The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, Keene Anne R.

In this spirited Field of Dreams-like father-daughter account, author Anne R. Keene opens with a story about her father, Jim Raugh, who suited up as the team batboy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personally, watching players hit the road on cramped, tin-can buses, dazzling factory workers, kids, and service members at dozens of games, including a war-bond exhibition against Babe Ruths team at Yankee Stadium.

Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-American, but was crushed later in life by a failed major-league bid with the Detroit Tigers. He would have carried this story to his grave had Anne not discovered his scrapbook from a Navy school that shaped Americas greatest heroes including George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn, Paul Bear Bryant, and John Wooden.