Bill Kauffman has carved out an idiosyncratic identity quite unlike any other American writer. Praised by the likes of Gore Vidal, Benjamin Schwarz, and George McGovern, he has, with a distinctive and slashingly witty, learnedly allusive style, illumed forgotten corners of American history, articulated a defiant and passionate localism, and written with love and dark humor of his repatriation.

Poetry Night at the Ballpark gathers the best of Bill Kauffmans essays and journalism in defense and explication of his alternative America--or Americas. Its discrete pieces are bound by a thematic...