This career retrospective celebrates the 80th birthday of baseball’s greatest scribe, W. P. Kinsella (Shoeless Joe), as well as the 25th anniversary of Field of Dreams, the film that he inspired. In addition to his classic baseball tales, W. P. Kinsella is also a critically-acclaimed short fiction writer. His satiric wit has been celebrated with numerous honors, including the Order of British Columbia. Here are his notorious First Nation narratives of indigenous Canadians, and a literary homage to J. D. Salinger. Alongside the “real” story of the 1951 Giants and the afterlife of Roberto Clemente, are the legends of a pirated radio station and a hockey game rigged by tribal magic. Eclectic, dark, and comedic by turns, The Essential W. P. Kinsella is a living tribute to an extraordinary raconteur. Table of Contents Introduction by Rick Wilber Truth How I Got My Nickname The Night Manny Mota Tied the Record First Names and Empty Pockets Searching for January Lieberman in Love The Grecian Urn The Fog Beef Distances How Manny Embarquadero Overcame and Began His Climb to the Major Leagues The Indian Nation Cultural Exchange Program K Mart The Firefighter Dr. Don Brother Frank’s Gospel Hour The Alligator Report—with Questions for Discussion King of the Street Wavelengths Do Not Abandon Me Marco in Paradise Out of the Picture The Lightning Birds Punchlines The Last Surviving Member of the Japanese Victory Society The Job Risk Takers The Lime Tree Doves and Proverbs Waiting on Lombard Street Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa Afterward - Where It Began: Shoeless Joe