Makeshift Fields is a snapshot of grassroots baseball, an exposure of one summer in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. On one hand, baseball is baseball, and what Dale Jacobs finds during his seven-week trip is not dissimilar to what one might see in any North American town. On the other hand, it feels different. More precarious, but also more communal. Here, baseball is played for its own sake, often in the rain and cold, with temporary diamonds on makeshift fields, in public parks. This book is the story of people who have fallen in love with the game, the story of people who believe that baseball can flourish where it’s been planted, the story of people who are searching for a piece of home.
Dale Jacobs is the author of Graphic Encounters: Comics and the Sponsorship of Multimodal Literacy (Bloomsbury Academic), On Comics and Grief (Wilfrid Laurier University Press), and the co-author (with Heidi LM Jacobs) of 100 Miles of Baseball: Fifty Games, One Summer (Biblioasis). He lives in Windsor, Ontario and teaches at the University of Windsor.