The Last Real Season

A first-person account of the 1975 Major League Baseball season—the last year before free agency took over and changed the national pastime forever.

“One of the funniest baseball books I’ve ever read—who knew that a baseball beat writer could be so funny and clever!” —Bill Madden, New York Daily News

In The Last Real Season, Mike Shropshire captures the essence of a different time and place in baseball, when the average salary for major leaguers was only $27,600 … when the ballplayers’ drug of choice was alcohol, not steroids … when major leaguers sported tight doubleknit uniforms over their long-hair and Afros … and on July 28th, 1975, the day that famed Detroit resident Jimmy Hoffa went missing, the Detroit Tigers started a losing streak of nineteen games in a row. On the day that the Tigers blew a four-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, Shropshire recalls: “I drank three bottles of Stroh’s beer in less than a minute and wrote that ‘Jimmy Hoffa will show up in the left field stands with Amelia Earhart as his date before the Tigers will win another game.’”

And so it goes. But a warning: The Last Real Season is not or the faint-of-heart. This is hard-core, high-and-tight, big league baseball, as told by someone who was really there and has actually survived to write about it. So if you don’t mind getting a little tobacco juice splashed on your white patent leather shoes, then dig in and enjoy the ride.

“Before money corrupted the game, players had to corrupt it themselves. Mike Shropshire’s hilarious account of baseball’s raucous pre-agent era will leave any fan laughing and smiling at the bad old days.” —Michael Rosenberg, Detroit Free Press