Contender

He was a tall, handsome farm boy from Mosa Township, southwest of London, Ont., who grew up in a baseball-loving family. Harry Devereaux Fisher's formidable pitching arm and talent as a hitter took him to the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and its minor-league affiliates and then to the Pirates proper for a spell in major-league baseball. As Lesley Krueger relates in her Star Dispatches eRead Contender: Triumph, Tragedy and Canadian Baseball Player Harry Fisher, his time at the game's highest level was short, to be followed by another several years in the minors, including the Hollywood Stars. Was it personal misfortune that got in the way of Fisher's success? And wasn't it enough for him to have got as far as he did? Krueger weaves questions about the nature of success into this evocative chronicle.