Review
"
One Shot at Forever is tender, fun, bittersweet, with a great narrative that just motors. It also features the funkiest coach not just in the history of baseball but the history of sport--an unforgettable character in a beautiful and unforgettable book."
--Buzz Bissinger, author of Father's Day and Friday Night Lights"
One Shot at Forever is powerful, inspirational and--in an era where sports are too often marred by scandal--as pure and true as a warm spring breeze. This isn't merely a book about baseball. It's a book about heart."
--Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of The Bad Guys Won"...Reminds us why sports matter and why sports writing has such great power to inspire...One hell of a good story, and Ballard has written one hell of a good book." --Jonathan Eig, Chicago Tribune"[A] nonfiction gem about an underdog team that made good. This is the kind of baseball book that has long arms: YA readers, avid baseball fans, sports readers, and narrative nonfiction readers who like to be firmly set in a particular time and place should all find it joyful."
--Library JournalAbout the Author
Chris Ballard is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, where he specializes in narrative longform stories. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and his work has been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing and The Best American Sports Writing series (three times). Ballard is the author of four books: "Hoops Nation", "The Butterfly Hunter", "The Art of a Beautiful Game" and "One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, An Unlikely Coach and a Magical Baseball Season".
Ballard joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED in September 2000. He has covered the NBA and MLB, written more than a dozen cover stories, penned the back page "Point After" column and written features on everything from pigeon racing to Jake Plummer's post-football life to the Vancouver riots. He was one of five 2012 finalists for a National Magazine Award in profile writing, is a past recipient of a National Headliner Award and was the 2011 winner of The Joanie Award for a story about Cal Berkeley coxswain Jill Costello, who died of lung cancer after her senior year. His 2010 story titled "The Magical Season of the Macon Ironmen provided the inspiration for his latest book. Four of his stories have been optioned for feature films, including "One Shot," which is currently in development by Legendary Pictures.
Before joining SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, Ballard was an intern at the Courier-Post in Camden, NJ and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Ballard has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, ABC News with Dick Schaap, and Outside the Lines, among others, and speaks regularly to groups of journalism students. A native Californian, Ballard graduated from Pomona College, where he played basketball, was on the track and field team and drank lots of cheap beer. He lives in Berkeley with his wife Alexandra and two daughters, Callie and Eliza.
To read a collection of Ballard's best feature stories, go to: byliner.com/chris-ballard