One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season

  The Inspirational Story of a Coach, a Baseball Team, and the Season They'll Never ForgetIn 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinoisplaying with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hatsdefied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with nocoaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make thestate final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting longhair, and warming up to Jesus Christ Superstar, the Ironmen would playa dramatic game against a Chicago powerhouse that would change theirlives forever.In a gripping, cinematic narrative, Sports Illustrated writer ChrisBallard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet, ahippie, dreamer and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966,bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era.