Fresh Comics

The Toledo Mud Hens, a farm team for the Detroit Tigers, once had a budding pitcher named Ed Crankshaft. At least that's how partners in cartooning, writer Tom Batiuk and artist Chuck Ayers, scripted the main character in Crankshaft. This enjoyable volume collects all of Crankshaft's baseball-themed exploits. Strike Four! The Crankshaft Baseball Book allows Batiuk and Ayers to explore a man's life and humorously and touchingly to examine how only barely touching the brass ring shaped it - and left him a little cranky.