JEFF POLMAN reads from his new novel MYSTERY BALL '58 in conversation with DAN EPSTEIN

Mystery Ball '58 (Grassy Gutter Press)

 It’s 1958, the Giants have just moved to San Francisco, and Snappy Drake, ex-minor league pitcher turned Seals Stadium usher, finds a dead body in his grandstand section on Opening Day. With someone apparently out to frame him, Snappy probes deeper and deeper into the mystery, encountering shady local officials, a smart, fetching female reporter from L.A., and a cast of colorful Bay Area characters who just may or may not be involved. As the pennant battles tighten, the race to identify and stop a murderous madman is running out of time...

Praise for Mystery Ball '58

“Jeff Polman’s latest combines the Golden Era of Baseball with the Golden Era of Pulp to produce a page-turner and must read...” --Joe Sheehan, Sports Illustrated

“Smart and funny, foggy and frightening, Polman reminds us of something we’d somehow forgotten: fiction is fun.” --Scott Simkus, author of Outsider Baseball: The Weird World of Hardball on the Fringe

"Where else could Jack Kerouac and Hammerin' Hank Aaron come together so enjoyably but in the irrepressible mind of Jeff Polman? In Mystery Ball, Polman, master of breathing life into history by playing with it, ventures back into 1958 to create a page-turning whodunit that bubbles over with crackling dialogue, baseball, beatniks, adventure, murder, and the grisly, joyous mess of this random dice roll called life." --Josh Wilker, author of Cardboard Gods

"Mystery Ball '58 just sparkles, full of Polman's signature wit, snappy dialogue, and page-turning storytelling."--Peter J. Schilling, author of The End of Baseball and Carl Barks' Duck: Average American

Former film critic and screenwriter Jeff Polman writes about baseball and culture for the Huffington Post and many other Web sites.MYSTERY BALL ‘58 is his third unique "baseball replay" novel. A New England native and UMass graduate, he lives in Culver City and watches as many games as his wife and son will allow him.

Dan Epstein is an award-winning journalist who covers baseball, music and pop culture for Rolling Stone, Fox Sports, Revolver, Guitar World and several other publications. He's the author of two acclaimed books about baseball in the 1970s, Big Hair and Plastic Grass and Stars and Strikes. He lives in Los Angeles.