Collins book tells stories from human side of our national pastime
LEXINGTON, Ky.—Baseball players in America have come to evoke visions of gods with enormous athletic abilities and even higher salaries, heroes in a sport that draws tens of millions of fans each year to see these figures hit towering home runs while staying respectfully stoic until the long season ends. Transylvania University senior Cory Collins sets out to show a forgotten side of baseball in his new book, “Bats That Won’t Break.” The book chronicles the stories of eight members of the Louisville Bats, a minor league affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, as they spend time middling in the lower levels of baseball, traveling by bus rather than private jet and making a fraction of what the typical big leaguer earns. Some of those players, like Dominican outfielder Denis Phipps, came from humble roots and are waiting their turn to break in to the Major Leagues. Others, such as catcher Corky Miller, will spend their entire careers in the minors with virtually no shot at The Big Show. Bats manager David Bell had an 11-year MLB career and now spends his time coaching up the next round of hopefuls, and even groundskeeper Tom Nielsen hopes for a shot to curate a big league diamond, a skill he taught himself by mowing freshly cut lines in his backyard as a child. “All of these guys started with a boyhood dream, and I wanted to look at how they transformed from having
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