A False Spring

**“One of the best and truest books about baseball, and about coming to maturity in America.” — *Time** *

In the late 1950s, acclaimed sportswriter Pat Jordan was a young pitching phenom, blowing away opposing batters for his Fairfield, Connecticut, high school baseball team. Fifteen major league clubs offered him a contract, but it was the Milwaukee Braves who won out, signing Jordan to a $45,000 bonus—one of the largest paid to any new player by the organization—and shipping him off to McCook, Nebraska, to play for their Class D ball club.

It did not take long, however, for Jordan to realize he was out of his depth in professional baseball’s backwoods. He battled with inconsistency and a lack of control for three dismal seasons in such far-flung locales as Keokuk, Iowa, and Palatka, Florida, before the Braves released him and he gave up his dreams of big league greatness.

Declared “unforgettable” by the *Los Angeles Times* and “a major triumph” by the *Philadelphia Inquirer* , *A False Spring* is a powerful and deeply affecting memoir about the gift of athletic talent and the heartbreak of unfulfilled promise.