Purchase
Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America
Ecco
May 2009
On Sale: May 12, 2009
320 pages ISBN: 0061671304 EAN: 9780061671302 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction Sports
From the author of Pitching Around Fidel and Far Afield
comes an account of the accidental death of minor league
first base coach Mike Coolbaugh, illustrating the many ways
in which baseball still has a hold on America. Heart of the Game centers on the death of Mike Coolbaugh, a
minor league coach who was killed on a sweltering Sunday
evening in Little Rock in July 2007 when a foul ball
rocketed off Tino Sanchez's bat. Coolbaugh died almost
instantly, his body carted off the field of the Double-A
Arkansas Travelers. He was thirty-five years old and the
father of two; a third child was on the way. Mike's exemplary life—his devotion to the game and to his
family—is the spine of the story. But it isn't the drama.
The drama is in the telling of what can happen when a
projectile hits the human body, of the narratives of the
remarkable people who happened to be in the ballpark at
that fatal moment, of the impact of Coolbaugh's death on
the man who hit the ball, and of all the lives left behind. Price reveals anew that classic heart of Americana—small-
town sports, small-town lives—and makes us understand that
a game played away from the mindless churn of Internet
blather and highlight shows can be more important than
those played on the national stage.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|