My guest on Conversations, Will Bardenwerper, is the author of Homestand. A book that’s as beautiful to read as its cover is to look at.
I can’t remember the exact context, but I had about an hour to kill between a pair of appointments sometime in May and found myself near a Barnes & Noble bookstore. I figured a stroll through the racks might be a pleasant way to wile away a few minutes and allow me to see what was new and notable.
Among the books I spotted that day was a March release from an author I was unfamiliar with: Will Bardenwerper. While I didn’t recognize the author’s name, the image on the cover of Homestand: Smalltown Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America, was one that I’d seen countless times.
It was of a baseball diamond with its lights aglow under a cotton candy sky while a coach and player conversed at first base and a mound visit ocurred in the background.
As I reviewed the book’s synopsis, I learned that Bardenwerper was an ex-Army Airborne Ranger who had enlisted following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. An English major during his undergrad at Princeton, Bardenwerper turned his focus to writing post-military service. Homestand, his second book, took him to Batavia, NY, for the duration of the 2022 baseball season to chronicle the trials and tribulations of a community coming to grips with the loss of its beloved Class A Batavia Muckdogs from the New York-Penn League, which Major League Baseball eliminated during a massive contraction of 25% of the affiliated Minor League Baseball teams following the COVID-19 Pandemic.
From the synopsis it appeared Bardenwerper would simultaneously examine the relationship between a small community and its baseball team and the larger impact economic impact of MLB decided to kneecap a quarter of its affiliated minor league teams.
A few weeks later when I found myself in my local library looking for something new to read, I recollected that moment in Barnes & Noble and was pleased to discover Homestand was in. Scarcely a half-dozen chapters in, I was searching the Internet looking for a way to contact Bardenwerper about appearing on Conversations. He was game but wished to wait until the Fall when a couple of projects he had in the works would be behind him.
I believe the resulting Conversation is one that fans of baseball, small towns, and the endearing characters that intersect within each will enjoy.