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Will Bardenwerper

Biography

Will Bardenwerper

Will Bardenwerper has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s and other outlets, and is the author of THE PRISONER IN HIS PALACE: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid and HOMESTAND: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America. He served as an Airborne Ranger–qualified infantry officer in Iraq and was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge and Bronze Star. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he received a B.A. from Princeton and M.A. from Johns Hopkins University.

Will Bardenwerper

Books by Will Bardenwerper

Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America
by Will Bardenwerper - Memoir, Nonfiction, Sports

Batavia, New York --- between Rochester and Buffalo --- hosted its first professional baseball game in 1897. Despite decades of deindustrialization and evaporating middle-class jobs, the Batavia Muckdogs endured. When Major League Baseball cravenly shut them down in 2020 --- along with 41 other minor league teams --- the town fought back, reviving the Muckdogs as a summer league team comprised of college players. As MLB considers further cuts and private equity buys up what remains, the mom-and-pop operations once prevalent in baseball are endangered. But for now, the sights and sounds of local baseball live on in Batavia. Will Bardenwerper's HOMESTAND exposes the beating heart of small town America, friends and neighbors coming together as the crack of the bat echoes in the summer twilight.