Fielder's Choice

The Story

Andrew Jackson Fielder wants to pitch in the major leagues. It should seem a distant dream to a kid in Smackover, Arkansas, in 1939. But for Jackson, it comes true, partly due to the afternoons he and his brother spend practicing pitches in a pipeyard down in the south Arkansas oilpatch. Out of the pipeyard comes the famous gooseball, a rising pitch to bumfuzzle the best of batters.