Field of Screams

For people who have had it up to here with the endless nostalgia about "The Summer Game" on a "Field of Dreams," here is a bracing antidote: baseball history with an attitude. From baseball's rough-and-tumble origins in the nineteenth century to today's spoiled megamillionaire players and corporate shark owners, Field of Screams provides an entertaining and blackly funny reality check. It is a crowded rogues' gallery of the cheats, misers, sadists, head cases, cheeseballs, chiselers, perverts, egomaniacs, beanballers, slobs, substance abusers, gamblers, game throwers, and violent criminals who have so enlivened the game. Not to mention the sullen, bloodthirsty fans.