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Jim Bunning began as a $150-a-month rookie in Richmond, Indiana, spent seven years in the minor leagues, and still made it to the Hall of Fame. He pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park, even though the first-base coach was relaying his catcher's signs to the batters, retiring Ted Williams for the final out. Bunning also pitched an historic perfect game against the New York Mets and  performed spectacularly in a succession of All-Star Game appearances.

He was the second pitcher in major league history to win 100 games in each league. The first was CY Young. He was the second pitcher to strike out 1000 in each league; again, only Cy Young beat hims to it. When Bunning retired at the end of the  1971 season, only one man -- Walter Johnson -- had more career strikeouts.

A proud, intensely competitive man, Bunning relished his duels with Ted Williams, Micky Mantle, and other slugging superstars of the day. What he didn't  relish was dealing with sportswriter who didn't do their homework and with baseball leaders whose mismanagement, Bunning felt, jeopardized the game's place in the nation's heart. He waged battles with the likes of former commissioner Peter Ueberroth and club-owner-turned-interim-commissioner Bud Selig.

But Bunning did more than play baseball. He was a driving force in the early years of the Players Association, one of the men responsible for choosing Marvin Miller as head of  the union. Bunning also was a manager in the minor leagues and in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and was even a player's agent for a time. His baseball career behind him, he began a second career in politics. With a huge assist from his wife, Mary, the mother of their nine children, he waged an unsuccessful gubernational campaign in Kentucky and then became a six-term congressman. Bunning is currently running for the U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky.

It is said that Josh Gibson is the only man ever to have hit a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium. Some claim he hit as many as seventy-five home runs in a season. All agreed he was a frightening hitter to face.  What Satchel Paige was to pitching in the Negro leagues, Gibson was to hitting: their greatest star, biggest gate attraction, and most important symbol.
 
Though Gibson is best remembered as "the black Babe Ruth," Ruth became a beloved symbol of the national pastime, while Gibson lived a life veiled in the darkness that came both from the shadow world of the Negro leagues and from within his own tortured soul.
 
Mark Ribowsky, the widely acclaimed biographer of Satchel Paige, pulls no punches in his portrait of this magnificent, troubled athlete. This is the most complete, thorough, and authoritative account of the life of black ball's greatest hitter, and one of its most important stars.