Even the most die-hard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first--and only--player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game's history. Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional...

"When a sixteen-year-old boy learns that his stepmother and a local judge have murdered his father and now plan to kill him, he joins the Kansas City National Bloomer Girls, playing second base and disguised as a girl. Luckily, another Bloomer Girl, Buckskin Compton, alias Dolly Madison, is on the dodge after some shootings and beatings in Wyoming-and he takes the kid under his tutelage. Staying alive won't prove easy for either of the reluctant female...

It's 1920, and perennial 25th man Mickey Rawlings has found a spot on the Detroit roster with a .250 average and 20 stolen bases. Unfortunately that doesn't exempt him from being put in a lineup for murder.

The friendship of a Jewish rabbi and a Catholic altar boy in 1940s Brooklyn. The rabbi, a Czech who fled the Nazis on the eve of World War II, teaches the boy Judaism while the boy, who is Irish, teaches the rabbi English and baseball. When anti-Semitic hoods attack the rabbi the boy goes to his defense.

A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during World War II, and his ability to play helps him after the war is over.

Teenager Biddy Owens' 1948 journal about working for the Birmingham Black Barons includes the games and the players, racism the team faces from New Orleans to Chicago, and his family's resistance to his becoming a professional baseball player. Includes a historical note about the evolution of the Negro Leagues.

"As the Roaring Twenties get under way, corruption seems everywhere--from the bootleggers flouting Prohibition to the cherished heroes of the American Pastime now tarnished by scandal. Swept up in the maelstrom are Dr. Jamie Fraser and Speed Cook...Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, is having a record-breaking season in his first year as a New York Yankee. In 1920, he will hit more home runs than any other team in the American League. Larger than life...

While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training which has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father.

"Twelve-year-old Walter plans to spend the summer of 1927 watching his beloved Chicago Cubs play baseball. Instead, his life is upended when his mother is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Walter leaves his father and his friends to accompany his mother by train to Albuquerque, New Mexico--a place he has never been to live with relatives he has never met. To help with expenses, Walter gets a paper route. But the situation gets worse when his mother is...

During a rainy Minneapolis Millers baseball game in 1903, Little Andy Oyler has the chance to become a hero by hitting the shortest and muddiest home run in history.