At Fenway: Dispatches from Red Sox Nation

Shaughnessy's (One Strike Away) memoir about the Boston Red Sox and their home field, Fenway Park, is baseball from the heart. Throughout the book there are reminiscences about Fenway; many fans recall youths spent watching the Sox with their mothers and fathers and what this special baseball bond means to them. Shaughnessy recalls the history of Fenway-the park opened the week the Titanic sank in 1912; the left-field wall came to be dubbed the Green Monster because of its color-and exposes the management's lie about the length of the line to left (it is not 315 feet; Shaughnessy measured it at 309 feet, 3 inches). He takes a rapid look at Sox history: how the club was the last team to integrate (it had the first shot at both Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays and rejected them); and how the 1986 loss to the Mets in the World Series reminded fans of the infamous Curse of the Bambino (Bruce Hurst was the starting pitcher in the seventh game of the '86 series; a rearrangement of the letters in his name indicated ""B. Ruth Curse!""). A lovely memoir that will leave baseball fans hoping that the long-suffering Sox will eventually win the big one. (May)