In this issue, we remember the enormous contribution of Jim Bouton, pictured on the cover in a portrait by artist Gary Cieradkowski. Throughout baseball's hidebound history, rebels and mavericks have emerged to challenge the status quo in the sport and the wider society, none more so than Bouton. His book Ball Four ultimately changed baseball, the sports media, and American literature. During his playing days, Bouton spoke out against the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, the exploitation of players by greedy owners, and the casual racism of the teams and his fellow players. When his baseball career ended, he continued to use his celebrity as a platform against social injustice. Fifty years after Ball Four's publication and now two years after Bouton's death, Robert Elias and Peter Dreier look back at the legacy. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: "When the Fans Didn't Go Wild" by J. Furman Daniel, III & Elliott Fullmer While the circumstances of the 2020 MLB season were far from ideal, it did present a unique research opportunity. Home-field advantage has long been observed in all major team sports, including baseball. Over the past several decades, researchers have sought to explain this persistent phenomenon. While multiple explanations have been advanced, the most common centers on the effect of attending crowds. Cheering (or booing) fans, the argument goes, affect the performance of players or umpires, leading to advantages for the home team. Because the 2020 MLB season was played without crowds, we are able to test the impact of fans on game outcomes through this unique natural experiment. "Impact of the Varying Sac-Fly Rules on Batting Champs, 1931-2019" by Herm Krabbenhoft The back-and-forth character of the sacrifice fly rule (i.e., at-bat or no at-bat) over the course of the twentieth century has resulted in some interesting "What if?" situations. For instance, one of baseball's oldest (and at-one-time highly revered) batting metrics is batting average, with the player with the highest batting average being regarded as the batting champion of his league. But which players would have won baseball's batting crowns if the rule had been consistent? What if the current sacrifice fly rule had been in effect for the 1931-53 period? Who would have won the batting titles, then? "'Country' Base Ball in the Boom of 1866," by Robert Tholkes As baseball spread throughout the United States after the Civil War, not every newspaper was supportive of the notion. "Violent exercise," reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer, would lead to "the production of fevers and bowel diseases." The Raleigh Daily Sentinel disapproved of Southerners spending time on amusements, noting that "Intellect, energy, frugality and hard labor will raise the South, and nothing else can." And as incidents of Sunday ballplaying proliferated, stiff opposition was raised by the Sabbatarians and other religious groups, like the State Street Congregational Church of Brooklyn's Missionary Society. The Society's diatribe warned that the game had turned from "a reasonable exercise into a moral contagion...insidiously diffusing and infusing itself into the minds and brains of thousands upon thousands of our young American people, from thirty years of age downward to little children...exhibiting a reckless abandon and mad ecstasy." Additional articles reexamine Hank Aaron's home run record, the career of Al Kaline, and the uncanny walk-off prowess of Ryan Zimmerman. One study looks at whether the perception that PED use prolonged MLB careers is correct. The "fourth out rule" and the earliest use of uniform numbers in the minor leagues are also investigated, among 18 articles in all.

Before the feuding owners turned to Ed Barrow to be general manager in 1920, the Yankees had never won a pennant. They won their first in 1921 and during Barrow's tenure went on to win thirteen more as well as ten World Series. This biography of the incomparable Barrow is also the story of how he built the most successful sports franchise in American history. Barrow spent fifty years in baseball. He was in the middle of virtually every major conflict and held practically every job except player. Daniel R. Levitt describes Barrow's pre-Yankees years, when he managed Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox to their last World Series Championship before the "curse." He then details how Barrow assembled a winning Yankees team both by purchasing players outright and by developing talent through a farm system. The story of the making of the great Yankees dynasty reveals Barrow's genius for organizing, for recognizing baseball talent, and for exploiting the existing economic environment. Because Barrow was a player in so many of baseball's key events, his biography gives a clear and eye-opening picture of how America's sport was played in the twentieth century, on the field and off. A complex portrait of a larger-than-life character in the annals of baseball, this book is also an inside history of how the sport's competitive environment evolved and how the Yankees came to dominate it.

Shibe Park was demolished in 1976, and today its site is surrounded by the devastation of North Philadelphia. Kuklick, however, vividly evokes the feelings people had about the home of the Philadelphia Athletics and later the Phillies.

Pitchers are at the heart of baseball. Each has the potential to make his team a winner or, very quickly, a loser. The pressure is huge. In the end, only those with both the arm and the heart and the ability to manage extraordinary stress will emerge as champions.
John Feinstein looks into this complex side of the game through the events of one nerve-racking season and through the eyes of two great pitchers trying to perform at the highest possible level in the twilight of their careers in the biggest media fishbowl in America. Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina have seen it all in the Major Leagues, remarkable highs and heartbreaking lows. Both entered the 2007 season in search of individual milestones and one more shot at the World Series--Glavine with the Mets, Mussina a few miles and one borough away with the Yankees. Despite their proximity, they experienced very different seasons--one pitching for a team dealing with the pressure of trying to qualify for the World Series for the first time in seven years; the other with a legendary team, expected to be there every year.
Feinstein captures the rollercoaster that was the 2007 season for both teams through the experiences of two pitchers at the center of it all. John Feinstein provides a true insider's look into the most intensely watched and scrutinized position in sports-Major League starting pitcher.

Hailed by Sports Illustrated as the "Edward Gibbon of baseball history," Harold Seymour is the first professional historian to produce an authoritative, multivolume chronicle of America's national pastime. The first two volumes of this study--The Early Years and The Golden Age--won universal acclaim. The New York Times wrote that they "will grip every American who has invested part of his youth and dreams in the sport," while The Boston Globe called them "irresistible."

Now, in The People's Game, Seymour offers the first book devoted entirely to the history of the game outside of the professional leagues, revealing how, from its early beginnings up to World War II, baseball truly became the great American pastime. He explores the bond between baseball and boys through the decades, the game's place in institutions from colleges to prisons to the armed forces, the rise of women's baseball that coincided with nineteenth century feminism, and the struggles of black players and clubs from the later years of slavery up to the Second World War.

Whether discussing the birth of softball or the origins of the seventh inning stretch, Dr. Seymour enriches his extensive research with fascinating details and entertaining anecdotes as well as his own wealth of baseball experience. The People's Game brings to life the central role of baseball for generations of Americans.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year "An instant sports classic." --New York Post * "Stellar." --The Wall Street Journal * "A true masterwork...880 pages of sheer baseball bliss." --BookPage (starred review) * "This is a remarkable achievement." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious, The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski that tells the story of the sport through the remarkable lives of its 100 greatest players. In the book's introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels, "Posnanski must already have lived more than 200 years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?" Baseball's legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game's all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn't rely just on records and statistics--he lovingly retraces players' origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball's past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the twenty-first- century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth's? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium of baseball's legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor, and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O'Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more. The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Chapter by chapter, Posnanski invites readers to examine common lore with brand-new eyes and learn stories that have long gone unheard. The epic and often emotional reading experience mirrors Posnanski's personal odyssey to capture the history and glory of baseball like no one else, fueled by his boundless love for the sport. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, The Baseball 100 is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.

For many New Yorkers, the removal of the Brooklyn Dodgers--perhaps the most popular baseball team of all time--to Los Angeles in 1957 remains one of the most traumatic events since World War II. Neil J. Sullivan's controversial reassessment of a story that has reached almost mythic proportions in its many retellings shifts responsibility for the move onto the local governmental maneuverings that occurred on both sides of the continent.

Conventional wisdom has it that Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley cold-heartedly abandoned the devoted Brooklyn fans for the easy money of Los Angeles. Sullivan argues that O'Malley had, in fact, wanted to stay in Brooklyn, hoping to build a new stadium with his own money. Situated in an increasingly unsafe neighborhood and without parking facilities, Ebbets Field had become obsolete. Yet an uncooperative New York City administration, led by Robert Moses, blocked O'Malley's plan to use the ideal site at the Atlantic Avenue Long Island Railroad terminal. A political battle over the Dodgers' move also erupted in Los Angeles. Mayor Poulson's suggestion to use Chavez Ravine as the new stadium site triggered opposition from residents concerned about a giveaway. Eventually a telethon campaign that enlisted the help of celebrities such as Groucho Marx, George Burns, and Ronald Reagan enabled the approval of the deal.

Set against a backdrop of sporting passion and rivalry, and appearing over thirty years after the Dodgers' last season in Brooklyn, this engrossing book offers new insights into the power stuggles existing in the nation's two largest cities.

For most of the first half of the twentieth century, African-Americans were excluded from Organized Baseball. But their love of the game, and their desire to play could not be denied. Despite that ban, "blackball" was being played in just about every cow pasture and field available throughout the country. Black players criss-crossed the country in Negro League games and on barnstorming tours, bringing baseball to places where the Major Leagues never dreamed of going. Many gifted athletes never got the chance to compete in the Majors, until the door was finally opened in 1947 with the signing of Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby. Once given that chance to compete, African-Americans showed the country that they were deserving of the opportunity. Many became superstars, but, on the mound, only 13 African-Americans ever reached the magic plateau of twenty wins in a season. This book tells the story of those thirteen men and a few of their predecessors, the obstacles they faced, and the determination they showed to succeed. But it is a story about so much more than just baseball. Against the backdrop of their grit and determination, it reflects the story of all African-American baseball players through the creation of the Negro Leagues, the evolution of the game, and the parallel integration of baseball and America.

The Chicago Cubs of the mid-1920s through 1940 were one of the most talented and exciting ball clubs the city ever produced. The Northsiders enjoyed 14 consecutive winning seasons and claimed the National League pennant four times (1929, 1932, 1935, and 1938), but fell to a dominant American League club in each World Series appearance. Four legendary baseball names led these Cub teams during this amazing stretch. Three eventually landed in Cooperstown (McCarthy, Hornsby, Hartnett), and many believe the fourth (Grimm) should have joined them. This was also the era when Cubs Park was transformed into Wrigley Field, under the guidance of Bill Veeck Jr., with its trademark bricks and ivy, hand-operated scoreboard, and outfield bleachers.

The candid autobiography of all-star pitcher "Sudden Sam" McDowell, whose alcohol-fueled life quickly and famously spiraled out of control, and his ultimate redemption as a counselor for other athletes suffering from addiction. Sam McDowell seemed to have it all. Considered by many to be the next Sandy Koufax when he signed with the Cleveland Indians, Sam boasted one of the fastest arms in major league baseball. But on the inside, he was playing in an alcoholic fog, beset by addiction, depression, narcissism, and thoughts of suicide. The Saga of Sudden Sam: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Sam McDowell is the fascinating autobiography of the six-time American League all-star pitcher and self-admitted "worst drunk in baseball." Sam holds nothing back, sharing the pressures he felt as a young baseball phenom, his frustrations over a lack of coaching to help develop his talent, the pitfalls of his dangerous alcoholic lifestyle, and his attempted suicide. When "Sudden Sam" finally hit rock bottom, certain he had been defeated by alcoholism, he instead found hope, rehabilitation, and sobriety. After extensive education and training, he emerged as the first successful counselor in major league baseball. Sam helped to turn around the lives of players who, just like him, had fallen into the abyss of addiction or faced psychological and emotional problems that were destroying their careers. With details of his own severe battles with depression and addiction told alongside the struggles of players who came to him for help, The Saga of Sudden Sam offers special insight into the longstanding addiction issues that plague Major League Baseball. It also provides understanding and hope to anyone struggling with addiction and shows that recovery is attainable.

An in-depth look at the intersection of judgment and statistics in baseball Scouting and scoring are considered fundamentally different ways of ascertaining value in baseball. Scouting seems to rely on experience and intuition, scoring on performance metrics and statistics. In Scouting and Scoring, Christopher Phillips rejects these simplistic divisions. He shows how both scouts and scorers rely on numbers, bureaucracy, trust, and human labor to make sound judgments about the value of baseball players. Tracing baseball's story from the nineteenth century to today, Phillips explains that the sport was one of the earliest fields to introduce numerical analysis, and new methods of data collection were supposed to enable teams to replace scouting with scoring. But that's not how things turned out. From the invention of official scorers and Statcast to the creation of the Major League Scouting Bureau, Scouting and Scoring reveals the inextricable connections between human expertise and data science, and offers an entirely fresh understanding of baseball.

Each spring, Tee-ball introduces millions of boys and girls to Americas pastime --and introduces their parents to the joys (and nightmares) of coaching first-time players. Filled with expert advice and tips on creating order from chaos, Coaching Tee-Ball is the solution to every baffled parents predicament, offering the new coach a total approach to keeping kids involved, motivated, and having fun.

A facsimile edition of the 1953 history of the Philadelphia Phillies Fred Lieb and Stan Baumgartner's history of the Philadelphia Phillies was originally published in 1953 as part of the celebrated series of major league team histories published by G. P. Putnam. With their colorful prose and delightful narratives, the Putnam books have been described as the Cadillac of the genre and have become prized collectibles for baseball readers and historians. Together Lieb and Baumgartner chronicle the Phillies franchise's turbulent past—from its frustrating early decades, through its heartbreaking loss to the Boston Red Sox in the 1915 World Series, to its exciting "Whiz Kids" pennant of 1950. Phillies legends like Grover Cleveland Alexander, Chuck Klein, and Ed Delahanty fill these pages, and their colorful anecdotes are woven into the fabric of each season's story. In addition to its comprehensive and intimate examination of the team's history, The Philadelphia Phillies addresses the challenge of rooting for an often-struggling home team in a city known for its passionate baseball fans. Lieb's devotion to his hometown Phillies and overall love of the game and Baumgartner's unique insight as a Philadelphia sportswriter and former player often lead to thoughtful advice and comfort for long-suffering Phillies fans. A trip through a rocky but remarkable past, The Philadelphia Phillies is another enjoyable addition to the Writing Sports Series.

In 1957 the Dodgers broke the hearts of blue-collar Brooklyn for the embrace of booming Los Angeles. Thus began a new era for the fabled Bums, whose exploits inside -- and outside -- the white lines have intrigued generations of baseball fans.

Based on scores of fresh and exuberant interviews, True Blue brings you into the dugout and the locker room, capturing the nearly half-century of clutch performances, World Series triumphs, blown pennant races, clubhouse brawls, contract disputes, stunning trades, and turbulent managerial changes -- all with a startling insider's perspective.

In their own candid and provocative words, a who's who of Dodger legends and stars such as Duke Snider, Maury Wills, John Roseboro, Don Sutton, Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, Reggie Smith, Tommy Lasorda, Bill Russell, Dusty Baker, Kirk Gibson, Steve Sax, and Eric Karros recall their years with the Dodgers. Also providing their unique commentary are a number of noted opponents, writers, and broadcasters, including Willie Mays, Sparky Anderson, Pete Hamill, Roger Kahn, Tim McCarver, and Bob Costas.

Their voices, woven into a rich and fast-paced narrative, bring to life the rise and shocking retirement of Sandy Koufax, Kirk Gibson's dramatic 1988 World Series home run, the controversial trade of Mike Piazza, and so much more. It is the vivid story of how the Dodgers became one of the great successes in major league history, winning nine National League pennants and five World Series championships.

A fascinating and colorful history of a team, an era, and baseball itself, True Blue is must reading for any baseball fan.

The story of Jackie Robinson valiantly breaking baseball's color barrier in 1947 is one that most Americans know. But less recognized is the fact that some seventy years earlier, following the Civil War, baseball was tenuously biracial and had the potential for a truly open game. How, then, did the game become so firmly segregated that it required a trailblazer like Robinson? The answer, Ryan A. Swanson suggests, has everything to do with the politics of reconciliation and a wish to avoid the issues of race that an integrated game necessarily raised. The history of baseball during Reconstruction, as Swanson tells it, is a story of lost opportunities. Thomas Fitzgerald and Octavius Catto (a Philadelphia baseball tandem), for example, were poised to emerge as pioneers of integration in the 1860s. Instead, the desire to create a national game--professional and appealing to white Northerners and Southerners alike--trumped any movement toward civil rights. Focusing on Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Richmond--three cities with large African American populations and thriving baseball clubs--Swanson uncovers the origins of baseball's segregation and the mechanics of its implementation. An important piece of sports history, his work also offers a better understanding of Reconstruction, race, and segregation in America.

Late in 1937 Hugh Alexander, a kid fresh out of small-town Oklahoma, had just finished his second year playing outfield for the Cleveland Indians when an oil rig accident ripped off his left hand. Within three months he was back with the Indians, but this time as a scout--the youngest ever in Major League history. In the next six decades he signed more players who made it to the Majors than any other scout.

His story, "Baseball's Last Great Scout," reads like a backroom, bleacher-seat history of twentieth-century baseball--and a primer on what it takes to find a winner. It gives a gritty picture of learning the business on the road, from American Legion field to try-out camp to beer joint, and making the fine distinctions between "performance" and "tools of the trade" when checking out prospects. Over the years Alexander worked for the Indians, the White Sox, the LA Dodgers, the Phillies, and the Cubs--and signed the likes of Allie Reynolds, Don Sutton, and Marty Bystrom. This book, based on extensive interviews and Alexander's journals, is filled with memorable characters, pithy lessons, snapshots of American life, and a big picture of America's pastime from one of its great off-the-field players.

Soon after Satchel Paige arrived at spring training in 1937 to pitch for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, he and five of his teammates, including Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, were lured to the Dominican Republic with the promise of easy money to play a short baseball tournament in support of the country's dictator, Rafael Trujillo. As it turned out, the money wasn't so easy. After Paige and his friends arrived on the island, they found themselves under the thumb of Trujillo, known by Dominicans for murdering those who disappointed him. In the initial games, the Ciudad Trujillo All-Star team floundered. Living outside the shadow of segregation, Satchel and his recruits spent their nights carousing and their days dropping close games to their rivals, who were also stocked with great players. Desperate to restore discipline, Trujillo tapped the leader of his death squads to become part of the team management. When Paige's team ultimately rallied to win, it barely registered with Trujillo, who a few months later ordered the killings of fifteen thousand Haitians at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Paige and his teammates returned to the states to face banishment from the Negro Leagues, but they barnstormed across America wearing their Trujillo All-Stars uniforms. The Pitcher and the Dictator is an extraordinary story of race, politics, and some of the greatest baseball players ever assembled, playing high-stakes games in support of one of the Caribbean's cruelest dictators.

2020 SABR Baseball Research Award Last Seasons in Havana explores the intersection between Cuba and America's pastime from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when Fidel Castro overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Cesar Brioso takes the reader through the triumph of the revolution in 1959 and its impact on professional baseball in the seasons immediately following Castro's rise to power. Baseball in pre-Castro Cuba was enjoying a golden age. The Cuban League, which had been founded in 1878, just two years after the formation of the National League, was thriving under the auspices of organized baseball. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, players from the Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, and Negro Leagues had come to Cuba to play in the country's wholly integrated winter baseball league. Cuban teams had come to dominate the annual Caribbean Series tournament, and Havana had joined the highest levels of Minor League Baseball, fielding the Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League. Confidence was high that Havana might one day have a Major League team of its own. But professional baseball became one of the many victims of Castro's Communist revolution. American players stopped participating in the Cuban League, and Cuban teams moved to an amateur, state-sponsored model. Focusing on the final three seasons of the Cuban League (1958-61) and the final two seasons of the Havana Sugar Kings (1959-60), Last Seasons in Havana explores how Castro's rise to power forever altered Cuba and the course of a sport that had become ingrained in the island's culture over the course of almost a century.

"Baseball Hacks" isn't your typical baseball book - it's a book about how to watch, research, and understand baseball. It's an instruction manual for the free baseball databases. It's a cookbook for baseball research. Every part of this book is designed to teach baseball fans how to do something. In short, it's a how-to book - one that will increase your enjoyment and knowledge of the game. So much of the way baseball is played today hinges upon interpreting statistical data. Players are acquired based on their performance in statistical categories that ownership deems most important. Managers make in-game decisions based not on instincts, but on probability - how a particular batter might fare against left-handed pitching, for instance. The goal of this unique book is to show fans all the baseball-related stuff that they can do for free (or close to free). Just as open source projects have made great software freely available, collaborative projects, such as Retrosheet and Baseball DataBank have made great data freely available. You can use these data sources to research your favourite players, win your fantasy league, or appreciate the game of baseball even more than you do now. "Baseball Hacks" shows how easy it is to get data, process it, and use it to truly understand baseball. The book lists a number of sources for current and historical baseball data, and explains how to load it into a database for analysis. It then introduces several powerful statistical tools for understanding data and forecasting results. For the uninitiated baseball fan, author, Joseph Adler walks readers through the core statistical categories for hitters (batting average, on-base percentage, etc.), pitchers (earned run average, strikeout-to-walk ratio, etc.), and fielders (putouts, errors, etc.). He then extrapolates upon these numbers to examine more advanced data groups like career averages, team stats, season-by-season comparisons, and more. Whether you're a mathematician, scientist, or season-ticket holder to your favourite team, "Baseball Hacks" is sure to have something for you. Advance praise for "Baseball Hacks": ""Baseball Hacks" is the best book ever written for understanding and practicing baseball analytics. A must-read for baseball professionals and enthusiasts alike." - Ari Kaplan, database consultant to the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, and Baltimore Orioles. "The game was born in the 19th century, but the passion for its analysis continues to grow into the 21st. In "Baseball Hacks", Joe Adler not only demonstrates that the latest data-mining technologies have useful application to the study of baseball statistics, he also teaches the reader how to do the analysis himself, arming the dedicated baseball fan with tools to take his understanding of the game to a higher level." - Mark E. Johnson, Ph.D., Founder, SportMetrika, Inc. and Baseball Analyst for the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals.

The flagship publication of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), the Baseball Research Journal is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed publication presenting the best in SABR member research on baseball. History, biography, economics, physics, psychology, game theory, sociology and culture, records, and many other disciplines are represented to expand our knowledge of baseball as it is, was, and could be played.

In 1965 George Gmelch signed a contract to play professional baseball with the Detroit Tigers organization. Gmelch grew up sheltered in an all-white, affluent San Francisco suburb, and he knew little of the world outside. Over the next four seasons, he came of age in baseball's Minor Leagues through experiences ranging from learning the craft of the professional game to becoming conscious of race and class for the first time. Playing with Tigers is not a typical baseball memoir. Now a well-known anthropologist, Gmelch recounts a baseball education unlike any other as he got to know small-town life across the United States against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, civil rights protests, and the emergence of counterculture. The social and political turmoil of the times spilled into baseball, and Gmelch experienced the consequences firsthand as he played out his career in the Jim Crow South. Playing with Tigers immerses the reader in the life of the Minor Leagues, capturing the gritty, insular, and humorous life and culture of Minor League baseball during a period when both the author and the country were undergoing profound changes.

How to live with difference--not necessarily in peace, but with resilience, engagement, and a lack of vitriol--is a defining worry in America at this moment. The poets, fiction writers, and essayists (plus one graphic novelist) who contributed to Welcome to the Neighborhood don't necessarily offer roadmaps to harmonious neighboring. Some of their narrators don't even want to be neighbors. Maybe they grieve, or rage. Maybe they briefly find resolution or community. But they do approach the question of what it means to be neighbors, and how we should do it, with open minds and nuance. The many diverse contributors give this collection a depth beyond easy answers. Their attentions to the theme of neighborliness as an ongoing evolution offer hope to readers: possible pathways for rediscovering community, even just by way of a shared wish for it. The result is an enormously rich resource for the classroom and for anyone interested in reflecting on what it means to be American today, and how place and community play a part. Contributors include Leila Chatti, Rita Dove, Jonathan Escoffery, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Amina Gautier, Ross Gay, Mark Halliday, Joy Harjo, Edward Hirsch, Marie Howe, Sonya Larson, Dinty W. Moore, Robert Pinsky, Christine Schutt, and many more.

Ben, a sports analytics wizard, loves baseball. Eric, his best friend, hates it. But when Ben writes an algorithm for the optimal baseball road trip--an impossible dream of seeing every pitch of 30 games in 30 stadiums in 30 days--who will he call on to take shifts behind the wheel, especially when those shifts include nineteen hours straight from Phoenix to Kansas City? Eric, of course. Will Eric regret it? Most definitely. On June 1, 2013, Ben and Eric set out to see America through the bleachers and concession stands of America's favorite pastime. Along the way, human error and Mother Nature throw their mathematically optimized schedule a few curveballs. A mix-up in Denver turns a planned day off in Las Vegas into a twenty-hour drive, and a summer storm of biblical proportions threatens to make the whole thing logistically impossible, if they don't kill each other first. I Don't Care If We Never Get Back is a charming, insightful, and hilarious book about the limits of fandom and the limitlessness of friendship.