About the Author

When I was a kid, summertime meant baseball. All sorts of baseball – neighborhood pickup games, City Parks and Recreation Department games, Catholic Youth Organization softball and baseball games and Fostoria Junior Baseball games. In addition, my parents always encouraged my sister and I to read so books were constant companions growing up. There are books in my baseball collection (400-plus volumes) that have been faithfully resting on my book shelf for over half a century, even 60 years.

Throughout all that baseball reading, I was always taken by the extent to which the colorful, vibrant language of baseball “pinch hits,” if you will, for more mundane ways of expressing ourselves. “Big League” for doing things first class. “Bush League” for doing things low class. Instead of saying that a guy is always making excuses for himself, we say he’s an “Alibi Ike.”

I also enjoy writing and long entertained the notion of trying to see if anyone might be willing publish something I wrote. In 1995, I had an article published in Baseball America. That little success gave me a glimpse of the possibilities. Shortly afterwards, I began writing for the Fostoria Focus and started working on Baseballisms. It’s been a long way around the bases, but the book has finally come to fruition.

            Happy reading.