The Conference on Baseball in Literature and American Culture has consistently produced a strong body of scholarship since its inception in 1995. Essays presented at the 2008 and 2009 conferences are published in the present work.

Topics covered include religion; class and racial dichotomies in the literature of cricket and baseball; re-reading The Natural in the 21st century; the feminist movement; Don DeLillo's Game 6; baseball in Seinfeld; Robert B. Parker; Harry Stein's Hoopla; Negro league owner Tom Wilson's impact on Nashville; Major League Baseball's postwar boom; and overwrought baseball editorials, among others.