Baseball Sleuth

“You buried the body in the yard?” These words, spoken to a man named Bob, crackle from the baby monitor. Phillip strains to hear more through the static. A murder! No one will believe him unless he finds out who Bob is, and where Bob lives. Phillip Crafts loves baseball but he is a terrible player. He loves mysteries, but his teammates laugh at him when he sees crimes where they don’t exist. Meanwhile, at home, his life is even worse. After twelve years of being an only child, Phillip's newborn sister has taken all of his mother's time, energy, and maybe even her love. And he is sure that he can never earn the respect of his “jock” stepfather. The only good thing in his life is his best friend Jackson, the girl next door. Armed with few clues, Phillip and Jackson work to unravel the mystery of the buried body. Their investigation builds to an exciting and dangerous climax, just as Phillip’s baseball season builds toward its final, dramatic game.

This book is the result of one man’s twenty-year quest to solve some of baseball’s most enduring mysteries—the “cold cases” of major leaguers about whom virtually nothing is known. (In many instances, the various baseball encyclopedias list only their names and one other word: “deceased.”) Some of these mysterious players had negligible professional careers and their time on a major league diamond was more the result of good fortune than anything else; others were stars in their day and then vanished. The Biographical Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research is committed to finding them and award-winning researcher Peter Morris tells the story of some of the most remarkable of the searches that resulted, many of which featured twists so surprising no mystery writer could have invented them.

A chronicle of our national pastime’s most unforgettable era from the bestselling author of The Summer Game—“No one writes better about baseball” (The Boston Globe). Classic New Yorker sportswriter Roger Angell calls 1972 to 1976 “the most important half-decade in the history of the game.” The early to mid-1970s brought unprecedented changes to America’s ancient pastime: astounding performances by Nolan Ryan and Hank Aaron; the intensity of the “best-ever” 1975 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox; the changes growing from bitter and extended labor strikes and lockouts; and the vast new influence of network television on the game. Angell, always a fan as well as a writer, casts a knowing but noncynical eye on these events, offering a fresh perspective to baseball’s continuing appeal during this brilliant and transformative era.

“Baseball’s most eloquent analyst” demonstrates why he has “long since attained the status of national treasure,” in this classic essay collection (The New York Times Book Review). Roger Angell's famous explorations of the summer game are built on acute observation and joyful participation, conveyed in a prose style as admired and envied as Ted Williams’s swing. Here is Angell on Fenway Park in September, on Bob Gibson brooding in retirement, on Tom Seaver in mid-windup, on the abysmal early and recent Mets, on a scout at work in backcountry Kentucky, on Pete Rose and Willie Mays and Pedro Martinez, on the astounding Barry Bonds at Pac Bell Park, and more. With twenty-nine essays divided between spring, summer, and fall, Game Time carries readers through the arc of the season with refreshed understanding and pleasure. With an introduction by Richard Ford, this collection represents Angell’s best writings, from spring training in 1962 to the explosive World Series of 2002. A New York Times Notable Book

The Deadly Tools of Ignorance follows the witty and feisty Debs Kafka through the dysfunctional halls of academia, into the scandal-ridden Catholic Church, down the streets of San Francisco, and into the locker rooms of Major League Baseball. Can he fathom the chaos of these different worlds, find the culprit, and still salvage his own aspirations and stormy romance? In a nutshell this novel is: Good Will Hunting meets the Rookie on the Field of Dreams behind the Catholic Church.

From the author of Pond Puckster and Baseball Sleuth! More than anything, eight-year-old Jimmy Jarvis wants a baseball autographed by his favorite major league player, and he is willing to do almost anything to get it. Jimmy has another wish, too. After living in six different foster homes in six years, Jimmy wants a family that will be his forever. But will he risk a chance at a real home for the ball of his dreams?

Blaze dreams of being a great hunter and warrior but his people of the Great Cliff are a peaceful farming tribe and do not believe in learning the skills of war. Blaze discovers the Hohokam people, who respect fighters above all others and he must decide where his true spirit lies.

By the author of Pond Puckster! Making diving headers on the soccer field or climbing the toughest walls of rock, Mardi Slote lives life to the fullest. Like her father, she fearlessly "pushes the envelope" in all she does. But when her father announces that he is going to climb the world's tallest mountain, a mountain that has already claimed more than a hundred lives, Mardi is afraid. The Call of Sagarmatha follows David Slote's battle for survival against the elements on Mount Everest, or Sagarmatha, as the native people of Nepal refer to it. Meanwhile, Mardi must come to grips with her anger over that climb, an anger which threatens to destroy her zest for life, and tear her family apart. In a novel which captures the drama of climbing, from the rocky cliffs of New Hampshire to the slopes of Mount Everest, the greatest struggle is in the soul of a twelve year-old girl.