Extra Innings

What leads a man in his mid to late thirties to take up the sport of baseball after a fifteen year hiatus? Especially when stressful and potentially humiliating tryouts are involved? The Lutherville, Maryland, Athletics are a ball team composed of plumbers, demolition guys, investment bankers, security guards and salesmen who play for the love of the game. How their passion for the game of baseball affects their lives is the subject of this book.
Focusing on Smith’s lifelong love affair with sport of baseball, this volume provides a firsthand account of a season in the Baltimore County, Over-30 league from tryouts to the final game. Beginning with childhood experiences in the Kentwood League in Raleigh, North Carolina, it follows Smith through his high school and college years as his interest in the game of baseball waned. The true focus of the book is the re-emergence of the sport as an important part of Smith’s life during his mid-thirties and the glory he and his teammates find in simply being ballplayers. Baseball is presented as a unifying force and a thread of stability through the experiences of an ever-shifting world. The changes and appeal of major league baseball are also discussed from the vantage point of Smith and his teammates.

Writer Patrick Smith lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Patrick Smith
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 204
Bibliographic Info: index
Copyright Date: 2007
pISBN: 978-0-7864-2909-7
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8184-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      viii

One      1
Two      11
Three      25
Four      59
Five      79
Six      89
Seven      95
Eight      101
Nine      109
Ten      119
Eleven      137
Twelve      153
Thirteen      171
Fourteen      181
Fifteen      189

Index      195