Based around Leavy's own experiences, the book follows the life of a woman sportswriter who is the beat reporter for a Major League Baseball team.

"[3] The Washington Post said of the novel: "Squeeze Play is a bawdy baseball novel that takes aim not just at the pompous myths of our national pastime but also at the press box jock sniffers who cover it."

Noting its uncensored descriptions of sports locker rooms and the treatment of female sportswriters, it further calls the novel "slapstick with the ring of truth".

[4] Sportswriter Allen Barra, writing in Entertainment Weekly, said of the novel: "It is the funniest, raunchiest, and most compassionate baseball novel I've ever read and is sure to offend some people who cried during Field of Dreams — and that's good enough for me.

"[5] In 2003, after the success of Leavy's best-selling biography with HarperCollins, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, the publishing company re-released a paperback version of the novel via Harper Perennial.