The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark

After the Detroit Tigers' owners announced that 1999 would be the last season played in 87-year-old Tiger Stadium, Michigan journalist Tom Stanton (Rocket Man: Elton John from A-Z) fulfilled his childhood dream of attending all 81 home games. Describing the stadium as one of ""the points on our personal maps where we find our treasured memories and replenish our hungering souls,"" in The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark Stanton takes us through the season game by game, revisiting his indelible connections to the stadium along the way. There, his father and uncles survived depression, illness and bereavement through love of baseball, and there Stanton grieved after his ""fevered delusions of a baseball career snapped like a hard curveball."" Ultimately, Stanton mourns ""the loss of our fathers and grandfathers"" and decries the process that has ""splintered the sport into haves and have-nots,"" though he doesn't dig deeply into the team's desire to move to the wealthy suburbs from a poor African-American neighborhood. Photos. Agent, Philip Spitzer. (June 15)