Publishing his unvarnished memoir The Long Season in 1959, pitcher Jim Brosnan created a sportswriting classic, and then followed it up two years later with this equally colorful account of how his Cincinnati Reds won the 1961 National League pennant. With his wiseguy wit and plainspoken practicality, Brosnan reveals the real lives of professional ballplayers—their exhilaration, despair, chronic worry over job security, playful camaraderie, and boyish (if cautious) optimism.

"Brosnan obviously knows his baseball, writes about it wittily, informally and with irony. He is a cynical, tough professional athlete and his book makes wonderful reading."—The New Yorker