* Now hear this: S.L. Price

One of the saddest books you’re likely to read this year (hopefully, ever), is S.L. Price’s Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League America. It’s the story of two men — Mike Coolbaugh, the young minor league coach who was struck and killed by a line-drive foul in 2007, and Tino Sanchez, the batter who it the ball — whose worlds are changed and linked forever in an otherwise meaningless sports event.

Price, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated,  gives a poignant biography of the doomed Coolbaugh, who just couldn’t give up on the game. But it also gives a sympathetic nod to Sanchez, who shared many of Coolbaugh’s qualities: love for baseball and family, and a desire to stick with it even when their organizations didn’t really want them any longer.

For those who already know the outcome, reading Heart of the Game is like watching an hourglass winding down to its final few grains before running out. At the risk of appearing too much a curmudgeon, I felt a bit frustrated at times. The reader is set up time and time again to have his emotions stretched to the max. The young Coolbaugh children will never really know their father, the wife will miss her husband, not to mention the loss to Coolbaugh’s parents, sibling, and friends. In a way, Sanchez might be worse off, living with the guilt even though it was a freak accident.

Price was kind enough to address a few of these issues from the Bookshelf.