Ernie's Bleachers - Tim Pareti

Eddy Pareti is a street-smart kid who does things his own way. He ditches school and dodges duties at the family's tavern, Ernie's Bleachers (now Murphy's Bleachers), which is just across from Wrigley Field. World War II is ending, the Cubs are heading to the World Series, and Eddy sneaks into games and brushes up against baseball legends, including stars of the Negro League.

From behind his family's bar, Eddy pours beer for soldiers, ball players, and rodeo clowns, runs bets for a bookie who wants him to shoot a deadbeat gambler and-hold your horses-crashes a stagecoach on State Street. Eddy's Italian-American family-already battling Chicago's machine politics and the Mafia- think he's going astray. Fed up, his parents make a decision that will change Eddy's life-and Eddy's not going to like it.

But he just might have something really bad up his sleeve...Based on a true story, Ernie's Bleachers is a vintage tale of baseball, family, and the American spirit that intersects on the corner of Sheffield and Waveland avenues-a tale that explores the classic era of our National Pastime, the ravages of war, the end of the Depression, and the city of big bets and big shoulders