William Ecenbarger

In 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world’s greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid service in the Great War, teams employed “ringers” like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as “safe shelter” leagues. In Work, Fight, or Play Ball, William Ecenbarger fondly recounts this little-known story of how dozens of athletes faced professional conflicts and a difficult choice in light of public perceptions and war propaganda. Some players used the steel mill and shipyard leagues to avoid wartime military duty, irking Major League owners, who saw their rosters dwindling. Bethlehem Steel President Charles Schwab (no relation to the financier) saw the league as a means to stave off employee and union organizing. Most fans loudly criticized the ballplayers, but nevertheless showed up to watch the action on the diamond. Ecenbarger traces the 1918 Steel League’s season and compares the fates of the players who defected to industry or continued to play stateside with the travails of the Major Leaguers, such as Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Cleveland Alexander, who served during the war. Work, Fight, or Play Ball reveals the home field advantage brought on by the war, which allowed companies to profit from Major League players.

With a biting mix of wonder and pride, William Ecenbarger observes that in the quirky state of Pennsylvania, the town of Mauch Chunk changed its name to Jim Thorpe-even though the famous Indian athlete never set foot in it. A former journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, and author of the bestseller Kids for Cash, Ecenbarger has collected a dozen of his fascinating articles showcasing the Keystone State in Pennsylvania Stories-Well Told. He provides a history of the pencil, and considers why the first day of Pennsylvania’s deer hunting season-the world’s largest participatory sporting event-is an unofficial state holiday, closing schools and state offices. Ecenbarger also profiles George “Boom Boom” Zambelli, the internationally renowned pyrotechnic king, and goes driving with Pennsylvania native John Updike in rural Berks County, PA. Other fascinating tales unfold in Pennsylvania Stories, from an inspiring tale of Governor Bob Casey’s double organ transplant, to darker essays on the electric chair and the Ku Klux Klan, to a mile-by-mile appreciation of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In these weird and wonderful stories, Ecenbarger highlights just what makes Pennsylvania both eccentric and great. His book is a delightfully intriguing read for natives and curious outsiders alike.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Philadelphia Inquirer" reporter William Ecenbarger comes the expose of a shocking scandal that ruined thousands of young lives--in paperback for the first time. As the "Boston Globe" wrote, "The story is incredible: Thousands of children wrongfully sentenced to juvenile detention centers, many without legal representation and after cursory hearings, by two rogue judges in northern Pennsylvania who received millions of dollars in bribes from the private institutions' owners." The story has all the elements of a true-crime legal thriller--mafia connections, colorful characters, corruption--and was made into a documentary of the same title, released in theaters in 2014. The "Philadelphia Review of Books" called the story "harrowing," "Library Journal" called it "shocking," and the "Pittsburgh Tribune" called it "heartbreaking." When it was first released, "Kids for Cash" brought the story to national attention, where it has stayed ever since. As the "Philadelphia Inquirer" pointed out, this is the "worst stain on Pennsylvania, a state with more than its share of stains... Bill Ecenbarger offers a detail-packed, sickening account of the scandal and its impact. Anyone caring about courts, justice or children should read it."