Enshrinement in the Hall of Fame is the ultimate honor for major leaguers. This rousing oral history recounts stories of 17 players who came up just short: Virgil Trucks, Gene Woodling, Carl Erskine, and others.

Every true baseball fan dreams of visiting Cooperstown. Some make the trip as boys, when the promise of a spot in the lineup with the Yankees or Red Sox or Tigers glows on the horizon, as certain as the sunrise. Some go later in life, long after their Little League years, to glimpse the past, not the future. And still others talk of somedays and of pilgrimages that await. For Tom Stanton, the trip took nearly three decades. The dream first grabbed hold of him in 1972, in the era of Vietnam and Watergate and Johnny Bench and the Oakland Athletics. Stanton, then an eleven-year-old Michigan boy who lived for the game, became fascinated by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the sport's spiritual home, the place to which great players aspire. He plotted ways to convince his father to take him to the famous village along Lake Otsego. But his plans for that season never materialized. They disappeared in the turmoil caused by his mother's life-threatening illness and his brother's antiwar activities. Still, the dream lingered through the summers that followed. Twenty-nine years later, he invited the two men who had introduced him to the sport, his elderly father and his older brother, to join him on a trip to the Hall. Finally, they embarked on their long-delayed adventure. The Road to Cooperstown is a true story populated with colorful characters: a philanthropic family that launched the museum and uses its wealth to, among other things, ensure that McDonald's stays out of the turn-of-the-century downtown; the devoted fan who wrote a book to get his hero into the Hall of Fame; the Guyana native who grew up without baseball but comes to the induction ceremony every year; the librarian on a mission to preserve his great-grandfather's memory; the baseball legends who appear suddenly along Main Street; and the dying man who fulfills one of his last wishes on a warm day in spring. As he did with his award-winning book, The Final Season, Tom Stanton again tells a magical tale of fathers, brothers, and baseball heroes certain to resonate with sports fans everywhere. This adventure, though brief, provides a true bonding experience that is the heart of a sweet, one-of-a-kind book about baseball, family, the Hall of Fame, and the town with which it shares a rich heritage.

A memoir by the 1940s pitching sensation looks back at a career playing for thirteen teams in four countries from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The Cooperstown Casebook by Jay Jaffe provides a definitive guide to the greatest players in baseball history, and the Hall of Fame.

An exceptional debut novel lovingly probes the values of faith, family, community, and America's favorite pastime, baseball -- from a captivating new voice in contemporary fiction. Cooperstown, New York, in 1979 (the year Willie Mays was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame), is a close-knit community where gossip is sovereign and baseball is the great American religion. Seen through the eyes of Dr. Kerwin Chylak, a psychiatrist who has recently moved to town with his family, the citizens of Cooperstown are a wildly eclectic team of players that includes an alcohol-befuddled mayor determined to be more than a footnote to history; the town busybody who pitches missiles of miscommunication; a disillusioned ex-ball player turned warrior; and a sports writer who detests baseball. Little do these ordinary people know that they are about to be thrust into an extraordinary situation as the construction of a baseball theme park threatens their quaint way of life. Teetering on the cusp of a decade in which commercialism could swallow them whole, they are spurred to action -- with unexpected, poignant, often hilarious results. Full of baseball legend and lore and featuring an unforgettable cast of unconventional characters, Cooperstown probes the hearts and minds of small-town America. It is a celebration of life in all its struggles, sorrows, and sudden slides into victory.

Best known today as the Home of Baseball, Cooperstown and the Otsego Lake area are rich in history and, unlike many places, much of this heritage remains intact. Thus, the Cooperstown area is said to offer us "a step back in time." You will not find any fast-food restaurants or chain stores here. A majority of the original buildings are still in use, serving as small shops, offices, banks, and other businesses. Each of the nearby villages--Cherry Valley, Springfield, Milford, Hartwick, and Index--has its own incredible architecture and its own story to tell. Otsego Lake is the famed Glimmerglass in the writings of Cooperstown's favorite son, James Fenimore Cooper. The area also boasts the Glimmerglass Opera, the Leatherstocking Golf Course, and historical museums, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame.