Small-Town Heroes: Images of Minor League Baseball

In 1993, ex-New Yorker Hank Davis put a successful career in Psychology and music journalism on hold and went off on a loving odyssey through 28 small towns in search of minor league baseball. Writing with beguiling charm and a firm knowledge of the game, he traveled the back roads of America and found more than he bargained for: a wondrous cast of characters on the field, in the stands, and on the way to the ballpark. Davis recorded them with his splendid incisive prose and his remarkable photographs. Along the way he encountered not only baseball stars of the future but also a host of unknowns and long shots.
    With infectious energy, Davis also looked beyond the players. There were coaches, men in their 40s and beyond, making arduous bus trips with players half their age. There were assistant general managers, happy to scrub toilets and paint dugouts just to be close to the game. Kids selling Cracker Jacks in Bluefield West Virginia, and a woman who operated the mechanical bull in Durham North Carolina.
   Davis found the small town setting a universe into itself. Within it, minor league baseball seemed lost in a time warp. Unabashedly unsophisticated, it had all the quirky charm of a traveling carnival - full of hawkers and gawkers and the unaffected simplicity of a concert in the park on a hot summer night. Davis's full account of his baseball journey is rich in detail both inside and outside the ballpark. The minor leagues are full of stories, and Davis tells us some of the best of them here. The Original hardcover Edition ( 1997) and the updated paperback version (2003), which included a “where are they now” section, both received widespread acclaim:
    “Davis has written a remarkable chronicle of life in the minor leagues, a light-hearted, bittersweet paean to the purest form of the national pastime.” - New York Times book review
    “Small-Town Heroes is the best baseball book I've read since The Boys of Summer.” - Al Kern, NPR
    “A must read for any baseball lover. Small-Town Heroes is the Ball Four of minor league baseball books.” - Curt Schilling, pitcher
    “Small-Town Heroes is a winding, pleasant journey through the minor league ballparks of North America. Davis’ vehicle is baseball but his destination is an America that many might believe was lost forever.” - Miles Wolf, former owner of the Durham Bulls and Baseball America
    “Davis has a good eye for arresting detail, a good ear for the message behind sports speak, a nose for ambience, and a sense of the ironic. A book to be savored.” - Choice
    “The essence of the book is the people, and Davis portrays them with understanding and compassion, but without sentimentalizing them.” - Publishers Weekly