In 1943,while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year’s World Seriesone of the nation’s strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Ted WilliamsJohnny Peskyand Johnny Sain were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this spirited Field of Dreams-like father-daughter accountauthor Anne R. Keene opens with a story about her fatherJim Raughwho suited up as the team batboy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personallywatching players hit the road on crampedtin-can busesdazzling factory workerskidsand service members at dozens of gamesincluding a war-bond exhibition against Babe Ruth’s team at Yankee Stadium. Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-Americanbut was crushed later in life by a failed major-league bid with the Detroit Tigers. He would have carried this story to his grave had Anne not discovered his scrapbook from a Navy school that shaped America’s greatest heroes including George H. W. BushGerald FordJohn GlennPaul \