John Courtland, the Scrooge-like owner of the Central City Champs thinks he knows the National Pastime. He lets the baseball men make the baseball decisions while he concerns himself with TV revenues, season ticket sales, merchandising deals, skyboxes, lawyers and agents and escalating player salaries. That’s what owners do. They count the money. And that’s what baseball is all about. Money. His eight-year-old grandson, Jordan, lives in a world in which baseball is an activity run by grownups. It’s all about official rules, official distances, and official uniforms. It’s about playing in front of your parents and running laps for your coaches and selling candy bars to raise money. It’s a pastime that’s directed, organized and scheduled by grownups to entertain other grownups at hours convenient to those grownups. That baseball. Courtland’s Spirits is the story of what happens when John Courtland meets the Spirits of Baseball Past, Baseball Present, and Baseball Future, and how it affects him, his team, and those around him—from his whining star pitcher to his grandson Jordan. He learns what all of us have always known but are constantly forgetting—baseball is about HITTING PITCHING RUNNING FIELDING THROWING