HANGING CURVE
by Troy Soos
Hanging Curve ($22.00; Oct.; 272 pp.; 1-57566-455-0) Journeyman infielder Mickey Rawlings’s biggest innings have always been off the field, and it’s no surprise that his sixth season (The Cincinnati Red Stalkings, 1998, etc.) will take him away from his current team, the St. Louis Browns. This time out, he’s to play as a ringer against the Negro League’s East St. Louis Cubs—and against the KKK and a city still sporting the five-year-old scars of the murderous race riots of 1917. (Author tour)