First off, I want to thank each and every one of you for your ‘Get-Well’ emails, and cards. I am overwhelmed to say the least, and the Lord has certainly gifted me with a wonderful group of family, friends, and associates. The prayer notes from entire churches that had added me to their weekly petitions were especially touching. I must confess that I had started to feel quite sorry for myself as this particular case of Stenosis, a degenerative disease, has become severe in recent years. In essence, there is nothing that I can really do to prevent further deterioration and with this being my fourth back surgery, it was far too easy for me to become self-centered. This of course is ridiculous when there are so many other people out there who are much more worthy of your prayers than me. So I thank you all for lifting my spirits, and I also thank you for giving me some perspective on the matter. I am most blessed.

I had mentioned last week that this could not have come at a worse time as I have two books coming out and several lectures scheduled. Well, thanks to the great work of my neurosurgeon, Dr. Charles Azzam, I am home after only two-days in the hospital. I will be at home recovering for the next couple weeks, en route towards meeting my scheduled obligations. [The post-op pain is rather severe, although I am medicated and resting semi-comfortably. In fact, I had forgotten how bad this hurts. I pre-typed most of this post on Sunday and it is a good thing as it takes quite a while to type these updates with one finger.] At this point I have an 8” inch incision that runs from my bottom up to my middle back. The fusion hardware (6 screws) stayed the same from previous procedures, but I had another lumbar lamenectomy, and a spinal decompression. (My insurance company has had it with me for sure.) If everything worked according to the plan, the pain and numbness will be gone and my legs with have their full strength back. Then I can return to work! As you can see by the photo my father snapped, I am sleeping whenever possible. After all, it takes me 10 min. to get to the bathroom.

Before I went in to the hospital, I had several conversations with another author who proposed the concept for a new book project – a BASEBALL book project. After sharing a phone conversation and a few emails; I knew that it had the potential to be something very special. Although my attention has been strictly on publishing Civil War material for the last few years, I still get calls to do the occasional radio show as a noted ‘expert’ on the history of America’s national pastime. Over the years I had written close to 400 studies on the game for Baseball-Almanac including the entire histories of the All-Star Game, World Series, Year in Review and more. This book calls on my experience as a baseball-writer but with a VERY different approach…

The working-title of the book is “USTINK: Major League Baseball’s Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players.” The author that I’m working on it with is none other than our good friend and CW-historian extraordinaire Mr. Eric Wittenberg. This highly original study will present the storied legacies of the worst teams ever to hit the diamond. In addition it will have some of the sorriest player performances, a Hall of Shame, comparisons with some of the best teams ever, and newspaper excerpts from homer-writers tearing their own teams to shreds. There will be plenty of stats, photos, and quotes from players, as well as fans. The data will be deep, but the presentation will be light-hearted and fun. I think Eric’s idea is ingenious and as one who spent years writing about the ‘best of,’ it will be a unique and enjoyable challenge to pen a book on ‘the worst.’ Stay tuned for details on this wonderful project which will be ongoing. Eric and I will still be doing our usual stuff, but this will be a side-project that our readers also most certainly enjoy.