If you are seeking the mythical golden era of baseball, you may have stumbled into it right here. In the early days of the twentieth century, eight midwestern cities locked arms and locked horns in a furious hardball hotbed called the Iowa League. The competition was fast and unpredictable, by way of a cast of memorable characters from the breadth of America who played for whatever bucks they could get, for the hottest action they could find, and for the love of the game. * An outfielder who aimed for the National League ¿ and landed in a Main Street shootout with the country's most notorious band of gangsters. * A hard-scrabble umpire who survived frenetic players and wrathful fans in Iowa, but whose path to the big leagues led instead to a bank-robbing destiny on a dusty Oklahoma street. * The wild circle of life of a determined ballclub of a century ago, before the minors were leashed and domesticated by the big leagues. Welcome to a long lineup of sluggers and fastballers, decorated heroes and despised villains, whose careers exploded like fireworks and falling stars. Paired with the companion volume, it's a veritable encyclopedia of the men whose stories came together in a prairie city called Fort Dodge in the hardball cauldron of the Iowa League.