Nicknamed the "Big Wheel," Lance Parrish was a six-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner for the Detroit Tigers. Including other teams, he was an eight-time All-Star. In his 19-year major-league career (1977-1995), which included four seasons of playing for the California Angels and two for the Philadelphia Phillies, Parrish hit 324 home runs and drove in 1,070 runs, topped by the 114 runs he drove in for the Tigers in 1983. In 1982, he set a home run record for American League catchers with 32 and topped that with 33 in 1984. He and his wife, Arlyne, are the parents of three grown children, including a son, David, who was a first-round draft choice of the New York Yankees in 2000.

Starting in 1976, Tom Gage covered more than 5,000 Detroit Tigers games in 36-plus years as a baseball beat writer. He was honored with the Baseball Writers Association's J.G. Taylor Spink Award, now the Career Excellence Award, in 2015 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The following year he was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and, in 2020, into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. He's been the recipient of multiple career achievement awards and twice was named Michigan Sportswriter of the Year. This is his fourth book. Gage and his wife, Lisa, have a grown son and two grandchildren.