“Hackney’s book is a classic of minor league history.”

— Guy Harvester, UPL News

From Joe “Papa” Ketchen’s first semi-professional baseball team to
our current Utica Braves, from the ballyards of the old fairgrounds
of Chief Park to the Brickyard on the Boulevard, baseball in Utica
has flourished. Whether known as the Bluebirds, Bloody Shirts,
Lawmakers, Crows, Johnnie Rebs, Colts, Vees, or Braves, each
team brought fans through the turnstiles to cheer them to victory,
and those fans always left the park with lasting baseball memories.
Utica’s ball-gardens and cranks played host to the likes of Babe
Ruth, Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, and Ted Williams, as well as
homegrown stars, including Billy Cash, Ray Aldridge, Eddie Mopers,
Tom East, and Graig Hammer, Jr.

“A bold new biography that shows how early promise can be so fleeting.”

— Rhonda McCarthy, PhD

The heir apparent to Cy Young’s title of world-beater, Ridgeway was a star by his late 20s and a record setter by 30. But he was also an alcoholic who was as practiced at swinging his fists as he was his fastball. By his early 30s his days as a full-time player were behind him, and by 48 he was dead; his son refused to claim the body. This biography examines the turbulent life and career of one of the most dominant pitchers ever to pull on a uniform. From Clem Ridgeway’s early career as a steelworker, through his time as the beloved ballplayer and icon for the City of Big Shoulders, to his days as a down-on-his-luck baseball washout and itinerant laborer, this is an unflinching look at this would-be Hall of Famer.

“Hackney puts into eloquent words how every grown man looks back on that special moment at a ballgame with dad.”

— Ronald Bentley, NPR Weekend News

Not Just Another Fall is built around a trip to Comiskey Park to watch the Detroit Tigers play the Chicago White Sox, the hated enemy to the author’s family. Along for the ride are both Paul’s father, the gregarious but not-exactly demonstrative Midwestern titan who, despite being a die-hard Tigers fan and living his whole life just 200 miles south of Chicago, had never been to Comiskey before this game, and Paul’s college friend, a lifelong Sox fan. The Tigers have recently fallen out of the pennant race, and the Sox, as it turns out, are attempting to clinch the division on this Saturday afternoon in September. The pitchers are Ted Lilly for the Sox and Joel Pineiro for the Tigers. It’s just a regular game. Play ball.