Play by Play: Baseball, Radio, and Life in the Last Chance League

After being shelled, rocketed, bombed, and held captive in the desert, Neal Conan, one of NPR’s top foreign correspondents for more than twenty-five years, decided to pursue a lifelong dream—to become a baseball announcer.

Play by Play is Conan’s diary of the 2000 season of the Aberdeen Arsenal, a franchise of the independent Atlantic League. From his position in the announcer’s booth, on the team bus, and in hotels and motels along the way, we meet the coaches, fans, and, of course, the players. In this league of last chances, most players are on their way out rather than up, but they are still happy to be getting paid to play ball.

Conan captures the soul of a great sport through the lens of the minor leagues and reveals the way men face age, come to terms with their limitations and ambitions, and look for new challenges when they’re no longer young phenoms.