Built on material that appeared in The Washington Post, this is a raw, inside look at the wear and tear and the glory and impermanence of baseballshortlisted for the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing.At 162 games, it is the sports worlds longest season. Grueling. Thrilling. Routine. Lonely. Exhilarating. Major league ballplayers even have a name for this relentless, unmatchable rhythm: The Grind.In The Grind, Barry Svrluga, The Washington Posts national baseball correspondent, zooms in on the 2014 Washington Nationals, reporting not just on the rosters star players, but also on the typically invisible supporting cast who each have their own sacrifices to make and schedules to keep. Theres The Wife, who acts as a fulltime mom, parttime real estate agent, occasional father, and allhours dog walker; The 26th Man, a minor leaguer on the cusp of job security who gets called up to the majors only to be sent back down the very next week; The Reliever, one of the most mentally taxing, precarious, and terribly exposed positions on any pro squad. These and many more players, scouts, equipment managers, and even travel schedulers create the fabric of Svrlugas intimate and unusual book; they could be from any team or any bigleague city. As he writes: There is no other sport with an everydayness, a drumdrumdrum beat like baseball.