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Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America

Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America - Hardcover

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Availability:In StockContributor:Will BardenwerperPublish date:03/11/25Pages:320
Language:EnglishPublisher:Doubleday BooksISBN-13:9780385549653ISBN-10:385549652UPC:9780385549653Book Category:Sports & Recreation, History, Social ScienceBook Subcategory:Baseball, United States, Social Classes & Economic DisparityBook Topic:Essays & Writings, State & LocalSize:9.20 x 6.20 x 1.30 inchesWeight:1.2522Product ID:SC0E3VEY9T
A poignant memoir exploring small town baseball as a lens into what's right and wrong with modern America--written by an acclaimed journalist and Army Ranger who, after returning from Iraq to a painfully divided country, rediscovered its core values in the bleachers of a minor league ballpark in Batavia, New York.

What happens when a minor league team--the heart and soul of a Rust Belt town in western New York--is shut down by the billionaires who run Major League Baseball?

Batavia, New York--between Rochester and Buffalo--hosted its first professional baseball game in 1897. Despite decades of deindustrialization and evaporating middle-class jobs, the Batavia Muckdogs endured. When Major League Baseball cravenly shut them down in 2020--along with forty-one other minor league teams--the town fought back, reviving the Muckdogs as a summer league team comprised of college players. As MLB considers further cuts and private equity buys up what remains, the mom-and-pop operations once prevalent in baseball are endangered. But for now, the sights and sounds of local baseball live on in Batavia--cheap draft beer and hot dogs, starry-eyed kids seeking autographs, and breathtaking summer sunsets.

With a vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters--from a librarian and her best friend whose relationship deepens with every "crepuscular hour" they spend together in the bleachers, to the former hockey brawler-turned team owner who greets regulars while working the concession stand, to the iconoclastic writer with a contagious love for his struggling hometown--Bardenwerper's Homestand exposes the beating heart of small town America, friends and neighbors coming together as the crack of the bat echoes in the summer twilight.
Language:EnglishPublisher:Doubleday BooksISBN-13:9780385549653ISBN-10:385549652UPC:9780385549653Book Category:Sports & Recreation, History, Social ScienceBook Subcategory:Baseball, United States, Social Classes & Economic DisparityBook Topic:Essays & Writings, State & LocalSize:9.20 x 6.20 x 1.30 inchesWeight:1.2522Product ID:SC0E3VEY9T
WILL BARDENWERPER has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper's and other outlets and is the author of The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid. He served as an Airborne Ranger-qualified infantry officer in Iraq and was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge and Bronze Star. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he received a B.A. from Princeton and M.A. from Johns Hopkins University.
Publisher: Doubleday Books

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