David W. Zang played junior high school basketball in a drained swimming pool. He wore a rubber suit to bed to make weight for a wrestling meet. He kept a log as an obsessive runner (not a jogger). In short, he soldiered through the life of an ordinary athlete. Whether pondering his long-unbuilt replica of Connie Mack Stadium or his eye-opening turn as the Baltimore Ravens' mascot, Zang offers tales at turns poignant and hilarious as he engages with the passions that shaped his life. Yet his meditations also probe the tragedy of a modern athletic culture that substitutes hyped spectatorship for participation. As he laments, American society's increasing scorn for taking part in play robs adults of the life-affirming virtues of games that challenge us to accomplish the impossible for the most transcendent of reasons: to see if it can be done. From teammates named Lop to tracing Joe Paterno's long shadow over Happy Valley, I Wore Babe Ruth's Hat reports from the everyman's Elysium where games and life intersect.

'A mesmerizing tale, reminding us - if we need to be reminded - of the blasted hopes and lives that have been and are being produced by the inequitable and indefensible way some Americans treat people who are racially different' - "Nation". 'Zang has done truly excellent work to rescue his subject from a shadowy past and to illuminate him as an 'imperishable human presence' trapped in a heartbreaking era' - "Sporting News". 'Zang reconstructs his story convincingly...a first (and undoubtedly definitive) biography of an all-but-forgotten figure in the history of American sports and race matters' - "Washington Post". 'A dramatic portrait that reflects the nation's turn-of-the-century racial milieu' - "Library Journal". 'Zang's book is about more than baseball. He effectively places Walker's multifaceted life in the context of the racial climate of the late nineteenth century' - "Journal of American History".Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first black American to play baseball in a major league. He achieved college baseball stardom at Oberlin College in the 1880s. Teammates as well as opponents harassed him; Cap Anson, the Chicago White Stockings star, is blamed for driving Walker and the few other blacks in the major leagues out of the game, but he could not have done so alone. A gifted athlete, inventor, civil rights activist, author, and entrepreneur, Walker lived precariously along America's racial fault lines. He died in 1924, thwarted in ambition and talent and frustrated by both the American dream and the national pastime. David W. Zang has taught sports studies and American studies at the University of Maryland, The Pennsylvania State University, and Towson University.