The Ball

"In a small factory in Costa Rica, a worker stitches about fifty cents' worth of tanned cowhide over a tightly wound mass of string and rubber and sticks it in a box. Nine months later, that same sphere is auctioned for three million dollars. This book tells what happened in between - how that ball, now bearing secret infrared markings, found its way into an umpire's pocket, up to a pitcher's mound, off Mark McGwire's bat, into Phil Ozersky's glove, and then into Time, Newsweek, People, USA Today, Tonight with Jay Leno, and a bulletproof Plexiglas box guarded like the Hope diamond. It becomes…