Bill Nowlin originally wrote this as a doctoral dissertation in 1980, and finally got around to publishing it in the 21st century thanks to gentle prodding from Stuart Christie. Nowlin has written extensively in popular culture - mostly books about baseball, but also the book Woody Guthrie, American Radical Patriot. He is co-founder of Rounder Records of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and since 2004 has been vice president of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).