Babe Ruth played there.

So did Lou Gehrig and the rest of the New York Yankees' famed "Murderer's Row" squad that swept to a second straight World Series title in 1928.

Josh Gibson played there.

So, too, did fellow future Hall of Famers Oscar Charleston and Smokey Joe Williams, his teammates on the 1931 Homestead Grays, one of the great teams in Negro League history.

Connie Mack scouted there, and ace hurlers from Chief Bender and Eddie Plank to Satchel Paige and Don Newcombe to Cliff Lee and Stephen Strasburg stared down enemy hitters there.

We're not talking Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park or some other big-name, big-league venue.

We are, in fact, talking about a 63-acre patch of land that sits hard by the Susquehanna River.

Harrisburg's City Island, to be precise, and the long history of baseball that has taken place there is the subject of Andrew Linker's new book, "One Patch of Grass: How the Babe, Spottswood, Oscar, Eleanor, Vlad and Milton helped Harrisburg make magic on an island in the backwater of baseball."

Published in May, Linker's 302-page book uses rich anecdotes and exhaustive research to detail the history of the summer game in Harrisburg dating back to 1890.

As Linker writes, "Fans today can look upon a field where baseball has been played in the same spot as it was:

"In 1890, when Frank Grant and Hughie Jennings became the first black-and-white teammates who eventually were inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame;

"In 1928, when Babe Ruth umpired a kids' game in the early afternoon before homering on the same field a couple of hours later;

"In 1952, when Eleanor Engle became the first woman to sign a pro baseball contract;

"And in 1999, when Milton Bradley launched a Hollywood moment of a grand slam that was beyond anything Bernard Malamud ever conceived for his fictional Roy Hobbs."

And, as Linker's book points out, baseball history wasn't the only thing unfolding on that one patch of grass a short stroll from downtown Harrisburg.

Oddballs, it seems, have been as much a part of the summer game's history on City Island as fastballs and curveballs.

"It's an interesting area; it's like the Bermuda Triangle," former Montreal Expos farm director Donnie Reynolds tells Linker. "Weird stuff happens there."

No one is more suited to tell this absorbing tale than Linker, an award-winning sportswriter who has spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers and magazines in the Harrisburg area.

A former sports writer for the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Linker began covering the Harrisburg Senators in 1988 and has written more than 2,400 stories on the team.

"One Patch of Grass" encompasses dozens of interesting stories, and in bringing this little-known history to light Linker has done a great service not only to major league and minor league baseball, but also to the Negro Leagues.

He writes with grace and ease, and his chapters on Charleston, whom Bill James ranked fourth on his list of all-time great players behind Ruth, Honus Wagner and Willie Mays; on the 1931 Grays, who boasted five future Hall of Famers; on the rubber-armed Paige and ironman Ben Taylor; and on the celebrated outfield of Charleston, Rap Dixon and Fats Jenkins, offer welcome and much-needed slices of Negro League history.

"One Patch of Grass," listed at $14.95, can be purchased online at harrisburgbaseball.com. Copies can also be bought at the Harrisburg Senators' Team Store on City Island.

egruver@lnpnews.com