Mike Shannon takes you behind the scenes into the ballpark, the clubhouse, and the minor leagues in this memorable collection of anecdotes about America's pastime. Tales from the Ballpark contains more than 125 priceless stories from some of baseball's greatest players and storytellers, including legendary Hall of Famers Ralph Kiner and Bob Gibson and modern-day stars Mo Vaughn and David Wells.
Learn about Roberto Clemente's chiropractic skills, a now-famous nun in Cleveland who bakes thousands of cookies for the Indians every year, the dangers of pitching batting practice to Gaylord Perry, and Billy Martin's tacit protest against the American League's subjective rating system for umpires. This entertaining and personal collection will delight fans for many years to come.
Mike Shannon is the founder and editor of Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine and the author of sixteen baseball books, including Diamond Classics: Essays on 100 of the Best Baseball Books and Baseball: The Writer’s Game. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Raymond Todd is an actor and director in the theater as well as a poet and documentary filmmaker. He plays jazz trombone for the Leatherstocking quartet, an ensemble that gets its name from one of his favorite Blackstone narrations, The Deerslayer. Todd lives in New York.