Selected as one of baseball literature's Golden Dozen by Roger Kahn, Man on Spikes is an uncompromisingly realistic novel about a baseball player who struggles through sixteen years of personal crises and professional ordeals before finally appearing in a major league game. In a preface to this new edition, Eliot Asinof reveals the longsuffering ballplayer and friend upon which the novel is based.

"Asinof's Man on Spikes, a 1955 publication, marks him as one of the few writers ahead of his time."—Marvin Miller, from the Foreword

"Man on Spikes [is] a serious baseball novel, lucidly and dramatically written."—Douglas Wallop, New York Herald Tribune

"Man on Spikes is a plain and honest book, the first realistic novel I can remember having read."—John Lardner, New York Times

"I hope that all baseball fans who like to read books will read Man on Spikes."—James T. Farrell, New York Post

"The truest novel I've ever read."—Jimmy Cannon, New York Post

"Like the glove work of Cal Ripken, Jr., which looks easy till you try it and fall on your can, the writing of Eliot Asinof looks so easy that you don't realize he has conveyed an entire milieu in the life story of a very ordinary man with one special talent and an all-consuming love for his sport. Then you discover that you're having trouble reading the page because of the mist in your eyes and the tension in your chest."—Harlan Ellison, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"Out of print for nearly 30 years, this classic baseball novel by the author of Eight Men Out realistically portrays the trials of a career bush leaguer who struggles for nearly two decades before finally making it to the major leagues. Many critics regard this book to be among the finest examples of sports fiction ever written."

"[A] serious baseball novel, lucidly and dramatically written."—Douglas Wallop, New York Herald Tribune

"The truest novel I've ever read is Man on Spikes."—Jimmy Cannon,
New York Post