Preface -- Part I. Spring Training -- Somewhere the sun is shining / Diana Nelson Jones -- Opening days / Glenn B. Marcus -- Throw like a girl / Rebecca Bratcher Laxton -- Meet my best friend, John Hiller / Tom Stanton -- Walk 'em home / Victoria Stopp -- The language of the gods / Brendan O'meara -- Part II. The Season -- The ten commandments of a baseball fan (as taught to me -- By my wife) / Henry Doss -- The girl from Cleveland / Nancy A. Gutierrez -- Becoming a Yankees fan during the Horace Clarke years / David Wolin -- Get a shower before somebody gets hurt / Julie E. Townsend -- Walk-off in St. Louis / Caroline Kane Kenna -- Love, hate, cubs -- David E. Malehorn -- Mom, dad, Ernie and Paul / Stephen P. Ward -- Finding home: my grandfather and the House of David -- Baseball team / Juanita Ramsey-Jevne -- What is that blue man doing? / Ellyn Ritterskamp -- Dark as a dungeon: coal country baseball / Jody Diperna -- Pete Rose way / L.C. Fiore -- How Gus Greenlee, Sonnyman Jackson and the numbers -- Barons saved black baseball / Kevin Kirkland -- A little more with every pitch / Lawrence Lawson -- My inheritance / Karen hamilton -- Citizen Cal / Robyn Barberry -- She just wanted to play / Rachel Pfennig Hales -- Big Ed: the ballplayer in decline / Stephen Kirk -- Resume play / Elizabeth Scott Leik -- Base-bawling / Jean C. O'brien -- Part III: The post-season -- Maz's Homer / Joseph Bathanti -- Jackie / Douglas J. Butler -- Hey, hey and holy cow / Becky Mason Stragand -- Confessions of a yet-to-be fan / Sam Watson -- Nothing else like it / Chris Arvidson.