grandparents at the Marshalltown Public Library, donning a full baseball getup, signing copies of the book and providing some insight into the process of getting it published with Young Dragons.

The main character in the story, 14-year-old Zane Mitchell, returns home from a baseball game with his new team to find his mom gone and a mysterious federal agent at his door.

“That’s just the beginning of this wild ride, though. One of his teammates is a rogue hacker on a mission to uncover an explosive government secret, and Zane is the only one who can stop them,” a promo reads.

Reister told the audience he was always excited by the idea of a high stakes sporting event and a bad guy with a red button waiting to unleash mass destruction if he failed to drive in the winning run — the same with other scenarios in football and basketball, which will form the basis of the planned sequels to “Baseball Spy.”

In an effort to provide insight into the publishing process, Reister brought kids from the audience to the front of the room and invited them to jump through the hoops, a metaphor for his own journey.

“It always stuck with me. That, one day, would be the coolest book or movie, and I always thought it would be really fun if that movie or book existed where it was sports. But the outcome of that game depended on whether the bad guy won or not,” he said.

About a quarter century later — and after plenty of procrastination — Reister finally got to work on turning his vision into a real-life novel that runs approximately 250 pages, seeking out published authors for advice, reading books about how to write books and listening to podcasts.

“I said (that) if I’m gonna write this book about this idea I had in my head, I want it to be the best book ever. Sometimes, books take a long time to get to the point, and I said, ‘That’s stupid.’ My book’s gonna get to the point right away. It’s gonna start right in the action, you’re gonna know right (away) what it’s about, and there’s gonna be awesome twists and turns. And there’s gonna be a giant twist at the end of each chapter. Some people call it a cliffhanger.”

Reister worked his way through a rough draft, solicited feedback, spent another year fine-tuning it and eventually secured a three-book publishing deal. As he shifted back to describing the plot, he revealed that Zane is required to go undercover on his own team to discover which member is the elusive evil spy attempting to download secrets with a hidden computer on the field and putting lives in jeopardy.

“So Zane has to wear a secret device on his cleats and his belt and his earpiece and his hat, and he’s gotta sneak around the field without anybody knowing. And he’s gotta learn his teammates,” Reister said. “And as you’re reading this, it’s super fun… You’ve gotta guess who the bad guy is, and then right when you think you know who it is, there’s a big twist, and then there’s another big twist. And then ultimately, it all leads up to that moment where little league is life or death. If he doesn’t keep winning and they don’t make the playoffs, then everybody dies. So it’s a super fun mystery.”

Reister, in full uniform and with a bat in hand, demonstrates the hypothetical that inspired him to write “Baseball Spy” during an event at the Marshalltown Public Library on Tuesday.

Of course, one major hurdle remained in the process for Reister: putting “Baseball Spy” out into the world and hoping people would want to read it. When it was released on April 23, it shot to the top of the Amazon rankings for kids baseball books and stayed there for a month — during the Q&A portion, he even revealed that one kid stayed inside during recess to keep reading it. The author has been hosting signing events at libraries and bookstores in both Iowa and his native Texas, including the one in Marshalltown Tuesday.

Reister fielded several questions from the audience, many of them pertaining to the process of writing it and how much fun he had doing it, creating the copies, choosing a title, how the cover was decided upon and why he decided to get it published through a traditional publisher rather than self-publishing.

While the book has only been out for 10 weeks, Reister said he would love to see it adapted into a television series or film at some point down the line.

“Luckily, it’s generated a bunch of media attention, so what we’re trying to do is make those connections. I think, as you read the book, you’ll think ‘Oh, this would be so cool,’ and I think it would really adapt well. So that would be the ultimate dream if it got to the point,” he said. “It hasn’t gotten there yet, and it might take five years, but I’m definitely gonna start pushing that. And it might not happen until the series is done, I don’t know, but yeah, definitely, pursuing that would be great.”

There are currently two copies of “Baseball Spy” available at the Marshalltown Public Library. Reister has plans to release the sequel “Football Spy” in 2025 and “Basketball Spy” in 2026. The final segment of his presentation required some audience participation as he invited the kids to jump through hula hoops as a metaphor for the process of getting a book deal, which he secured in 2022, and the ultimate road to publication. “Baseball Spy” is now available to order through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

He stuck around for photos and urged the children in attendance to chase whatever dreams they have, whether it’s writing a book, being a great athlete or being great at anything else they choose to pursue. Even if it takes 34 years to be fully realized, like “Baseball Spy” did, the dream might just come true.