OFF-THE-RECORD

The moment Justin Verlander called him unethical, Anthony Fenech became the story he'd spent five years covering. The Houston Astros backed up the pitcher's claim with three security guards, blocking the Detroit Free Press beat writer from his own clubhouse. Within hours, it was on ESPN's BottomLine. Within months, it had cost him his beat. OFF-THE-RECORD is what came before, what came after, and everything in between—five seasons covering the Detroit Tigers from inside the rope line, told from the press box of a newspaper industry collapsing around its own reporters. Fenech takes readers into the rooms baseball books skip past: the late-night text chains with editors and sources, the hate mail that arrives by the inbox-full, the Cy Young ballots, the pandemic shutdown. A Detroit Free Press beat reporter and Baseball Writers' Association of America member, he writes from the position no baseball book has centered—the reporter asking the questions.