John C. Skipper, a political reporter for the Mason City (Iowa) Globe Gazette, has written numerous books on politics and baseball, including a history of the The Iowa Caucuses and acclaimed biographies of Grover Cleveland Alexander, Dazzy Vance and Charlie Gehringer.

• Table of ContentsIntroduction      1. “You never really leave the game.”      2. “If that guy is a ballplayer, then so am I.”      3. “His potential excited me.”      4. “You can’t talk your way into a batting championship.”      5. “He leads the league in line drives right at somebody.”      6. “What in the hell is he talking about?”      7. “Every time I turn around, the guy’s on second base.”      8. “May you live ten thousand years.”      9. “The entire town was ga-ga.”      10. “Too much time to think.”      11. “The Michigan Mummy.”      12. “The cry babies.”      13. “I kept yelling ‘home, home, home.’”      14. “If my chatter bothers you too much...”      15. “He simplified where others dramatized.”      16. “I didn’t know who was and who wasn’t.”      17. “They won’t get me in that suit again.”      18. “The Good Lord needed a second baseman.”      Chapter Notes      Bibliography      Index

“essential”—Library Journal; “Gehringer’s career is well researched and documented in this quick, but thorough, study…. a nice, and well-told, change of pace.”—Journal of Sport History; “a workman’s biography fit for every bookshelf”—The Past in Review; “the proliferation of baseball biographies in recent years had passed Gehringer by, but John Skipper redresses this oversight capably”—Nine; “Gehringer’s career is well documented and researched in this quick, but thorough, study. It is a nice, and well-told, change of pace”—Journal of Sport History.