Short Synopsis
The Cloudbuster Nine is the untold story of one of America's most iconic war-time baseball teams manned by major league players from the New York Yankees, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Detroit Tigers, the Boston Red Sox, and most every other big-league team of the era.

Full Synopsis
In 1943, the New York Yankees won the World Series but one of the nation's strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Boston Red Sox teammates Ted Williams and Johnny Pesky, and Boston Braves pitcher Johnny Sain were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As a child, Anne Keene's father, Jim Raugh, suited up as the team bat boy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personally, watching players hit the road on cramped, tin-can buses, dazzling factory workers, kids, and service members at dozens of games, including a war-bond exhibition against a major league team managed by Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium.

Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-American but was crushed later in life by a failed major-league bid with the Detroit Tigers. He would have carried this story to his grave had Anne not discovered his scrapbook from a Navy Pre-Flight school that shaped some of America's greatest heroes, including Presidents George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford, astronaut and Senator John Glenn, and Paul "Bear" Bryant.

With the help of rare images and insights from World War II baseball veterans such as Yankees legends Dr. Bobby Brown and Eddie Robinson (the oldest living player to play on a World Series–winning team), the story of this remarkable team is brought to life for the first time in The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II.

"A terrific piece of research into a forgotten corner of American history - a place where the myths of major league baseball interact with the myths of the Second World War. An excellent read!" -S.C. Gwynne, New York Times bestselling author

" . . . Combines elements of Field of Dreams and The Right Stuff with the story of a long-forgotten military baseball team." -Lincoln Journal Star

"I applaud Anne Keene for capturing the untold historical facts of the first group of men who were sent to Chapel Hill . . . Coupled with fantastic photos . . . the stories come to life with amazement." -Claudia Williams, author of Ted Williams, My Father