A poignant memoir exploring small-town baseball as a lens into what’s right and wrong with modern America --- written by an acclaimed journalist and Army Ranger who, after returning from Iraq to a painfully divided country, rediscovered its core values in the bleachers of a minor league ballpark in Batavia, New York.

What happens when a minor league team --- the heart and soul of a Rust Belt town in western New York --- is shut down by the billionaires who run Major League Baseball?

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 --- cheap draft beer and hot dogs, starry-eyed kids seeking autographs, and breathtaking summer sunsets.

With a vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters --- from a librarian and her best friend whose relationship deepens with every “crepuscular hour” they spend together in the bleachers, to the former hockey brawler-turned team owner who greets regulars while working the concession stand, to the iconoclastic writer with a contagious love for his struggling hometown --- 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.

Audiobook available, read by Dan Bittner