Slouching Toward Fargo: A Two-Year Saga of Sinners and St. Paul Saints at the Bottom of the Bush Leagues with Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie and Me

The wild and hilarious adventures of baseball’s magnificent misfits, the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League.  Starring team co-owners Bill Murray and Mike Veeck, and a roster that includes Darryl Strawberry and Jack Morris, not to mention Wayne Terwilliger. Big-time characters play small-town baseball and learn to love the game all over again.  


Winner of the prestigious Casey Award for best baseball book of 1999.  Featuring a new Foreword by Mike Veeck. 


In his classic account of two years with the most audacious bush league ballclub ever to plumb the bottom of the pro sports barrel, Neal Karlen presents a dizzying collection of characters: co-owners comedian Bill Murray and sports impresario Mike Veeck; baseball’s formerly winningest pitcher Jack Morris; outfielder Darryl Strawberry, on his way back to the majors; the back-rubbing Sister Rosalind; baseball’s first woman player Ila Borders; frantic fans, a ball-carrying pig, a blind sportscaster, and a host of others. They all prove the credo of the Saints: Fun is Good.

 

“Hilarious, insightful, touching, informative, Neal Karlen’s baseball account delivers a world of vivid characters and ironic redemptions. Karlen is simply one of the best, most sophisticated, and literate practitioners of journalism we have. He goes out and gets the full story, while turning himself into a wonderfully self-mocking, truthful, and likable narrator. I loved every page of this book.” 

—Phillip Lopate, author, essayist, and film critic

 

“Two things make it great: characters and story line. The tale is rendered in hilarious fashion, mixing plenty of baseball with plenty of laughs.”

—Rocky Mountain News


“A fun-is-good book  . . . enough oddballs to make Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland seem like a straightforward account of a schoolgirl’s visit to a theme park.”     

—Sports Illustrated