The Road to Omaha, Paperback

A Baseball America Top Ten Baseball Book for 2009

"The Road to Omaha doesn't just tell you the story. It puts you in the batter's box, a 95-mph fastball coming your way. One warning: You'll sweat while you read."

--Jeff Pearlman, author of Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty

"A fascinating look inside one of the best, and most underplayed, tournament in sports. . . . It made me wonder why I've only been to Omaha once." --Tim Kurkjian, ESPN analyst and author of Is This a Great Game, or What?

Every summer, college baseball teams from around the nation come to Omaha, Nebraska, to play pure run-manufacturing baseball in a series that's part college bowl game, part county fair. In the spirit of 3 Nights in August and The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, veteran sports writer Ryan McGee goes behind the scenes, into the stands, and onto the field to reveal an exciting yet personal look at one of the hottest sports championships in the country--the College World Series.

The book uses the greatest upset in CWS history to provide an in-depth look at the strategies and style of college baseball, as well as a portrait of the people behind and around the Series--players, coaches, and fans who keep that feeling of good-old-days innocence alive. McGee offers a rare glimpse into the kind of baseball our grandfathers knew, a snapshot of the one of the last remaining vestiges of pure Americana: a hometown, baseball, and the people who shape it and are shaped by it in turn.

RYAN MCGEE has covered motorsports, college baseball and football, MLB, the NFL, the NBA, the PGA, and action sports for ESPN and FOXSports.com. He is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine and has worked as a writer and producer for NASCAR Images. He's won two Sports Emmys with three other nominations, including his work on the film Dale, the only authorized biography of Dale Earnhardt. He lives in North Carolina with his family.