Seasons in Hell

“A funny, revealing, Ball Four–like romp through mid-seventies baseball” from the longtime sports columnist and author of The Last Real Season (Booklist).

You think your team is bad?  In this “disastrously hilarious” work on one of the most tortured franchises in baseball, one reporter discovers that nine innings can feel like an eternity (USA Today).

In early 1973, gonzo sportswriter Mike Shropshire agreed to cover the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, not realizing that the Rangers were arguably the worst team in baseball history. Seasons in Hell is a riotous, candid, irreverent behind-the-scenes account in the tradition of The Bronx Zoo and Ball Four, following the Texas Rangers from Whitey Herzog’s reign in 1973 through Billy Martin’s tumultuous tenure. Offering wonderful perspectives on dozens of unique (and likely never-to-be-seen-again) baseball personalities, Seasons in Hell recounts some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game and brings to life the no-holds-barred culture of major league baseball in the mid-seventies. 

“The single funniest sports book I have ever read.”—Don Imus 


“The locker-room shenanigans of a lousy team of the 1970s.”—Publishers Weekly