THE WORLD SERIES THAT TAUGHT US TO LOVE THE UNDERDOG -- AND HATE THE YANKEES

Meet the team St. Louis loved to hate.  

Everybody loves the underdog – the Stony Brook college baseball team, the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA, the L.A. Kings of the NHL – a “podunk team” that beats the superpower of their sport with a cast of characters, grinders, heroes and wins only after a collective scoff, suggesting that these small-time “bush leaguers” have no business beating the big boys.

BUSHVILLE WINS! The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball by John Klima (July 3, Thomas Dunne Books) is the untold story of arguably the greatest baseball upset in history, when the first expansionist team, the Milwaukee Braves, shocked the sports world and toppled the Yankee Dynasty of the 1950s. The team played its first regular season game in Milwaukee against the St. Louis Cardinals, one of their biggest rivals throughout the rest of the decade.

The Braves taught us to how love the underdog and hate the Yankees. The 1957 Milwaukee Braves, called “bush league,” by manager Casey Stengel, turned baseball on its ear by proving that the underdog could do the unthinkable – beat the Yankees at the peak of their power.

The Braves were a colorful collection of motley misfits – beer-drinking ballplayers from the Heartland who packed the park and loved a good tailgate party – and Milwaukee had the team that shocked the world, with sharky pitchers Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette and sluggers Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews who beat the Yankees in a memorable Game 7 of the 1957 World Series.

Sometimes, the big shots from the big time don’t win it all – and “BUSHVILLES” like Stony Brook, Oklahoma City, the Kings and the original underdogs, the 1957 Milwaukee Braves – show how the odd balls from the corner bar or the corner of the map put themselves on it. Featuring new interviews with Henry Aaron and other members of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, BUSHVILLE WINS! is a celebration of the underdog in us all.

http://us.macmillan.com/bushvillewins/JohnKlima

PRAISE for BUSHVILLE WINS! 

“Bushville Wins! hits the sweet spot of my childhood, the year my family moved to Wisconsin and the Braves won the World Series, a tea, my Brooklyn-raised dad taught us to hate. Thanks to John Klima for bringing it all back to life with such vivid detail and energetic writing.” – David Maraniss, New York Times bestselling biographer of Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente

“Screwballs, sluggers and beer swiggers? My kind of people and my kind of book. Captivating…a dramatic story told with marvelous writing and meticulous research.” – Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling biographer of Lou Gehrig and Al Capone.

“Klima weaves the team’s “sense of destiny” with a Milwaukee fan’s obsession and a journalist’s eye in relating this “David versus Goliath” baseball saga that avoids the braggadocio of others of its ilk.” – Publishers Weekly

“A rollicking read that captures the spirit of the team, the city and a unique moment in baseball history.” – Kirkus Reviews

“An irresistible tale, beautifully told, about one of the most colorful and neglected underdog champions in baseball history.Bushville Wins! is a winner.” – Mark Frost, New York Times bestselling author of  The Match and creator of Twin Peaks

"One of baseball's finest and most overlooked seasons finally gets the chronicle it deserves. Thoroughly reported and elegantly written, Bushville Wins! recaptures 1950s Milwaukee with loving detail. Except perhaps for Yankee fans, baseball lovers will want to keep Bushville Wins! on their bookshelf." -- Cait Murphy, author of Crazy '08.