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Back Cover Copy
Relish the game as never before, with a total immersion in the forest and the trees. Here’s the surprising evolution of the Atlanta Braves, the oldest continuous professional franchise in baseball. (No, it’s not the Reds.) The parallel phenomenon of the DiMaggio brothers, including how Joe of the Yankees dashed Red Sox brother Dom’s hopes of breaking his 56-game hitting streak. Every Cubs starting lineup since 1876, showing when Tinker to Lowe to Chance turned into Tinker to Evers to Chance, then Tinker to Evers to Saier. The Pirates backstory, and how the game’s greatest shortstop—Honus Wagner—was recruited when spotted throwing rocks across a river. At a glance, the staff of the World Champion ’54 Giants that rocked the elite Indians in four straight. And what Babe Ruth said to Lou Gehrig after his “called shot,” and Gehrig’s astonishing response. Every fan has a sweet spot of knowledge—their team, their time. Baseball historian Dennis Purdy performs the feat of marrying statistics, scholarship, biography, trivia, and anecdote to create a massively pleasurable work that is, in its whole, baseball’s sweet spot.
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