Steve Kluger, author of both the novel and the musical The Last Days of Summer, talks about his tale of a neglected Brooklyn boy and a barely-socialized New York Giants third baseman finding each other in a world on the brink of war. Plus a baseball fixing hypothetical and the dismissal of Jackie Mitchell. TABLE OF CONTENTSHal Steinbrenner and Derek Jeter’s Impression of Donald Trump in the Ukraine*Jackie Mitchell > Brandon Taubman*Steve Kluger: On the Road with a Show*Seeing Your Characters Come to Life*The Inherent Compression of the Epistolary Baseball Novel*Letters to FDR and JFK*Verisimilitude in Historical Fiction*The Friendly Neighborhood Ballplayer of the 1940s*Discovering Baseball as an Adult (“The Carnage of 1966”)*Ballplayers in the War*Verisimilitude II (Carl Hubbell is Such a Phony and Steve Garvey is Too?)*The Right and Wrong Way to Honor Jackie Robinson*Fear of ”Damn Yankees”*What Makes a Great Player Great?*Adult Language*Goodbyes.