Table of Contents
Prologue: Babe's Yanklands versus the Navy Pilots, July 28, 1943 vii
Introduction xv
Foreword Claudia Williams xix
Part I May 11, 1943
Chapter 1 The "Baseball Squad" 3
Chapter 2 The Comeback Kid 7
Chapter 3 Ration-League Baseball 11
Part II The Trunk
Chapter 4 A Trunk Holding Secrets 27
Chapter 5 The Size of a Dream 31
Chapter 6 My New Friend Ted 39
Chapter 7 A Dream Team 43
Chapter 8 A Train to Durham 56
Chapter 9 The Last Living Player 68
Chapter 10 A Batboy's Perspective 86
Chapter 11 Ted Who? 90
Part III The World's most Difficult Training Program
Chapter 12 The Pre-Flight Spark 97
Chapter 13 Tom Hamilton, The Fighting American 101
Chapter 14 Winning the One Big Game 115
Part IV The Right Stuff
Chapter 15 The Right-Stuff Culture 125
Chapter 16 Caldwell Hall-The Theory of Flight 128
Chapter 17 The Fathers of Survival Training 132
Part V Graham's Field of Dreams
Chapter 18 When The Navy Marched into Chapel Hill 143
Part VI Playing Baseball Military Style
Chapter 19 Walking Billboards for Baseball and That Ain't All 165
Chapter 20 The Season Continues 178
Chapter 21 Babe's Last At-Bat-The Yanklands 195
Part VII Graduation
Chapter 22 Ted's Next Station 211
Chapter 23 A Cloudbusters Reunion in Hawaii 232
Chapter 24 The Nine-After the War and the .5 Percent 243
Chapter 25 Extra Innings 254
Part VIII Always a Baseball Player
Chapter 26 The Love of the Game 265
Chapter 27 Longing for the Old Leaguer 279
Epilogue: Forever a Batboy 287
Afterword 290
Appendix-Major-League Players Who Trained at Chapel Hill during World War II 296
Acknowledgments 314
Bibliography 321
Photo credits 341
Index 342