p style="mso-outline-level:1" class="MsoNormal"The extraordinary story of the 1968 baseball season,when the game was played to perfection even as the country was being pulled apart at the seams p style="mso-outline-level:1" class="MsoNormal"From the beginning, '68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing '68 as The Year of the Pitcher."In Summer of '68 , Tim Wendel takes us on a wild ride through a season that saw such legends as Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, Don Drysdale, and Luis Tiant set new standards for excellence on the mound, each chasing perfection against the backdrop of one of the most divisive and turbulent years in American history. For some players, baseball would become an insular retreat from the turmoil encircling them that season, but for a select few, including Gibson and the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals, the conflicts of '68 would spur their performances to incredible heights and set the stage for their own run at history.Meanwhile in Detroit,which had burned just the summer before during one of the worst riots in American history,'68 instead found the city rallying together behind a colourful Tigers team led by McLain, Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, and Al Kaline. The Tigers would finish atop the American League, setting themselves on a highly anticipated collision course with Gibson's Cardinals. And with both teams'seasons culminating in a thrilling World Series for the ages,one team playing to establish a dynasty, the other fighting to help pull a city from the ashes,what ultimately lay at stake was something even larger: baseball's place in a rapidly changing America that would never be the same.In vivid, novelistic detail, Summer of '68 tells the story of this unforgettable season,the last before rule changes and expansion would alter baseball forever,when the country was captivated by the national pastime at the moment it needed the game most. p style="" class="MsoNormal"

Recently widowed and now retired, Billy Bryan is “coming to the end of many things.” Then a long-forgotten scrapbook stirs memories of a distant past-and beckons him and his grown daughter on a reluctant journey to relive his role in history. In 1947 Bryan was playing winter ball in Cuba, his future as uncertain as the island country’s. Then one fateful night Bryan witnessed a young student radical named Fidel unleash an amazing curveball. So begins Bryan's tug-of-war with destiny.

Named a 2021 Top Thriller by Alta Journal​2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist in Action/Adventure Fiction2021 Professional Achievement Award, Johns Hopkins University facultyFinalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the YearIn this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, the former Washington Senators Minor League catcher has returned to Havana with a small role in a movie being filmed on location. Billy Bryan soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before.Against his better judgment, Billy becomes entangled in a scheme to spirit a top baseball prospect off the island. This pits him against his old friend Fidel Castro. Despite being in his final days, the dictator remains a dangerous adversary, as does the Cuban sports machine and the Mexican crime syndicates that now direct baseball talent toward the U.S. Major Leagues.In Escape from Castro’s Cuba, Billy must once again navigate the crosscurrents of the so-called City of Columns: a place where the sunsets from the Hotel Nacional along the MalecÓn breakwater are as beautiful as ever, but where the alleyways in Old Havana still fan out, crooked and broken, like an old catcher’s fingers.

When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicians call for a "Cancer Moonshot," this accomplishment remains a pinnacle in cancer research.The author's daughter, then a medical student at Georgetown Medical School, told her father about this amazing success story. Tim Wendel soon discovered that many of the doctors at the forefront of this effort cared for his brother at Roswell Park in Buffalo, New York. Wendel went in search of this extraordinary group, interviewing Lucius Sinks, James Holland, Donald Pinkel, and others in the field. If there were a Mount Rushmore for cancer research, they would be on it.Despite being ostracized by their medical peers, these doctors developed modern-day chemotherapy practices and invented the blood centrifuge machine, helping thousands of children live longer lives. Part family memoir and part medical narrative, Cancer Crossings explores how the Wendel family found the courage to move ahead with their lives. They learned to sail on Lake Ontario, cruising across miles of open water together, even as the campaign against cancer changed their lives forever.

Winner of the W.Y. Boyd Literary Novel Award for Excellence in Military Fiction by the Academic Council of the United Nations System.With Rebel Falls, Tim Wendel takes us to late summer of 1864. The Civil War rages on. Sherman is marching on Atlanta, while the armies of Grant and Lee battle across Virginia. In the North, war-weariness has made Lincoln's bid for reelection seem doubtful. As the fate of the nation "conceived in Liberty" hangs in the balance, Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict. Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, accepts a mission from the Secretary of State, William Seward, to travel to Niagara Falls and prevent two rebel spies, John Yates Beall and Bennet Burley, from seizing the U.S.S. Michigan on Lake Erie and bombarding Buffalo, Cleveland, and other northern cities to sow fear and disorder ahead of the upcoming election. To succeed, Rory must gain the rebel spies' trust and, with the help of the Underground Railroad network still operating out of the elegant Cataract House hotel overlooking the Falls, foil their desperate gambit. But can she maintain the pretense of being a Confederate sympathizer long enough to unravel Beall and Burley's ingenious plot?With actual events underpinning the tumultuous story in Rebel Falls, a forgotten chapter in the history of the Civil War is revealed. Far from frontlines, Wendel's exciting, character-driven narrative about a consequential struggle in the shadow of Niagara Falls' dramatic beauty is gripping from start to finish.

Winner of the W.Y. Boyd Literary Novel Award for Excellence in Military Fiction by the Academic Council of the United Nations System.With Rebel Falls, Tim Wendel takes us to late summer of 1864. The Civil War rages on. Sherman is marching on Atlanta, while the armies of Grant and Lee battle across Virginia. In the North, war-weariness has made Lincoln's bid for reelection seem doubtful. As the fate of the nation "conceived in Liberty" hangs in the balance, Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict. Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, accepts a mission from the Secretary of State, William Seward, to travel to Niagara Falls and prevent two rebel spies, John Yates Beall and Bennet Burley, from seizing the U.S.S. Michigan on Lake Erie and bombarding Buffalo, Cleveland, and other northern cities to sow fear and disorder ahead of the upcoming election. To succeed, Rory must gain the rebel spies' trust and, with the help of the Underground Railroad network still operating out of the elegant Cataract House hotel overlooking the Falls, foil their desperate gambit. But can she maintain the pretense of being a Confederate sympathizer long enough to unravel Beall and Burley's ingenious plot?With actual events underpinning the tumultuous story in Rebel Falls, a forgotten chapter in the history of the Civil War is revealed. Far from frontlines, Wendel's exciting, character-driven narrative about a consequential struggle in the shadow of Niagara Falls' dramatic beauty is gripping from start to finish.

p style="mso-outline-level:1" class="MsoNormal"The extraordinary story of the 1968 baseball season,when the game was played to perfection even as the country was being pulled apart at the seams p style="mso-outline-level:1" class="MsoNormal"From the beginning, '68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing '68 as The Year of the Pitcher."In Summer of '68 , Tim Wendel takes us on a wild ride through a season that saw such legends as Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, Don Drysdale, and Luis Tiant set new standards for excellence on the mound, each chasing perfection against the backdrop of one of the most divisive and turbulent years in American history. For some players, baseball would become an insular retreat from the turmoil encircling them that season, but for a select few, including Gibson and the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals, the conflicts of '68 would spur their performances to incredible heights and set the stage for their own run at history.Meanwhile in Detroit,which had burned just the summer before during one of the worst riots in American history,'68 instead found the city rallying together behind a colourful Tigers team led by McLain, Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, and Al Kaline. The Tigers would finish atop the American League, setting themselves on a highly anticipated collision course with Gibson's Cardinals. And with both teams'seasons culminating in a thrilling World Series for the ages,one team playing to establish a dynasty, the other fighting to help pull a city from the ashes,what ultimately lay at stake was something even larger: baseball's place in a rapidly changing America that would never be the same.In vivid, novelistic detail, Summer of '68 tells the story of this unforgettable season,the last before rule changes and expansion would alter baseball forever,when the country was captivated by the national pastime at the moment it needed the game most. p style="" class="MsoNormal"

Recently widowed and now retired, Billy Bryan is “coming to the end of many things.” Then a long-forgotten scrapbook stirs memories of a distant past-and beckons him and his grown daughter on a reluctant journey to relive his role in history. In 1947 Bryan was playing winter ball in Cuba, his future as uncertain as the island country’s. Then one fateful night Bryan witnessed a young student radical named Fidel unleash an amazing curveball. So begins Bryan's tug-of-war with destiny.

Named a 2021 Top Thriller by Alta Journal​2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist in Action/Adventure Fiction2021 Professional Achievement Award, Johns Hopkins University facultyFinalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the YearIn this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, the former Washington Senators Minor League catcher has returned to Havana with a small role in a movie being filmed on location. Billy Bryan soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before.Against his better judgment, Billy becomes entangled in a scheme to spirit a top baseball prospect off the island. This pits him against his old friend Fidel Castro. Despite being in his final days, the dictator remains a dangerous adversary, as does the Cuban sports machine and the Mexican crime syndicates that now direct baseball talent toward the U.S. Major Leagues.In Escape from Castro’s Cuba, Billy must once again navigate the crosscurrents of the so-called City of Columns: a place where the sunsets from the Hotel Nacional along the MalecÓn breakwater are as beautiful as ever, but where the alleyways in Old Havana still fan out, crooked and broken, like an old catcher’s fingers.

When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicians call for a "Cancer Moonshot," this accomplishment remains a pinnacle in cancer research.The author's daughter, then a medical student at Georgetown Medical School, told her father about this amazing success story. Tim Wendel soon discovered that many of the doctors at the forefront of this effort cared for his brother at Roswell Park in Buffalo, New York. Wendel went in search of this extraordinary group, interviewing Lucius Sinks, James Holland, Donald Pinkel, and others in the field. If there were a Mount Rushmore for cancer research, they would be on it.Despite being ostracized by their medical peers, these doctors developed modern-day chemotherapy practices and invented the blood centrifuge machine, helping thousands of children live longer lives. Part family memoir and part medical narrative, Cancer Crossings explores how the Wendel family found the courage to move ahead with their lives. They learned to sail on Lake Ontario, cruising across miles of open water together, even as the campaign against cancer changed their lives forever.

Winner of the W.Y. Boyd Literary Novel Award for Excellence in Military Fiction by the Academic Council of the United Nations System.With Rebel Falls, Tim Wendel takes us to late summer of 1864. The Civil War rages on. Sherman is marching on Atlanta, while the armies of Grant and Lee battle across Virginia. In the North, war-weariness has made Lincoln's bid for reelection seem doubtful. As the fate of the nation "conceived in Liberty" hangs in the balance, Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict. Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, accepts a mission from the Secretary of State, William Seward, to travel to Niagara Falls and prevent two rebel spies, John Yates Beall and Bennet Burley, from seizing the U.S.S. Michigan on Lake Erie and bombarding Buffalo, Cleveland, and other northern cities to sow fear and disorder ahead of the upcoming election. To succeed, Rory must gain the rebel spies' trust and, with the help of the Underground Railroad network still operating out of the elegant Cataract House hotel overlooking the Falls, foil their desperate gambit. But can she maintain the pretense of being a Confederate sympathizer long enough to unravel Beall and Burley's ingenious plot?With actual events underpinning the tumultuous story in Rebel Falls, a forgotten chapter in the history of the Civil War is revealed. Far from frontlines, Wendel's exciting, character-driven narrative about a consequential struggle in the shadow of Niagara Falls' dramatic beauty is gripping from start to finish.

Winner of the W.Y. Boyd Literary Novel Award for Excellence in Military Fiction by the Academic Council of the United Nations System.With Rebel Falls, Tim Wendel takes us to late summer of 1864. The Civil War rages on. Sherman is marching on Atlanta, while the armies of Grant and Lee battle across Virginia. In the North, war-weariness has made Lincoln's bid for reelection seem doubtful. As the fate of the nation "conceived in Liberty" hangs in the balance, Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict. Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, accepts a mission from the Secretary of State, William Seward, to travel to Niagara Falls and prevent two rebel spies, John Yates Beall and Bennet Burley, from seizing the U.S.S. Michigan on Lake Erie and bombarding Buffalo, Cleveland, and other northern cities to sow fear and disorder ahead of the upcoming election. To succeed, Rory must gain the rebel spies' trust and, with the help of the Underground Railroad network still operating out of the elegant Cataract House hotel overlooking the Falls, foil their desperate gambit. But can she maintain the pretense of being a Confederate sympathizer long enough to unravel Beall and Burley's ingenious plot?With actual events underpinning the tumultuous story in Rebel Falls, a forgotten chapter in the history of the Civil War is revealed. Far from frontlines, Wendel's exciting, character-driven narrative about a consequential struggle in the shadow of Niagara Falls' dramatic beauty is gripping from start to finish.