Barry Svrluga

What’s it like to live through the longest season in sports, the 162-game Major League Baseball schedule? Washington Post staff writer Barry Svrluga’s THE GRIND, now out in paperback, captures the frustration, impermanence, and glory felt by the players, the staff, and their families from the start of spring training to the final game of the year – and into the offseason, when the preparations start again. So much about baseball is known: the distance between the bases (90 feet), the batting average of a good hitter (.300), the velocity of a hard fastball (95 mph). THE GRIND shows us what we don’t know. No sport is as unrelenting as Major League Baseball; enduring the 162 games squeezed into 185 days (plus spring training and postseason) is shared, in different ways, by every facet of a franchise. Join Barry Svrluga on Thursday, April 14th, as he zooms in on the 2014 Washington Nationals: not just the star players, but also on the typically invisible supporting cast who each have their own sacrifices to make and schedules to keep, including: • The Wife, who acts as a full-time mom, part-time real estate agent, occasional father, and all-hours dog walker • The 26th Man, a minor leaguer on the cusp of job security who gets called up to the majors only to be sent back down the very next week • The Reliever, one of the most mentally taxing, precarious, and terribly exposed positions on any pro squad • Many more players, scouts, equipment managers, and even travel schedulers that create the fabric of Svrluga’s intimate and unusual book. Barry Svrluga offers an unforgettably raw, inside look at the wear and tear, the glory and impermanence, of America’s pastime. About the Author Barry Svrluga has worked at the Washington Post since 2003 and is currently the national baseball writer. He previously reported on and blogged about the Washington Nationals and is the author of National Pastime, which details the franchise's relocation from Montreal and its first season in the nation's capital. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.