Baseball is a sport, a pastime, an obsession, a dream ― and for some, it's also a day job. Field Work is a poetic survey of baseball's rich history that uncovers the people who makes the game happen, from the pioneers who built and maintained early ballparks to minor-league players' surprising part-time jobs to the parents who coach Little League teams. Along the way it shines a surprising light on the complex relationships between work and play and how we value labour.

Equal parts sharp-eyed obversation and beautiful digression, these essays celebrate the ways in which baseball shapes the way we move through the world — and how our understanding of work has an unmistakable influence on what happens on the ball diamond.

(From Assembly Press)

Andrew Forbes's first short story collection What You Need was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and Trillium Book Award. He is also the author of The Utility of Boredom, The Only Way Is the Steady Way, McCurdle's Arm and The Diapause. His stories have been published widely, appearing in publications like the Toronto Star, Canadian Notes and Queries and Maisonneuve Magazine. He is based in Peterborough, Ont.