Bob Weintraub's marvelous collection of baseball stories goes directly to the core of what the game does for us when we watch it being played on the field, and shows how its heroes and villains can reach into a person's life and remain a part of us for the rest of our days. The stories are told from various perspectives, including those of the player, manager, general manager, coach, scout, owner, writer, broadcaster and fan. Each strives for its own sense of authenticity, seeks to introduce characters we'd be comfortable spending time with, and in many cases ends with an unexpected twist. W.P. Kinsella, author of "Shoeless Joe" ("Field of Dreams"), says that "Weintraub has executed a triple play: savvy baseball writing, unforgettable characters and a home run ending for each tale."

In "Knuckleball," a manager is beside himself when he can't let his star knuckleball pitcher start the seventh game of the World Series because the only catcher he's ever had in the big leagues suddenly goes down with an injury. The team from Alcatraz, in "The Way They Play Is Criminal," has a bag full of dirty tricks waiting to spring on its San Quentin rivals, and it uses them all. A father on a college tour with his daughter happens upon the very same autographed baseball he saw a friend catch in Fenway Park's bleachers thirty years earlier, and learns, in "The Autograph," how a twist of fate has brought the friend together with the player who hit it. A veteran outfielder goes into the last game of his career batting .299 with 299 home runs and, in "Just One to Go," gets his only chance to hit with two outs in the ninth. And in "The Short End of Immortality," we see that it's essential for a baseball writer to be totally objective when voting on a player for the Hall of Fame, even if that player has always been married to your mother.

In these and other stories, Weintraub infuses baseball with humanity, originality, humor and compassion, and raises the game to a new level of understanding and love.