40 years is a long time to write a book. Well, Jim Crosby didn’t actually take 40 years to write his latest book–“11:Making Baseball History,” but it took the book’s subject—Mike Martin—40 years to live out the story. In that amount of time Martin, called 11 (his Seminole baseball uniform number) by everyone, put together a record that may never be broken. His 2,029 wins are the most ever by any college coach in any sport.

“11:Making Baseball History” is about more than winning baseball games. Starting in 1980 as head coach until he retired in 2019, Martin not only helped college baseball move into the National spotlight, but as the sport changed he changed with it and influenced his players to grow beyond being baseball players to become successful members in society.

11’s colorful personalilty, made more unique by his “carolina-barbecue-brogue,” had a uniqueness about it that captured attention and changed thinking. The “Martinisms sprinkled throughout the book will have the reader laughing, scratching his/her head, thinking about and reacting to them.

Sure, he lost a few games and was sometimes surprised by them like the time he said in a post-game press conference: “They hadn’t beat us since Hitler was a corporal.” The man wearing #11 on his Florida State Seminole uniform was unique in many ways that make his story worth reading.

Jim Crosby has a talent for capturing unusual sports personalities in his writing. A prime example is “You Can’t Become a Football Overnight” The Bill Peterson story. He lives in Tallahassee with his wife Susette and beautiful granddaughter Ellee.