There’s no sports town quite like St. Louis, if you ask native Benjamin Hochman, and that’s what makes his new volume about the St. Louis Cardinals almost more love letter than book.

“My first lullaby was Jack Buck’s voice, if you will, and I’ve always just appreciated the connection between the team and the people here,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist said on Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air. “I’ve lived in other sports cities, and there’s nothing like St. Louis and baseball.”