In 1943, while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals battled for the World Series title, another legendary team was taking the field on a scrappy diamond in North Carolina. The Cloudbuster Nine wasn't just any baseball team. They were big-league pros turned Navy fighter-pilot cadets, including Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain, training to become America's heroes.

At the heart of it all was Jim Raugh, the team's batboy. From cramped buses to war-bond exhibitions?even a game at Yankee Stadium against a Babe Ruth?led squad?Jim witnessed baseball history firsthand. He chased his own dreams as a college All-American, but life threw him a curveball: a career-ending injury that dashed his major-league dreams.

Now, Jim's daughter, Anne R. Keene, uncovers an untold story from his long-lost scrapbook, revealing memories from a sports-based training program that shaped some of America's greatest leaders: George H. W. Bush, John Glenn, Bear Bryant, and John Wooden among them.

The Cloudbuster Nine tells, for the first time, the thrilling story of this patriotic baseball team with legends like Ted Williams who played for pride, country and the war-effort?and helped win World War II.

Anne R. Keene is an Austin, Texas-based writer who focuses on narrative nonfiction. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism, she began her professional career working as a speechwriter on Capitol Hill. Keene's work has appeared in the New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Raleigh News & Observer and many other major newspapers. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win WWII, was a finalist for the Casey Award for the "Best Baseball Book" of 2018. Keene is a recognized voice of America's surviving major league players who served in the Second World War, and speaks about military baseball to major league baseball organizations and fan clubs, Naval Academy alumni chapters, as well as historical and civic organizations nationwide.