The National Pastime offers baseball history available nowhere else. Each fall this publication from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) explores baseball history with fresh and often surprising views of past players, teams, and events. Drawn from the research efforts of more than 6,700 SABR members, The National Pastime establishes an accurate, lively, and entertaining historical record of baseball. nbsp; A Note from the Editor, Mark Alvarez: nbsp; This year we have the longest piece we've ever published in The National Pastime, Dick Thompson's cover story on Wes Farrell, which you'll find sturdily anchoring the issue, just before Dan Zamudio's pair of closing verses. You can also savor the first long poem we've ever run, B.H. Fairchild's "Body and Soul," which you'll find when you turn this page. These two unique offerings sandwich an especially chewy issue. Don't miss George Thompson's historic discovery of a baseball reference in the New York press of 1823; our three grouped pieces relevant to the hundredth anniversary of the American League; or Jim Smith's pictorial appreciation of Hall-of-Fame Chicago sportswriter Ed Munzel. You'll find other offerings that incorporate medieval art, the American Civil War, a president, a player who just doesn't want to talk about it, dignity and incivility, a pitching professor, and a Battalion of Death. And there's more: on ballparks, on tours, on forgotten players and their forgotten feats. On what-ifs and how-comes. Looking down the bench, a pretty strong lineup for today's game.