Kirjahaku

On Account of Darkness is a fictionalized story (based on real events) of the 1934 Ontario amateur baseball season, when the Chatham Coloured All Stars were accepted to play in the Ontario Baseball Association (OBA) Intermediate B provincial playoffs, breaking the colour barrier over a decade before Major League Baseball did.The All Stars had to battle issue after issue - umpiring that was inconsistent at best, racist taunts from opposing players and fans, and bureaucratic bungling from the OBA - in order to reach the finals. Their opponent was a team from tiny Penetanguishene, a southern Georgian Bay resort town. Penetang was led by pitcher Phil Marchildon, who would go on to star for the American League's Philadelphia Athletics. Chatham's best player was first baseman Boomer Harding, who later became the first player of colour in the International Hockey League.On Account of Darkness draws its name from the controversial third game of the best of three series that was played on a grey late October afternoon with winter threatening. This is more than just a baseball story; it is an account of one team's battle to overcome racism, and the struggle by everyone involved to escape the clutches of the Depression.It was a summer which the players and fans of both teams would never forget.

In the summer of 1932, Cincinnati Reds Manager Dan Howley sent his star slugger, Chick Hafey, to recuperate from a nasty bout of influenza and to escape a brutal Midwest heatwave. Hafey and his wife Bernice traveled to Port McNicoll, Ontario, a Great Lakes grain, passenger, and freight shipping hub. The Hafeys stayed at the home of Jim Shaw, an old fishing buddy of Howley's from his days managing the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs. In the two weeks Hafey spent in the small Georgian Bay town, he rediscovered his health, and went on to play in more games over the next two seasons than he did at any other point in his career. Readers' praise of D.M. Fox's first book, On Account of Darkness: the Summer Ontario Baseball Broke the Colour Barrier: "A well-researched piece of literature that uses a reporting technique of newspaper clippings and interviews to recount the story of the 1934 all-Ontario Baseball final series between the Penetanguishene Spencer Foundry Rangers and the Chatham All-Stars in a 2 out-of-3 series of games. A must-read for any baseball fan " RTAP, Vancouver Island "Doug did an amazing job telling this story. He was thorough and thoughtful in the way he recounted this historic time period. His work is factually based and very well researched. This is a must read for any baseball buff in North America" Brent Cardy, Ontario