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HEART OF THE GAME
By: S.L. Price
Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America
Ecco
May 2009
On Sale: May 12, 2009
320 pages
ISBN: 0061671304
EAN: 9780061671302
Hardcover
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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 lifeโhis devotion to the game and to his familyโis 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 Americanaโsmall- town sports, small-town livesโand 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.
 Media BuzzWeekend Edition Saturday - May 16, 2009
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