Summer Baseball Nation
Nine Days in the Wood Bat Leagues
-
- $39.99
-
- $39.99
Publisher Description
The college baseball season doesn’t end when the school year is finished. Many of the top NCAA Division I, II, and III baseball players continue to play in one of the game’s most unique environments, the summer wood bat leagues. They swap aluminum bats for wood and play from June through August in more than forty states. The poetry of America’s pastime persists as soon-to-be stars such as Gordon Beckham, Buster Posey, and Aaron Judge crash in spare bedrooms and play for free on city and college ball fields.
Summer Baseball Nation chronicles a season in America’s summer collegiate baseball leagues. From the Cape to Alaska and a lot of places in between, Will Geoghegan tells the stories of a summer: eighteen of the best college players in the country playing Wiffle ball on Cape Cod, the Midnight Sun Game in Alaska, a California legend picking up another win, home runs flying into Lake Michigan, and the namesake of an old Minor League club packing the same charming ballpark. At every stop, players chase dreams while players and fans alike savor the moment.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rhode Island sportswriter Geoghegan chronicles a summer of high-level amateur baseball across America in this well-written, if light, debut. Growing up going to Cape Cod League games with his father, and later covering the league for his Right Field Fog blog, Geoghegan traveled in 2016 to "summer baseball hotbeds," which are filled mainly with collegiate players harboring big-league dreams. Geoghegan covers such teams as the Alaska Goldpanners, an independent barnstorming team, as they play the Midnight Sun game during the summer solstice, as well as leagues in general, such as the Midwest's Northwoods League, a for-profit operation in which the league owns four franchises and takes a 5% royalty on teams' gross revenues. The players only play for few months in these leagues before the short season ends, so Geoghegan offers only brief glimpses of the them, focusing more on the coaches, GMs, and owners, who, as locals or rooted transplants, have stronger ties to their communities. Though Geoghegan says the teams are all about community, there's little about the fans, the families that host players, or what college kids do in, say, Fairbanks, Alas., for a summer. Geoghegan's exploration of little-known baseball leagues is best suited for diehard baseball fans.
