Plie Ball!

From the vaudeville gyrations of New York Giants star pitchers Rube Marquard and Christy Mathewson, to Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as hoofing infielders in Take Me Out to the Ball Game, to the stage and screen versions of Damn Yankees, the connection between baseball and dance is an intimate, perhaps surprising one. Covering more than a century of dancing ballplayers and baseball-inspired dance, this entertaining study examines the connection in film and television, in theatrical productions and in choreography created for some of the greatest dancers and dance companies in the world.

"For those of us who have known all along that baseball has pervaded every aspect of life, along comes a book to affirm that assertion to the nth degree. If you'd thought the only corollary between baseball and dance was the pirouetting of a double-play combination at second base, you've got a lot to learn, and Jeffrey M. Katz is the one to teach you. Plie Ball! is sui generis; there's nothing I've read or seen like it...authoritative.... The book is nothing if not thorough"--The Inside Game (SABR Deadball Era Committee Newsletter).

Jeffrey M. Katz is a professional librarian and educator who lives in New York City, loves baseball and dance, and works with teens and young adults at the New York Public Library, USA. His articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History, Marketing Library Services, Public Libraries, and School Library Journal.