One day, my dad looked out at the endless desert and decided then and there to build a baseball field.

So begins Ken Mochizuki's moving tale of life in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II.  

"Shorty" and his family, along with thousands of Japanese Americans, are forced to relocate from their home to a "camp" after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Fighting the heat, dust, and freezing cold nights of the desert, Shorty and the others at the camp need something to look forward to, even if only for nine innings.  So they build a playing field, and in this unlikely place, a baseball league is formed.

Surrounded by barbed-wire fences and guards in towers, Shorty soon finds that he is playing not only to win, but to gain dignity and self-respect as well.

Inspired by actual events, Ken Mochizuki's story of hope and courage shows us an almost-forgotten part of the American past.

From the dust jacket