On these pages, you'll meet some of baseball's true good guys. With their courage and determination, their charity and sacrifice, these men - and one woman - provide great role models on and off the field. From Lou Gehrig to Derek Jeter, the 26 players you'll get to know better here are all worthy of respect and emulation. You can be proud to introduce them to your kids. You already know many of them from the way they played or play the game, sluggers like Hank Greenberg, Ted Williams, Sammy Sosa and Carlos Delgado, glovemen like Jimmy Piersall and Roberto Clemente, hurlers like Sandy Koufax, Herb Score, Tommy John, and Catfish Hunter. But you may not know some of the stories behind their on-field performances, the obstacles they overcame and the sacrifices they made. And you may not know about their efforts off the field, through works of charity and service, to make our world a better place to live. You'll enjoy getting to know all these folks better, and their stories will inspire as well as delight you.

Jack Walsh ’69 recently retired as a finance officer for the Department of Health and Human Services in Boston and is now a freelance writer and tax consultant.

At the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, we know that Pearl, the elf-child daughter of Hester Prynne, is somewhere in Europe, comfortable, well set, a mother herself now. But it could not have been easy for her to arrive at such a place, when she begins life as the bastard child of a woman publicly humiliated, again and again, in an unrelentingly judgmental Puritan world. With a brilliant and authentic sense of that time and place, Deborah Noyes envisions the path Pearl takes to make herself whole and to carve her place in the New World. Beautifully written with boundless compassion, Angel and Apostle is a heart-rending and imaginative debut in which Noyes masterfully makes Hawthorne's character her own.

Deborah Noyes graduated from UMass Boston in 1987 with a B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing. She lives in Somerville with her family.

 

David Axelrod ’65 writes, "This book is a major departure for me from my usual style of poetry which is, itself, very much in the American grain. I view it as much as a "self-help" book for me and for others as a new book of poems. Most contemporary poetry is imagistic and modern poetry teaches us to show the reader—to find a suitable object to describe that will convey emotions—not to tell the reader. Clearly, these poems talk directly to the subject."

David Axelrod has studied Eastern culture and philosophy, Buddhism and Taoism, since his teens. His own teachers include Dr. William Young, Master Tseng Yun-Ziang, Swami Anand Veetkam and Dr. Yan Xin. Axelrod is recipient of three Fulbright awards including a year in China as Fulbright's first official poet-in-residence. There he studied Chinese philosophy and alternative healing as well as lecturing on "Chi and the Healing Power of Poetry."

writersunlimited.org or poetrydoctor.org

Karen Favreau is a Generation X seeker who has run the spiritual gamut. Raised Catholic, she lapsed into atheism and began a long, strange journey back to Christian faith. In Ridiculous Packaging she chronicles her trip, offering a humorous, non-preachy, and heartfelt memoir in which she attempts to decipher why a cynical, thirty-three year old atheist would open her heart and accept God's love after having spent an entire lifetime running from religion.

Karen Favreau ’91 was born and raised in Gardner, Massachusetts. She received a master's degree in library science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1998. Today, she works as a public library manager in Greensboro, NC by day and freelance writer, musician, and cartoonist by night. Karen's work has appeared in National Lampoon, the Greensboro News & Record, Discipleship Journal, and Funny Times. She hopes someday to become an Episcopal priest or the fourth member of the Dixie Chicks, whichever comes first.

Raised in a sheltered, puritanical household in New England, Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863-1953) followed her conscience and calling in 1885 when she traveled west and opened a school on the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Over the next six years she witnessed many of the monumental events that affected the Lakotas, including the inception of the Ghost Dance religion and the fallout from the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890. She also fell in love with and married Charles Eastman, a Dakota doctor with whom she had six children, and went on to help edit his many popular books on Sioux life and culture.

Theodore D. Sargent is professor emeritus of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Dogs are our best friends. They are our oldest too, for dogs and humans have lived closely together for thousands of years. In this fascinating and up-to-date account, Susan McHugh unravels the current debate about the relationship of dogs and wolves, and explores dogs in mythology, religion and in ancient cults as different as those in Alaska, Greece, Peru and Persia. She compares the histories of dogs in the Far East, Europe, Africa and the Americas, discusses the relatively recent phenomenon of dog breeding and the invention of species, and the roles of dogs in both science and fiction. She also shows how dogs today contribute to our lives in a huge number of ways, not only as pets and as guide dogs but in literature, movies, scientific studies and—in Asia—as sources of food. Dog reveals how we have shaped dogs over the millennia, and how dogs have shaped us.

Susan McHugh ’91, ’93G is assistant professor of English at the University of New England, Biddeford, Maine.

How Like an Angel is the story of Archibald Angel. With his career going nowhere and a marriage in decline, Angel retreats to a rustic cabin in northern Michigan to make a new life for himself.

In spite of his forward thinking, Angel's move is in many ways a journey into the past. Besides lacking modern comforts, the cabin conjures the ghost of Angel's troubled childhood, when his undertaker father took the cabin in trade as paymnet from a widow who couldn't otherwise afford the cost of her husband's burial. After Angel's mother subsequently fled, abandoning her family to recover from a mental breadkown, the cabin was an escape for father and son.

Jack Driscoll ’72G is the author of four books of poems, a collection of short stories, and three novels. He is alos the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, the Pushcart Editors' Book Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the AWP Short Fiction Award, and seven Pen Syndicated Project Short Fiction Awards. He is currently Writer-in-Residence at Interlochen Center for the Arts in northern Michigan.

Identity Matters explores the question that consistently plagues composition teachers: why do their pedagogies so often fail? Donna LeCourt suggests that the answer may lie with the very identities, values, and modes of expression higher education cultivates. In a book that does precisely what it theorizes, LeCourt analyzes student-written literacy autobiographies to examine how students interact with and challenge cultural theories of identity. This analysis demonstrates that writing instruction does, indeed, matter and has a significant influence on how students imagine their potential in both academic and cultural realms. LeCourt paints not only a compelling and vexing picture of how students interact with academic discourse as both mind and body, but also offers hope for a reconceived pedagogy of social-material writing practice.

Donna LeCourt is associate professor of English at UMass Amherst.

The ancient oracle sysstem of the I Ching has guided wisdom seekers for over 5,000 years. Now those seeking insights and motivation can take advantage of these ancient predictions, recast by writing professor Sarah Jane Sloane into suggestions for contemporary writers. Each of the I Ching's sixty-four hexagrams, interpreted by Sloane from years of study and comparisons of over fifty translations, offers directions and comments about what the future will hole for the writer. In addition to this oracular system of advice, the book includs inspirational quotations, writing prompts, solutions to common writing problems, and a wonderful exploration of the creative process.

Sarah Jane Sloane ’87G is a working writer and associate professor of English at Colorado State University. She lectures frequently on topics ranging from how to get started as a writer to the element of chance in writing. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and her creative nonfiction and book reviews have appeared in Tricycle and Parabola.

For centuries, the question of why birds sing and what their songs mean has captured the imagination of scientists, naturalists, and poets alike. In The Singing Life of Birds, author and scientist Donald Kroodsma takes readers on a listening adventure to understand the hidden dramas in our backyards. With absorbing detail, he puts the reader inside the mind of both the research scientist and the singing bird itself, exploring how and why birds sing and how we can better understand them through their songs. The book also includes a compact disk with ninety-eight carefully chosen tracks that correspond to the sonograms. This provides for the first time an opportunity for readers to simultaneously hear the sounds and see them illustrated. Readers will begin to hear detail in birdsong they once thought impossible.

Donald Kroodsma, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has studied birdsong for more than thirty years. He was recognized as the 'reigning authority on avian vocal behavior" in the citation for his 2003 Elliott Coues Award from the American Ornithologists' Union.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be someone other than you? Meet Floey Packer. Number two to the Amazing Lillian, that's a capital A - with all references to Lillian prefaced by the word Amazing. It is an undisputed fact (in the mind of Floey) that she lives in the shadow of her beautiful and audacious older sister. But when Lillian unexpectedly gets married and heads off on her honeymoon, thirteen-year-old Floey decides it's time to make some changes in her life. Mark Peter Hughes flawlessly delineates the painfully hilarious trials of adolescence in his debut novel i am the wallpaper, a finalist in the 2003 Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel.

The Best Place of All has the ingredients of a traditional Irish-American saga—eloquence, humor, pathos—but this is also the fast-moving story of immigration in the twentieth century and how one dynamic go-getter embodies multigenerational progress. "Smiling Jim" Cahillane plunges into the life of mid-century Northampton, founding a family, setting up a business, and trouncing his political rivals. His son's rollicking tale follows the new arrival, a nobody from a small corner of rural Ireland, for three decades until he becomes President Kennedy's "Mayor Jim" and a traveler between the Old and New Worlds.

James F. Cahillane graduated from the University Without Walls in 1989 and earned his master's degree from UMass Amherst in 1997. He has been a columnist with Northampton's Daily Hampshire Gazette for ten years and lives in Williamsburg, Ma, with his wife Maureen.

"50 Ways to Protect Your Identity and Your Credit: everything you need to know about identity theft, credit cards, credit repair, and credit reports"
by Steve Weisman
Pearson Prentice Hall, $19.95. ISBN: 013146759X

Identity theft is one of the most pervasive and insidious crimes of today; a crime that can tremendously disprupt your life—or even put you in jail for crimes you never committted.

This book explains the horrific details of the many identity theft scams that are so prevalent today. It shows you just how vulnerable you are, but it also shows you steps you can take to protect yourself, as best you can, from becoming a victim.

Steve Weisman ’70 , hosts the nationally syndicated radio show A Touch of Grey, heard on more than 50 stations across America, including New York City's legendary WOR and KRLA Los Angeles. A lawyer in Cambridge, MA, he has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Curry College, and Boston University, and is an adjunct faculty member at Bentley College.

Weisman is legal editor and columnist for TALKERS Magazine, and writes for publications ranging from The Boston Globe to US Airways magazine. He has earned a Certificate of Merit from the American Bar Association for excellence in legal journalism. His previous books include A Guide to Elder Planning (Financial Times Prentice Hall).

When considering a graduate business degree, it is important to know:

• The time is right, and you can make the commitment
• You can continue working, advancing your career
• Your work experience can contribute to a more meaningful business education
• Your employer can support you

When considering support for your employees, it is important to understand:

• The EMBA delivers a competitive advantage
• Rewarding the best and brightest builds a brighter future for the company
• An EMBA graduate delivers an immediate payback to the company
• Good planning protects the company's financial investment

Jason Price ’92 , MS, MBA lives in New York City and is founder of EMBA World, a complete online independent information source about the Executive MBA. He is a principal of a leading hospitality consultancy, an author and frequent guest lecturer on business and technology issues. He has been an active participant in tow start-ups, one of which was awarded the prestigious global Microsoft Technology Award. Jason has an MBA from Fordham University (Executive MBA).

"Putting a Song on Top of it - Expression and Identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation "
by David W. Samuels
The University of Arizona Press, $39.95. ISBN: 0816523797

David Samuels blends his expertise in linguistics and anthropology and his own experiences with an Apache country band in Putting a Song on Top of It. Members of the San Carlos Apache reservation have long been exposed to contradictory pressures and expectations–modernization and conversion versus linguistic and cultural preservation. At the center of this struggle lies the question of what establishes and validates a sense of identity.

Ironically, both the traditional calls of the Mountains Spirits and contemporary music can evoke a feeling of "being Apache." Utilizing insights gained from linguistic and musical practices in the community, the author offers new ways of thinking about cultural identity. As Samuels learned, some popular songs draw parallels with historical events and therefore bring about an alignment of past and present for the Apache listener. A richer, more nuance meaning emerges when one can "put a song on top of it" versus merely thinking about something. The concept of the pun also helps us understand the ways in which San Carlos Apaches are able to make cultural symbols point in multiple directions at once. Putting a Song on Top of It presents the artistic contradictions of "being Apache" in a way that challenges essentialists ideas about Native americans. This groundbreaking work reveals the complexity of reservation life through an exploration of sound, language, and the articulation of identity.

David Samuels is assistant professor of Anthropology at UMass Amherst. He has published articles in Journal of American Folklore, American Ethnologist and Cultural Anthropology.

"The General's Women: Douglas MacArthur's Loves "
by David J. Valley and Betty McElhatten
The Sektor Company, $14.95. ISBN: 0967817560

Hundred's of books have been written about Gen. Douglas MacArthur regarding his life as a military leader, but The General's Women, is the first to disclose extensive details about his romantic relationships.

MacArthur was one of America's greatest generals, well known as a brilliant strategist, a stalwart leader of men in time of war, and a most effective ambassador for peace as he guided the recovery of Japan after WWII. He was also an eloquent speaker and writer who left an illustrious and permanent imprint on 20th century history. However, throughout his life his passion was not confined to military pursuits; he frequently engaged in intense romantic relationships. He applied every bit of his charm, skill, passion and prose to these relationships, but one after another ended badly. It wasn't until he was 57 years old that he found his true and lasting love, Jean Faircloth.

David Valley ’57 is a former member of Gen. MacArthur's Honor Guard and author of the book, Gaijin Shogun, Gen. Douglas MacArthur Stepfather to Postwar Japan. He has also written Jackpot Trail, Indian Gaming in Southern California, and a novel Brothers One about conjoined twins.

"The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a little) Craziness and (a lot of) Success in America "
by John D. Gartner
Simon & Schuster, $26.00. ISBN: 0743243447

Why is America so rich and powerful? The answer lies in our genes, according to psychologist John Gartner.

Hypomania, a genetically based mild form of mania, endows many of us with unusual energy, creativity, enthusiasm, and a propensity for taking risks. America has an extraordinarily high number of hypomanics–grandiose types who leap on every wacky idea that occurs to them, utterly convinced it will change the world. Market bubbles and ill-considered messianic crusades can be the downside. But there is an enormous upside in terms of spectacular entrepreneurial zeal, drive for innovation, and material success. Americans may have a lot of crazy ideas, but some of them lead to brilliant inventions.

Why is america so hypomanic? It is populated primarily by immigrants. This self-selection process is the boldest natural experiment ever conducted. those who had the will, optimism, and daring to take the leap into the unknown have passed those traits on to their descendants.

Bringing his audacious and persuasive thesis to life, Gartner offers case histories of some famous Americans who represent this phenomenon of hypomania. these are the real stories you never learned in school about some of those men who made America: Columbus, who discovered the continent, thought he was the messiah. John Winthrop, who settled and defined it, believed Americans were God's new chosen people. Alexander Hamilton, the indispensable founder who envisioned America's economic future, self-destructed because of pride and impulsive behavior. Andrew Carnegie, who began America's industrial revolution, was sure that he was destined personally to speed up human evolution and bring world peace. The Mayer and Selznick families helped create the peculiarly American art form of the Hollywood film, but familial bipolar disorders led to the fall of their empires. Craig Venter decoded the human genome, yet his arrogance made him despised by most of his scientific colleagues, even as he spurred them on to make great discoveries.

While these men are extraordinary examples, Gartner argues that many Americans have inherited the genes that have made them the most successful citizens in the world.

John D. Gartner ’82G, ’85G is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Visit www.hypomanicedge.com for more information.

"Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man's Journey Through Ireland "
by Kevin O'Hara
Forge , $25.95. ISBN: 0765309831

A heartwarming story of a man who journeys to the land of his people to discover what kind of man he is . . . and, more to the point, what kind of man he could become
Kevin O'Hara was a man who was at the crossroads of life. Newly married to a beautiful woman, Kevin found himself full of rage and pain. A former soldier, he had seen the horrors of war and was unable to let those sorrows go . . . and his pain threatened to destroy not only his own happiness but any chance of a happy life with his wife. If he couldn't fix what was broken in his own heart, he'd be lost.

In desperation Kevin traveled to Ireland, the land of his people, to seek some sort of balm for his pain. It was there, amid the impossibly green fields, open skies, and glad hearts of his friends and relatives, that Kevin began to see the possibilities of joy again.
And it was there that he formed a wonderfully daft plan. The age-old method of traveling by donkey cart was beginning to disappear from the Irish countryside as modern life crowded in. What better way, Kevin thought, to experience the beauty of Ireland than to travel the length of the land in the old way---man and donkey, drinking in the sights and sounds of the country.

Among the Irish, opinion was divided as to whether Kevin was a madman . . . or a saint. Bets were made, and most of the locals near his grandmother's farmhouse predicted that this strange American wouldn't even get out of the county, much less circle the entire island.

But Kevin had a vision in his head, and a goal. He wanted to make things right for himself, heal his heart, and return to his beloved wife. And so, with Missy, the shaggy brown mare by his side, he set off on that long mad walk, an eighteen-hundred-mile trek that would take months.

Along the way Kevin would meet some incredible characters, endure hardships (and moments of high drama . . . and very low comedy), and find the Irish in all their glory. And he would find himself.

Kevin O'Hara ’77 is a Vietnam veteran who has spent the last twenty years working as a psychiatric nurse at the Berkshire Medical Center. In his youth, he and his wife posed for Norman Rockwell's last major painting, to celebrate the Bicentennial of the U.S.A. He lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

"Business, Not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market "
by Katherine Sender
Columbia University Press , $35.00. ISBN: 0231127340

In a hard-hitting book that refutes conventional wisdom, Katherine Sender ’96G, ’01, explores the connection between the business of marketing to gay consumers and the politics of gay rights and identity. She disputes some marketers claims that marketing appeals to gay and lesbian consumers are a matter of "business, not politics" and that the business of gay marketing can be considered independently of the politics of gay rights, identity, and visibility. She contends that the gay community is not a preexisting entity that marketers simply tap into; rather it is a construction, an imagined community formed not only through political activism but also through a commercially supported media. She argues that marketing has not only been formative in the constitution of a GLBT community and identity but also has had significant impact on the visibility of gays and lesbians.

Katherine is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and lives in Philadelphia.