An Irishmans Tribute to the Negro Leagues is the first in a trilogy of Irishmans Tributes by Thomas Porky McDonald. In it, the long-ago world of Negro League Baseball is celebrated on factual, fictional, and emotional platforms. Profiles of over fifty former Negro Leaguers pay homage to the wondrous game they played. Two handfuls of Tallman Tales, McDonalds unique short stories, use the days of all-black baseball as a backdrop for some heartfelt characters that desperately seek entrance to a legendary era otherwise lost in time. Interspersed within the profiles and tales is a small collection of McDonalds trademark baseball poetry. This second edition contains additional poems and profiles, in deference to the historic Hall of Fame election of seventeen Negro League greats in 2006, via a special committee formed to try and give just due to as many of the forgotten heroes of the Negro Leagues as possible. The Hall of Fame Gallery at the center of the book contains all thirty-fivr Hall of Fame inductees based mainly on service in the Negro Leagues, from the very first one, Satchel Paige, in 1971, on through to the honored group of 2006, which included such long overdue legends as Biz Mackey, Mule Suttles, Jud Wilson, and Effa Manley, the former Newark Eagles owner who became the first woman ever honored in the plaque room at Cooperstown.

An Irishman's Tribute to the Negro Leagues is the first in a trilogy of "Irishman's Tributes" by Thomas Porky McDonald. In it, the long ago world of Negro League Baseball is celebrated on factual, fictional and emotional platforms. Profiles of over fifty former Negro Leaguers pay homage to the wondrous game they played. Two handfuls of Tallman Tales, McDonald's unique short stories, use the days of all-black baseball as a backdrop for some heartfelt characters that desperately seek entrance to a legendary Era otherwise lost in time. Interspersed within the profiles and tales is a small collection of McDonald's trademark baseball poetry, pieces that will doubtless make you think, hopefully make you feel, and often entertain you. In attempting to re-create the feelings of joy and pride that all the participants in the Negro Leagues experienced, despite the constant travails they encountered in pursuit of their livelihood, McDonald, as the "Irishman", deftly doffs his cap in obvious appreciation for an enlightening time of dogged and determined magic. An Irishman's Tribute to the Negro Leagues precedes Over the Shoulder and Plant on One: An Irishman's Tribute to Willie Mays and Hit Sign, Win Suit: An Irishman's Tribute to Ebbets Field, two future volumes that celebrate McDonald's own childhood and the days of Major League baseball in Brooklyn, which, like the Negro Leagues, are long gone in a concrete sense, but not in a spiritual one.

A random poem, written on a birthday years before, finds a new life when a series of interrelated profiles come together in a most unexpected way. This is what constitutes A Walk in the City, writer/poet Thomas Porky McDonald's New York City travelogue. A compilation of pieces written originally for an internal website at his workplace in New York City transit, this volume shares brief, yet effective vignettes on a number of various sites in the city--some famous, and others hardly on the radar. It is dedicated to the average tourist and/or the lifetime New Yorker. McDonald's love of the place he's called home for his entire life comes across most vibrantly. Though the outer boroughs are touched upon transiently, this collection of go-to sketches and reminisces is centered mainly in Manhattan, which--as any New Yorker knows--is the place that all those who live in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island call "The City." From the world famous sites, like the Empire State Building and Times Square to hidden jewels like the New York City Transit Museum, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, or the New York City Fire Museum, A Walk in the City provides something for anyone seeking interesting pit stops in New York, whether planned ahead or merely in the course of a day already begun. The book is subtitled An Incomplete Tour since it is McDonald's contention that no one could truly put every point of interest in the city into a single volume. Here, an unencumbered collection of articles attempts to send the reader out in search of something that cannot be explained without actually having the experience of being there. In any case, this is a city wanderers' bonanza, one that should be considered by anyone who aspires to explore the diverse venues located in the greatest city in the world.

The eighth five-book collection of poetry by poet and writer Thomas Porky McDonald, After the Dream: Poems 2009-2011, brings the author even closer to home than in his previous work, with a thought to where the world is headed. The title poems for each of the five books in the mix, Born in the City, The Class of No Return, Touched by Life, Back to Astoria and What Lies Ahead, all speak of a man still searching to incorporate his early life into the realities of the 21st Century. Other notable pieces from each collection include “Friendships to Eternity,” “Together One, as Always” (City), “While the Leaves Blew,” “Always too Old to Change Anything” (Class), “When the Game Simply Took You Away,” “I’ve Never Forgotten About Friendship” (Life), “Scenes From a Lost Neighborhood,” “When Fear Overrides Our Humanity” (Astoria), “Needed in the Land of the Needy” and “A Glimpse of Bernadine” (Ahead). A solid entry from the still wandering and wondering balladeer.

Having packaged his more than 3,100 poems in chronological and themed collections, poet & writer Thomas Porky McDonald had the idea of putting together a volume of some relevant pieces that feature his lifetime home of Queens, New York. On addition, Porkwalk: The Queens Collection utilizes the same formula that McDonald chose in a previous collection based on his 20 years working out of neighboring Brooklyn, Dem Poems: The Brooklyn Collection. The 364 poems contained in this book are divided into sections, with old friends, his Astoria neighborhood, baseball and the losses he has suffered in the mix. This collection brings the poet back to where it all began and is thus arguably the most important one to date.

Certain individuals find a singular moment in life used to portray them and/or define them, if not basically brand them. In the world of sports, particularly baseball, this practice is raised to a level that is questionable at best, laughable in most instances and blatantly unfair as a rule. The sports media, along with a growing portion of the general public that refuses to form their own opinions, goes to extremes to constantly relive an individuals weak moments. Curiously, they often then close their ridiculing diatribes by mentioning that labeling a particular person is really unfair. In Never These Men, Thomas Porky McDonald, whose previous works stressed the notion that a game like baseball is there for the joy it gives to those who truly love it and understand it, takes a peek at a small collection of the most famous (or is it infamous?) of these media-fueled characters. The idea that someone who cannot possibly do something (play professional sports) might then play judge and jury on those that can (athletes) seems absurd to McDonald, who clearly feels that the ever-growing rash of media outlets, in concert with an unthinking generation of spectators, has only bloated the array of unfounded criticisms and hypocritical rhetoric within our midst. From Fred Merkle, an early media creation, through to Bill Buckner, a truly fine and underrated ballplayer, Never These Men fundamentally asks the reader to imagine how it feels to be branded for a singular moment in ones life. McDonald, foremost a poet, liberally spreads a few relevant original verses throughout this volume, which is fundamentally a call for fair play. The idea of balanced and proper reporting is considered as well, as in the cases of Ralph Branca, Mitch Williams and Ralph Terry. Though all three were solid Major Leaguers who gave up famous home runs, only the former two are constantly cited, a point of contention here. In the area of authority figures, why Charles Comiskey and Judge Landis are barely scrutinized for their truly abhorrent behavior, while a lifetime baseball man like Gene Mauch is merely brushed aside by far too many is a question that clearly haunts this writer. Never These Men asserts that working in a world with little or no accountability, while demanding total accountability from those whose skill and expertise literally creates your professional existence, is an absurdity that needs to be addressed.

In the area of ballpark hopping, there have been a number of accounts written, recorded or talked about in recent times, sometimes for a cause or others just as a gimmick. Through Poet in the Grandstand, poet and writer Thomas Porky McDonald gives us a most unique twist on a preoccupation which has grown in the past few decades, in the wake of the closings of classic old yards and the birth of the more entertainment and nostalgia driven open-air parks. From his first trip in 1990, to the fabled Comiskey Park of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Bill Veeck and the Go-Go Sox, on through to the 2010 opening of Minnesotas fabulous Target Field, featuring the modern M&M Boys, Joe Mauer and Justin Mourneau, McDonald offers up a book that is part travelogue and part poetic tribute to all the places that men and women have gone to over the years for a very personal sense of joy. This journey, done methodically, over two decades, picks up steam as the chapters begin to flow. The effect of McDonald himself clearly growing as a poet through the years is accentuated by the fact that more and more pieces are written in the later trips. The end result is a most interesting volume of not just ballparks, but Americana, as numerous attractions taken in during those ballpark weeks and weekends are also noted and/or dissected. For fourteen seasons on his own and then six more accompanied by friend and confidant Adam Boneker, McDonalds travels, highlighted by over 300 poems, can take the reader back to a simpler time or into the possibilities of the future. In chapter and in verse, Poet in the Grandstand has something for both the baseball enthusiast and the curious traveler. Fans of the game and lovers of the road will each find much to offer within these pages.