Mom's Magnavox: A Story About Family, Growing Up, & Of Course, the Pittsburgh Pirates

It was the 1960s, and in Canton, Ohio, just across the state line from his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates, Ben DiCola was living in a simpler time-playing outdoors until the street lights came on, collecting baseball cards, enjoying baseball games blaring from radios on summertime porches, and hearing mothers call their children home for supper.

For Ben, baseball is at the heart of his family memories, of a time in his life he will never forget that has been lost on young people in today's fast-paced, technology-saturated world.

In this collection of essays, Ben DiCola invites readers on a journey to the past as he recounts the simplicity of youth as a fan of Pirates baseball, from the climatic joy of the Pittsburgh Pirates' 1960 World Series to the piercing agony of the death of Roberto Clemente.

Beyond Ben's own memories, his essays show how baseball has always served as a backdrop for civil rights and how it can bring people together as friends and even marriage partners.

Most of all, Mom's Magnavox shows the love between a mother and her son, and how on one summer night, a sewing machine stopped running while America's pastime played out on a family radio.