"Detailing legendary jokesters and pranksters of the past 70 years, [Stewart] lists 135 players and managers who craved the limelight while goofing off on the field and in the clubhouse . Stewart wildly entertains in this offbeat history." -- Publishers Weekly "For younger readers less likely to be familiar with personalities of yesteryear, Wits, Flakes, and Clowns will help cultivate a sense of the richness of baseball's past and its humorous quirkiness. Stewart's extended profiles invite deeper inspection of these luminaries thanks to recent biographies of these Hall-of-Famers." -- NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture "Wayne Stewart has written a book on baseball's most colorful and clever characters. It has lots of great, funny stories any baseball fan should enjoy." --Ken Griffey, All-Star Game MVP in 1980 and lifetime .296 hitter.

Member of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine "Wits, Flakes, and Clowns: The Colorful Characters of Baseball covers so many of the funniest, wittiest, and flakiest players from long ago to the present that it is bound to entertain every baseball fan. Lots of laughs are in store as you read about the men who enriched the game--from those who gave us clever quotes to the pranksters and the so-called clowns of the game, Wayne Stewart's book delivers." --Vernon Law, 1960 Cy Young Award winner "Humor is a side of baseball that I think is important. Stories in baseball are rampant. I don't hear so much in football and basketball, but you get a baseball guy started and you'll hear a lot of stories. There's something magic about baseball. I think one thing about baseball that gets overlooked is the human side of players--and that's what this book is all about." --Carl Erskine, All-Star and 20-game winner who threw two no-hitters in the 1950s.