SL1 Birmingham Barons

Cup of Coffee Book Signing Tour to Visit Hoover Met

Published on May 1, 2003 under Southern League (SL1)
Birmingham Barons News Release


BIRMINGHAM, AL – Following in the footsteps of the fictional Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, writer Rob Trucks traveled the country in search of modern Moonlight Grahams – former pitchers whose major league careers lasted less than fifty innings. Cup of Coffee collects Trucks's conversations with eighteen of these men – what they went through to reach the major leagues, why they didn't stay, and what they saw, heard, and learned along the way.

Cup of Coffee presents the life stories of eighteen men whose careers were not all that they could've been – stories of a man who used his $1,000 signing bonus to provide indoor plumbing for his parents; a man who delivered his first major league pitch to Ken Griffey Jr. with men on base; a man who discovered he had encephalitis while returning from spring training for what would've been his second major league season; an African-American man, Bill Greason, who, after playing with high schooler Wille Mays on the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, finally reached the majors in 1954; and a Jewish man who turned down his first major league start at his mother's behest because it was scheduled for Yom Kippur.

These are the stories of success and failure, accomplishment and disappointment, heartbreak and fulfillment, all while rubbing shoulders with baseball legends on the national pastime's greatest stage. Cup of Coffee speaks not only to baseball aficionados, but students of the human condition as well.

Rob Trucks, the grand-nephew of former big leaguer and Birmingham native Virgil Trucks, will be selling and signing Cup of Coffee: The Very Short Careers of Eighteen Major League Pitchers at ballparks throughout the country including a stop in Birmingham at the Hoover Met on May 9 during the Barons 7 PM game versus the Jacksonville Suns. Former Auburn Tiger, Baron, and major league pitcher Stacy Jones, who is included in the book, will join him to sign copies of the book and throw out a first pitch. As a Baron, Jones was 1-1 with a 2.57 ERA with 14 saves in 27 appearances for the 1996 squad. His 14 saves have him tied for sixth on the Barons all-time single season saves record board. While at Auburn he played three seasons ('86-'88) and went 19-15 with a 4.01 ERA in 61 games for the Tigers. For two seasons he was the teammate of Frank Thomas, another former Baron.

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Southern League Stories from May 1, 2003


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