Heidi LM Jacobs – författare

From sandlots to major league stands, two fans set out to recapture their love of the game.

For most of their lives together Dale Jacobs and Heidi LM Jacobs couldn’t imagine a spring without baseball. Their season tickets renewal package always seemed to arrive on the bleakest day of winter, offering reassurance that sunnier times were around the corner. Baseball was woven into the fabric of their lives, connecting them not only to each other but also to their families and histories. But by 2017 it was obvious something was amiss: the allure of another Sunday watching their Detroit Tigers had devolved to obligation. Not entirely sure what they were missing, they did have an idea on where it might be found: in their own backyard. Drawing a radius of one hundred miles around their home in Windsor, Ontario, Dale and Heidi set a goal of seeing fifty games at all levels of competition over the following summer. From bleachers behind high schools, to manicured university turf, to the steep concrete stands of major league parks, 100 Miles of Baseball tells the story of how two fans rediscovered their love of the game—and with it their relationships and the region they call home.

Winner of the 2024 Speaker''s Book Award

The true story of the first Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship.

The pride of Chatham’s East End, the Coloured All-Stars broke the colour barrier in baseball more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did the same in the Major Leagues. Fielding a team of the best Black baseball players from across southwestern Ontario and Michigan, theirs is a story that could only have happened in this particular time and place: during the depths of the Great Depression, in a small industrial town a short distance from the American border, home to one of the most vibrant Black communities in Canada.

Drawing heavily on scrapbooks, newspaper accounts, and oral histories from members of the team and their families, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year shines a light on a largely overlooked chapter of Black baseball. But more than this, 1934 is the story of one group of men who fought for the respect that was too often denied them.

Rich in detail, full of the sounds and textures of a time long past, 1934 introduces the All-Stars’ unforgettable players and captures their winning season, so that it almost feels like you’re sitting there in Stirling Park’s grandstands, cheering on the team from Chatham.