Bottom of the Ninth : Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories

Skillfully edited by John McNally, Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories collects nineteen contemporary baseball short stories from a successful mix of well-established writers, lesser-knowns, and a few up-and-comers. These stories are characterized by the same dramatic elements that draw people to the sport itself—the mythologizing of players, the obsessions and romance of the game, the bonds between players and fans, parents and children. From a key play, a missed catch, a chance lost, these are tales of characters facing high stakes and calls to action, metaphorically and literally, in the bottom of the ninth.

John McNally is the author of the short story collection Troublemakers and the editor of three anthologies: Humor Me: An Anthology of Humor by Writers of Color; The Student Body: Short Stories about College Students and Professors; and High Infidelity: 24 Great Short Stories about Adultery. He is an assistant professor of English at Wake Forest University.

Richard Russo, a novelist and screenwriter, was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel Empire Falls. He has published four other novels and a collection of short stories and has written or cowritten several screenplays.