Curveball by Martha Ackmann

Acknowledgments
     
    I have been the lucky recipient of much help in writing
Curveball
and would like to thank family, friends, colleagues, and fellow baseball researchers for their generosity in making this book possible. Their advice made this book better; any errors are my own. Members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) showed me a zeal for the study of baseball that I found enormously fun and inspiring. I would like to recognize Jean Hastings Ardell, Tom Garrett, Leslie Heaphy, Kyle McNary, Wayne Stivers, and Stew Thornley for their assistance. Larry Lester deserves special recognition. His attention to detail, suggestions, and encouragement (“Go, Toni, Go!”) meant the world to me.
     
    Research for this book took me all over the country—into archives, bookstores, barbershops, libraries, newspaper offices, jazz halls, baseball parks, church basements, museums, and people’s homes. It was a great way to spend a couple of years. For their help, I would like to thank Leah Aquillar, Ernie Banks, Maria Bartlow-Reed, Donna DeVore, Ray Doswell, Doug Grow, Brendan Henehan, Steve Horn-bostel, Wendell Maxey, Roger Nieboer, Naja Palm, Andrew Salinas, David Sanford, Miki Turner, and Walt Wilson. I also would like to acknowledge Christopher Benfey, Constance H. Buchanan, Tara Fitzpatrick, Suzanne Juhasz, Donal O’Shea, and Susan Perry for paving the way for this book. The wonderful Research and Instructional Support (RIS) staff at Mount Holyoke College’s Williston Memorial Library, particularly James Gehrt, Chrissa Godbout, and Leigh Mantle, cheerfully bailed me out and plugged me in. My 2008–2009 year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was a dream come true and I am grateful for generative conversations with my “fellow fellows,” especially Gail Mazur. Friends, of course, offer help of a more personal kind, and I am grateful for the support and good humor of Christina and Sara Barber-Just (who also suggested the book’s title) as well as James Fitzpatrick, Donna Gaylord, Janet Schulte, Sherril Willis, and Kathy Dempsey Zimmerman.
    Uncovering this forgotten story proved to be a prodigious challenge, and I was aided by exceptional research assistants. Mary McClintock has long been my go-to detective for locating difficult-to-find materials. At the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard students Rachael Goldberg ’12 and Spencer Lenfield ’12 brought both results and joy to the research process. Mount Holyoke College student assistants Betsy Johnson ’11, Megan Mallory ’04, Rachel Mallory ’07, and Tse-hay Shaw ’06 were dedicated researchers, especially when it came to reading endless reels of microfilm. During her four years at Mount Holyoke, Becca Groveman ’09 stayed with this project from start to finish and showed up at my office door always with a smile on her face and an important idea to share. I would be remiss if I did not recognize the help of my father, Florenze Ackmann, who offered a hand whenever I needed research back home in Missouri. My nephews, Christian Ackmann and Jonathan Ackmann, brought their keen eyes and impressive knowledge of baseball in helping me research the Kansas City Monarchs.
    Over the years my literary agent, Ellen Geiger, has given me an endless supply of ideas and encouragement. I appreciate her potent combination of persistence and open-mindedness. Cynthia Sherry, Michelle Schoob, and Gerilee Hundt of Chicago Review Press have made this book tighter and sharper. I am lucky to have an editor like Cynthia Sherry who believes, as David Halberstam once observed, that every great sports story is also the story of a nation.
    The gift of time is one of the most valuable beneficences a writer can receive. I would like to acknowledge several organizations that have afforded me that luxury. This work is supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Mount Holyoke College, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Society for the Study