Rare and Remarkable Tales from Trailblazing Men and Women Who Risked Everything for the Game They Love

Say hello to Justine Siegal-the first woman to throw batting practice to and coach a major league team. Meet Maybelle Blair and her cohort Shirley Burkovich two women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which inspired the hit movie A League of Their Own. Get the scoop from world-class sports journalist Ron Rapoport, as he shares baseball stories from four decades of heartbreaks, hurrahs, heroes, and villains.

Baseball Pioneers takes you inside a darkened hotel room where Jackie Robinson gives one of his last interviews, behind the mask to reveal Perry Barber, a female umpire calling games for over 30 years, and to the mound for a glimpse inside the mind of Jim "Mudcat" Grant, the first African-American to win 20 games in the American League.

Skillfully crafted and brilliantly told, Baseball Pioneers echoes the winning aura of greatness-that secret code of special people gifted with an unwavering audacity to stand up for their beliefs, and the determination to never back down.

Baseball Pioneers is a new treasury of personal stories and deep perspectives from players and insiders who have helped bring change to the national pastime.

"A fascinating treasury of stories...Baseball Pioneers is a must-read not just for baseball fans, but for anyone needing a reminder of the true greatness of our shared American culture."

-Michael Fallon, author, "Dodgerland: Decadent Los Angeles and the 1977-78 Dodgers"

"There is more to baseball than the big bucks that buy a World Series championship and the heroes who become more remote every day. There is something called humanity, and Jon Leonoudakis taps into it brilliantly by focusing on the small but beautiful stories that illuminate the game's hold on the American heart."

- John Schulian, winner 2016 PEN ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing

"Jon Leonoudakis shows us how profoundly baseball can inform our lives. Not to be missed!"

-Jean Hastings Ardell, co-author, "Making My Pitch"

From award-winning baseball documentarian Jon Leonoudakis, the creative force behind the acclaimed television documentary series The Sweet Spot - A Treasury of Baseball Stories, comes the highly anticipated first volume of the book companion to the series.

Baseball Pioneers will make you laugh, cry, and may even make you pound the walls in anger. Once you pick it up, don't expect to put it down. These are American stories wrapped in a baseball parable, spanning the universe between pride and glory, and failure and sorrow, with all of the hits, runs, and errors that lay between.

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