About this item
In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinoisplaying with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hatsdefied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with nocoaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370teams to become the smallest school in modern Illinois history to make thestate final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting longhair, and warming up to Jesus Christ Superstar, the Ironmen would playa dramatic game against a Chicago powerhouse that would change theirlives forever.In a gripping, cinematic narrative, Sports Illustrated writer ChrisBallard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet, ahippie, dreamer and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966,bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era.
About the Author
Before joining SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, Ballard was an intern at the Courier-Post in Camden, NJ and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Ballard has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, ABC News with Dick Schaap, and Outside the Lines, among others, and speaks regularly to groups of journalism students. A native Californian, Ballard graduated from Pomona College, where he played basketball, was on the track and field team and drank lots of cheap beer. He lives in Berkeley with his wife and two daughters.
