It is FINALLY Coming!
After more time than we care to mention, Season of Change: Baseball, Coal Mining, and a Small Town’s Struggle to Beat the Odds will be available for purchase on DECEMBER 1, 2011. This marks 62 years to the day that the West Frankfort Baseball and Amusement Corporation announced that they were ceasing operations and that the West Frankfort Cardinals would be no more.
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I had wondered what the West Frankfort Baseball and Amusement Corporation was. I had found a stock certificate for 10 shares in my parents’ safe deposit box after my mother’s passing. Thanks for providing the answer and a glimpse of what my hometown was like when my parents were a young married couple.
That is history, Ruth Ann! To hear local Goebel Patton tell it, those stock certificates were highly prized when the venture launched in ’47. Sadly, near the end, folks realized that the venture was probably doomed for failure. While the Cards sold over $20,000 in less than two weeks at the onset of the franchise (over $200k in today’s money), they could sell no more than a few hundred dollars worth the last months of operation.
This and more similar facts are part of what made this project so fascinating to me. I hope others will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Thanks for contributing!