-- Play Ball Baseball is the greatest of all American games. No other sport has the tradition, the mythology, the heroes, and the heroics. Yet baseball is also in the midst of an upheaval unprecedented in its glorious history. Many of its traditions have been discarded, much of its mythology has been disproved, and too many of its heroes have entered drug clinics or let greed triumph over team spirit. What makes baseball what it isâ??the good as well as the bad? Who are the game's heroes, and who its villains? What roles do managers play, and umpires and announcers and mascots and the media? What is the game's future? These are the questions that John Feinsteinâ??bestselling author and sports journalist extraordinaireâ??examines in -- Hard Courts Above all are still the players, and this is what makes Feinstein's book so special. He gives us intimate portraits of such longtime superstars as Cal Ripken, Jr. and George Brett, as well as revealing glimpsesâ??some flattering, some not so flatteringâ??of such newer stars as Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonds, and Ken Griffye, Jr. Beyond the obsession with money and salaries, Feinstein knows it's the players who make and break the game. In Play Ballbe a major league baseball player, in every