Jane Hieb has done an excellent job researching this fair Midwestern town. I'll recommend this to anyone interested in this particular town's history, or anyone who might enjoy learning more about the hard work and sacrifices that everyday Americans face when trying to build a functioning community. Also, if you can get a hold of it, a must read is Jane Hieb's "Country Roads and Other Trecherous Paths." You may have to directly write the author to get a hold of it, but this hillarious collection of real life stories is well worth it. Some of the most enjoyable and heart warming non-fiction comes not from celebrities or politicians or New York Times bestselling authors but from hard working Americans who happen to have a great gift for writing. Get both of these books and you well surely treasure them.

This book is incredibly well written and offers the reader insight into an early part of Hank Aaron's life, but the book is so much more than that. It also vividly describes minor league baseball and its impact on one community. It delves into race relations in one Wisconsin city in the 1950s and today. It offers story after story, engagingly told, of how baseball affected lives of individuals and how individuals had an impact on the world of baseball, often through simply accepting someone like Aaron into their homes in an era where racial tension led too many to stare rather than welcome him. Poling's book is one of the most well-written sports histories I've read; I read the book in a day as I couldn't put it down. Granted, partly I was interested in it because I went to college in Eau Claire and lived in Duluth, Minnesota, for a couple of years (another city in the Northern League he discusses). However, I really believe that even those with no ties to Wisconsin but rather a love of baseball or an admiration for Aaron as a person and a baseball player will enjoy this book.