On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Steve Rushin decided to revisit the twin pursuits of his youth: epic car trips and an unhealthy obsession with sports. So he jumped into his fully alarmed Japanese S.U.V. and drove to American sports shrines for a year, everywhere from Larry Bird's boyhood home in French Lick, Indiana, to the cornfield just outside of Dyersville, Iowa, where Field of Dreams was filmed. Now in paperback, Road Swing is the story of his journey.