My novels for the most part feature protagonists who are outliers in search of systems that can make their lives for them in what is otherwise an inimicable universe. Probably the best example of my approach to fiction is "The Systems of M.R. Shurnas, " published by John Calder/Riverrun Press. My most important baseball works have dealt with the game's embryonic years. My first two books of my three-volume series of biographies on every nineteenth century major league player, manager, regular umpire, primary owner and league officials—Major League Baseball Profiles, volumes 1 and 2—were published in September 2011 by the University of Nebraska Press. I have received The Sporting News Research Award, playwrighting grants from the Impossible Ragtime Theater and the Huntington Playhouse, fellowships in creative writing, and numerous residency fellowships at the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Edward Albee Foundation.