A Baseball Legend Returns

Andy McCullough: NEWARK, Del. — The rarity rests behind a stack of papers on a desk inside a first-floor office at the University of Delaware. Kevin Kerrane rises from his chair to fetch it. He is a few weeks from his 72nd birthday, an English professor with snow-white hair and a matching mustache. Above him looms Clint Eastwood on a poster for Le Bon, La Brute et Le Truand.

He fishes past his iMac and retrieves a first-edition copy of his book, Dollar Sign on the Muscle. Inside is a message inscribed to his mother. More than 30 years ago, Kerrane shadowed the scouts of the Philadelphia Phillies and documented the arcane habits of their profession. He published the book in 1984 and saw it…