Most baseball fans want to hear about stellar players and spectacular plays, statistics and storied franchises. Level Playing Fields sheds light on a usually unnoticed facet of the game, introducing fans and historians alike to the real fundamentals of baseball: dirt and grass. In this lively history, Peter Morris demonstrates that many of the game’s rules and customs actually arose as concessions to the daunting practical difficulties of creating a baseball diamond.Recove...

As befits a game traditionally passed from one generation to the next, baseball has always had a special reverence for origins. Claims of being first with any element of the game are disputed with fervor and passion. When the octogenarian Fred Goldsmith died in 1939, a headline proclaimed, 'Goldsmith Dies Insisting He Invented Curve Ball'; Fred Goldsmith understood the secret of immortality. Yet while countless thousands of words have been spilled on the subject of baseball “firsts,” there...

Sydney Charles Puddefoot, "Puddy" to his admiring fans, was a household name amongst football supporters between the two world wars, a time generally regarded as the golden age of British football. In this first-ever full-length biography, Peter Morris charts Puddefoot's rise to stardom: from his East London upbringing to hero status at his beloved West Ham United whilst still a teenager; his sensational world-record transfer to Falkirk; his return to England with Blackburn Rovers, where h...

Set in a fractured, depopulated Britain, ‘No Repeat of Yesterday’ is a fast-paced thriller that asks questions about the trust we invest in those who wield power. The 2070s. A military-controlled regime fosters social cohesion via the charade of an external military threat. To this end, RAF pilot Nicole Dibaba conducts spectacular nocturnal raids against unoccupied industrial targets. As millions embrace the apparent realities, alternative voices invade the state-controlled media. Dibaba’s...

This book is the result of one man's twenty-year quest to solve some of baseball's most enduring mysteries--the "cold cases" of major leaguers about whom virtually nothing is known. (In many instances, the various baseball encyclopedias list only their names and one other word: "deceased.") Some of these mysterious players had negligible professional careers and their time on a major league diamond was more the result of good fortune than anything else; others were stars in their day and t...

Today the baseball catcher is a familiar but uninspiring figure. Decked out in the so-called tools of ignorance, he stolidly goes about his duty without attracting much attention. But it wasn't always that way, as Peter Morris shows in this lively and original study. In baseball's early days, catchers stood a safe distance behind the batter. Then the introduction of the curveball in the 1870s led them to move up directly behind home plate, even though they still wore no gloves or protectiv...

Mary a bright but slightly frivolous teenager is wooed by sweet-sounding sirens; the lure of sexual psychopathy with its compulsive quicksands, the trendy student philanthropies, the fake Edens of the devious egalitarian social worker.Her courage and strength of character are the antidote and the solution to these charlatans and other false flags. They enable her to avoid what Kierkegaard calls, ‘The greatest despair of not knowing who you are.’ She evolves into a sound-minded young woman,...

Peter Morris wanted a lot of things in his life, but a child was never one of them. Then one night after too many martinis, he accidentally created one. Nine months later, the world was turned upside down when his son was born and this new father realized he had no idea what he was doing.In his collection of humorous anecdotes, Morris recounts what happens when people who once shunned children ignore their instincts and give birth to one. From drinking too many martinis on the nigh...

From the great haggis drove to the X Factor, these stories were created using the standard elements required for fairy tales. The author has used great skill in creating new fairy tales but keeping them traditional. They will scare and amuse children, as fairy tales are supposed to.

Kate, was the first of these stories to be published and was favourably reviewed by the poet laureate, Carol Anne Duffy. Forge ahead, was a competition winnner in an Irish writing competition. Many of the other stories won or were ranked highly in major writing awards showing that there is a lot of literary value in this work.Being presented in an electronic format does not allow end notes and influences to be published, however, a visit to the writers website can supply all that in...

For the Mac Fecker's, a hangover is a self-inflicted injury, soothed by dunking your head in a barrel of rain water followed by a curry. Chunkie however begins to think he could further his career by shopping the spies yet isn't concerned at all when Spud has him bobbing up and down in the kitchen singing "A policeman's lot is not a happy one".Part four in the mac Fecker saga. It's obvious to any normal person what Mary is doing in the barn, but not the Mac Feckers. Chunkie is hopi...

Jack is told that his neighbour is a friend of Dorothy and his farm is a secret government experimental facility. In this second part we meet more members of the Mac Fecker clan and the flamboyant neighbour. Plans are beginning to form, not just for Jack, but what's Mary up to in the barn, what part will Chunkie play in the Pirates of Penzance and what exactly are Buckminster Fullerenes?The story moves on with various cultures and beliefs meeting and merging. A top secret multinati...