Full Description
Rescued in 2010 from the small creek that runs next to Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York, a simple baseball launched an epic quest that spanned the United States and beyond. For eight years, "The Hall Ball" went on a journey to have its picture taken with every member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, both living and deceased. The goal? To enshrine the first crowd-sourced artifact ever donated to the Hall.
Part travelogue, part baseball history, part photo journal, this book tells the full story for the first time. The narratives that accompany the ball's odyssey are as funny and moving as any in the history of the game.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by John Thorn
Introduction
Prologue
Where Our Story (and the Game) Began ◆ New York
Springtime Home ◆ Florida
The Playground ◆ New Jersey
A Tale of Two Cities (and the Places In-Between) ◆
Pennsylvania
The Land of Our Irish Founders ◆ Massachusetts
Day Trip ◆ Connecticut
The Birth of the Big Leagues ◆ Illinois
Capital Heroes ◆ Maryland
The Most Sacred Ground of All ◆ Virginia
The Living Members ◆ I
Groundbreakers ◆ Ohio
Hoosier Hopes ◆ Indiana
Unlikely Allies ◆ Kentucky
Between pages 98 and 99 are 8 color plates
containing 16 photographs
Hack ◆ West Virginia
The Briefest Glory ◆ Delaware
Minor League Mecca ◆ North Carolina
Lessons Learned ◆ Georgia
Sol White and the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave
Marker Project
The Living Members ◆ II
Unexpected Connection ◆ Texas
Meeting Friends and Family ◆ Michigan
So Many Brewers ◆ Wisconsin
A Forbidden Land ◆ Cuba
Fire and Ice ◆ Arizona
The Longest Road Trip ◆ California
Hometown Legend ◆ Idaho
The Farthest Corner ◆ Washington
The Living Members ◆ III
Tickets, Both Meal and Traffic ◆ Oklahoma
For the Love of It ◆ Kansas
The Truth About Pete ◆ Nebraska
The Home of the Negro Leagues ◆ Missouri
Finding Cristóbal
Two Locals and a Louisiana Yankee ◆ Arkansas
Blessed Mobile ◆ Alabama
A Pair of Pitchers ◆ Mississippi
Let the Good Times Roll ◆ Louisiana
The Symbolic Ones
Paradise ◆ Hawaii
So Much for Symbolism
The Living Members ◆ IV
The White Whales, the Hall of Fame, and the Baseball
Reliquary
A Eulogy: April 17, 2017
Index
