The Team

Great success stories all start the same way... You can't do it. Saying this book is about baseball is like saying Rudy is about football, and Rocky is about boxing. It is so much more than that.

These stories are of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary feats by simply believing in their dreams, with a steadfast determination to realize their goal.

The Team is such a story. Paul Babcock, an ordinary man with a dream initiated as a young boy on a farm in Illinois. The youngest of ten siblings, he came to understand the value of teamwork, a strong work ethic, and a sense of self-worth. When not at school, with chores completed, he found himself falling in love with the game of baseball. He roamed his family's property, making up games such as "silo ball," dreaming of the one great catch that would ensure his team a championship.

Then in sixth grade, he met Gordie Gillespie, an icon in our world of Midwestern baseball and his goals were set. He wanted to play for him and bring him his first national championship at the College of St. Francis.

This is his story...a heartwarming story that recounts his journey through adversity, through countless disappointments and obstacles, to becoming the best baseball player he could be under the tutelage of the man he considered to be among the very best of baseball coaches.

The Team is, without doubt, a "winning catch!"