{"product_id":"9780446537094","title":"The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 - When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone","description":"There are baseball books and there are baseball books. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  But for the baseball cognoscenti, there are just a few \"must-have\" classics:\u003ci\u003eBall Four\u003c\/i\u003e by Jim Bouton. \u003ci\u003eThe Long Season\u003c\/i\u003e by Jim Brosnan. \u003ci\u003eWillie's Time\u003c\/i\u003e by Charles Einstein. And \u003ci\u003eSeasons In Hell\u003c\/i\u003e by Mike Shropshire, which was a hilarous first-person account of Mike's travails serving as a daily beat writer covering the hapless 1972 Texas Rangers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Now, in \u003ci\u003eThe Last Real Season\u003c\/i\u003e, Shropshire captures the essence of a different time and different place in baseball, when the average salary for major leaguers was only $27,600...when the ballplayers' drug of choice was alcohol, not steroids...when major leaguers sported tight doubleknit uniforms over their long-hair and Afros...and on July 28th, 1975, the day that famed Detroit resident Jimmy Hoffa went missing, the Detroit Tigers started a losing streak of 19 games in a row. On the day that the Tigers blew a 4-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, Shropshire recalls: \"I drank three bottles of Stroh's beer in less than a minute and wrote that 'Jimmy Hoffa will show up in the left field stands with Amelia Earhart as his date before the Tigers will win another game.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  And so it goes. Filled with just the kind of wonderful baseball stories that real fans crave, this is the funniest baseball book of the year.","brand":"Grand Central Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47105469087984,"sku":"9780446537094","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780446537094_p0.jpg?v=1769893841","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780446537094","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}