The Warsaw Sparks
"…a fresh and fascinating memoir…a story charged with human interest, clean prose and original perspectives…Mr. Gildner's book is a heavy hitter."—New York Times Book Review
"[A] funny, sad, and bittersweet account of coaching Polish baseball players who were 'trying to catch up on something they didn't even know they missed.'"—USA Today
"This historical vignette from the country of baseball floats from present to past and from personal to political with the looseness and ease of a ball tossed around the horn. Like a baseball game, Gildner's story follows its own rhythms, rising with the flight of a ball or lounging between innings."—Hungry Mind Review
In 1987 noted poet and author Gary Gildner went to Poland on a Fulbright to teach at the University of Warsaw. One January day a Warsaw sports writer came knocking on Gildner's classroom door with a problem and a request. The professional baseball team he had organized the year before could not win; would the professor—who he had heard was a baseball player—come help?