One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season [Hardcover]

Chris Ballard (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 15, 2012

  The Inspirational Story of a Coach, a Baseball Team, and the Season They'll Never Forget

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois
playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats
defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no
coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370
teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the
state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long
hair, and warming up to Jesus Christ Superstar, the Ironmen would play
a dramatic game against a Chicago powerhouse that would change their
lives forever.

In a gripping, cinematic narrative, Sports Illustrated writer Chris
Ballard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet, a
hippie, dreamer and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966,
bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era.
Beloved by students but not administration, Sweet reluctantly took
over a rag-tag team, intent on teaching the boys as much about life as
baseball. Inspired by Sweet's unconventional methods and led by fiery
star Steve Shartzer and spindly curveball artist John Heneberry, the
undersized, undermanned Macon Ironmen embarked on an improbable
postseason run that infuriated rival coaches and buoyed an entire
town.

Beginning with Sweet's arrival, Ballard takes readers on a journey
back to the Ironmen's historic season and then on to the present day,
returning to the 1971 Ironmen to explore the effect the game had on
their lives' trajectories--and the men they've become because of it.

Engaging and poignant, One Shot at Forever is a testament to the power
of high school sports to shape the lives of those who play them, and
it reminds us that there are few bonds more sacred than that among a
coach, a team, and a town

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One Shot at Forever is tender, fun, bittersweet, with a great narrative that just motors. It also features the funkiest coach not just in the history of baseball but the history of sport--an unforgettable character in a beautiful and unforgettable book."
--Buzz Bissinger, author of Father's Day and Friday Night Lights

"One Shot at Forever is powerful, inspirational and--in an era where sports are too often marred by scandal--as pure and true as a warm spring breeze. This isn't merely a book about baseball. It's a book about heart."
--Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of The Bad Guys Won

"Once upon a time, stories like One Shot at Forever were called fairy tales. It is a charming work and so well told by Chris Ballard that it gives sportswriting a good name."
--Frank Deford, author of Over Time: My Life As A Sportswriter

"[A] nonfiction gem about an underdog team that made good. This is the kind of baseball book that has long arms: YA readers, avid baseball fans, sports readers, and narrative nonfiction readers who like to be firmly set in a particular time and place should all find it joyful."
--Library Journal

"Chris Ballard brings a big heart and a winning style to tell a memorable story of small-town Illinois. The boys of Macon renew our understanding of why baseball matters--and sometimes, why it matters too much."
--Cait Murphy, author of Crazy '08

About the Author

Chris Ballard is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, where he specializes in narrative longform stories. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and his work has twice been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series. Ballard is the author of four books: "Hoops Nation", "The Butterfly Hunter", "The Art of a Beautiful Game" and the forthcoming "One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, An Unlikely Coach and a Magical Baseball Season".

Ballard joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED in September 2000. He has covered the NBA and MLB, written nearly 20 cover stories, penned the back page "Point After" column and written features on everything from pigeon racing to Jake Plummer's post-football life to the Vancouver riots. He is one of five 2012 finalists for a National Magazine Award in profile writing, is a past recipient of a National Headliner Award and was the 2011 winner of The Joanie Award for a story about Cal Berkeley coxswain Jill Costello, who died of lung cancer after her senior year. His 2010 story titled "Magical Season of the Macon Ironmen," which was included in the "Notables" section of the Best American Sports Writing anthology, provided the inspiration for his latest book.

Before joining SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, Ballard was an intern at the Courier-Post in Camden, NJ. He has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. Ballard has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, ABC News with Dick Schaap, and Outside the Lines, and speaks regularly to groups of journalism students. A native Californian, Ballard graduated from Pomona College, where he played basketball and was on the track and field team. He lives in Berkeley with his wife Alexandra and two daughters, Callie and Eliza.

To read a collection of Ballard's best feature stories, go to: byliner.com/chris-ballard

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; First edition (May 15, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140132438X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401324384
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Educators

More About the Author

Chris Ballard is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, where he specializes in narrative longform stories. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and his work has twice been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series and is slated to be included in the upcoming edition of the Best American Magazine Writing. Ballard is the author of four books: "Hoops Nation", "The Butterfly Hunter", "The Art of a Beautiful Game" and "One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, An Unlikely Coach and a Magical Baseball Season".

Ballard joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED in September 2000. He has covered the NBA and MLB, written nearly 20 cover stories, penned the back page "Point After" column and written features on everything from pigeon racing to Jake Plummer's post-football life to the Vancouver riots. He was one of five 2012 finalists for a National Magazine Award in profile writing, is a past recipient of a National Headliner Award and was the 2011 winner of The Joanie Award for a story about Cal Berkeley coxswain Jill Costello, who died of lung cancer after her senior year. His 2010 story titled "Magical Season of the Macon Ironmen" was included in the "Notables" section of the BASW anthology and provided the inspiration for his latest book.

Before joining SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, Ballard was an intern at the Courier-Post in Camden, NJ and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. Ballard has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, ABC News with Dick Schaap, and Outside the Lines, and speaks regularly to groups of journalism students. A native Californian, Ballard graduated from Pomona College, where he played basketball and was on the track and field team. He lives in Berkeley with his wife Alexandra and two daughters, Callie and Eliza.

To read a collection of Ballard's best feature stories, go to: http://byliner.com/chris-ballard

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So much more than an underdog story May 16, 2012

By Padrepat

Format:Hardcover

Everybody loves an underdog story. Chris Ballard's One Shot at Forever provides all of the nail-biting excitement characteristic of the David and Goliath tales of the sports world. I am sure that many will make comparisons to Hoosiers -- with its local color (Hickory - Macon, IL), star athlete (Jimmy Chitwood - Steve Shartzer), and controversial coach (Norman Dale - Lynn Sweet) -- and justifiably so. But One Shot at Forever is so much more.

This book transcends the sports genre. It is a character-driven page turner that will appeal to sports fans and non-sports fans alike. It offers a layered and nuanced portrait of Coach Lynn Sweet, the unforgettable protagonist whose unconventional approaches will captivate most readers just as the Robin Williams character did in Dead Poet's Society. And it pays careful attention to temporal characteristics and weaves them into the story in subtle fashion, much like Matthew Weiner does in Mad Men. Readers will feel transported to the early 1970s whether they lived through the era or not and will have a hard time not feeling nostalgic, as if they were part of Macon Ironmen themselves.

Ballard is a gifted writer who draws on his superior reporting and keen attention to detail to paint an intricate picture of a group of boys--bound together by America's game--coming of age against a small town, Vietnam era backdrop.

I couldn't put it down.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Story and an Indelible Portrait of a Small Town May 15, 2012

By Daniel Greenstone

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Best book I've read this year. As Ballard is a writer at SI I was hardly surprised that this is a fantastic baseball story. But I was delighted to discover that the book delivers so much more. The main character, a teacher and coach named Lynn Sweet, is as remarkable a character as I can recall. He's a sensitive, courageous, free thinker, who finds himself plunked down in a time and place where conformity is the rule. As a high school teacher, I found myself inspired by Sweet's story. And the book is also the portrait of a small town seeking an identity through the exploits of its baseball team. Ballard's exquisite reporting not only preserves that identity for the town of Macon, but he also allows the rest of us to savor the folkways of a (recently) bygone era.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a sports story May 15, 2012

By D. Zehr

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've read much of Ballard's work in Sports Illustrated over the past decade, and I got an early look at his latest book, One Shot at Forever. One Shot is a book-length example of his emergence as one of the top long-form narrative writers going today. (For proof, Google his stories about Jill Costello or Mike Powell, or his National Magazine Award finalist piece about Dewayne Dedmon.)

At the highest level, the story runs much like Hoosiers, with a small-town Illinois baseball team going on an unlikely run against larger schools. But the real power of the book comes from the interplay of a small town stuck in the 1950s, an outsider coach straight out of the hippie-ville 1960s, a bunch of kids coming of age in the early 1970s, and the memories still seared in their minds as adults today.

Those memories are the real payoff of what's already an engaging story. The narrative is engaging on its own, but the way the games of their youth still stick in the psyche of many of the players, who now are in their 50s and 60s, goes right to what we cherish about high school sports -- whether we played them, coached them, or just cheered on our hometown heroes.