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Overview
Richard Panek spent nearly a year inside a peculiarly American enterprise in a peculiarly American setting - the minor league baseball franchise of a midwestern town. Through a powerful, lyrical, funny, and true account of the Diamonds' fight to survive in the struggling city of Waterloo, Iowa, this book explores the broad social and economic changes in America over the past decade and the past century. For one crucial - and, as it turned out, climactic - year in Waterloo's long history with baseball, Richard Panek lived along the Diamonds and their fans, traveling to games throughout the midwest, attending town meetings where the team's fate was passionately debated, talking with players and politicians, coaches and team owners. As the young Diamonds players struggled on the field - some hoping to rise to the big leagues, others seeing their dreams vanish forever - a larger struggle emerged in Waterloo: a battle for the city's future, fought on the fading playgrounds of its past.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Only a fraction of minor league baseball players ever make it to the major leagues. The trip starts in places like Waterloo, Iowa, a town of ``working-class and poor,'' that is the home of the Waterloo Diamonds, a San Diego Padres farm team in the Class A Midwest League. Freelance writer Panek here takes us through the 1992 season, on the field and off, in a city in trouble. Industry has deserted Waterloo; the Diamonds, on the other hand, are a franchise worth about $1 million, and the team brings some $2.495 million into the local economy. City and team need each other to survive, and each is wary of the consequences if the other fails. The team comprises players who aren't likely to be recruited into the major leagues; they are ``battle fodder,'' i.e., players kept on the job so the talented few will have someone to compete with. There are only a handful of prospects this season: Cameron Cairncross, an Australian with a live fastball; Jason Hardtke, a second baseman and all-star; and pitcher Robbie Beckett, a former first-round draft pick with good stuff, if no control. Panek concentrates on the business of minor league baseball, how it flourished into big business in the 1980s, and how it now virtually blackmails municipalities into underwriting it. This is a gritty and unsentimental portrait of the bush leagues. (July)Book Details
Published
June 1, 1995
Publisher
St Martins Pr
Pages
304
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780312132095