The Ticket Out Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw (2004)

Any baseball fan has only to look at the marquee name in the subtitle to know that Ticket is a story of promise wasted and dreams deferred. In 1979, one of L.A.'s poorest neighborhoods was home to a high school team epitomizing the hopes of a generation of young, disenfranchised African-American men. What happened -- or, more accurately, what didn't happen -- not only to Strawberry but to his uncelebrated teammates is the focus of a narrative defined by its compassionate, clear-eyed tone. Sokolove's occasionally meandering perambulations are expanded from a New York Times Magazine piece about Strawberry, but the richer story resides in the dignity and determination -- and surprisingly unsparing self-examination -- of the men who played in his shadow.