Gerald C. Wood is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus from Carson-Newman College. During his years as a college teacher, he wrote primarily on theater and film, emphasizing the work of Horton Foote (USA) and Conor McPherson (Ireland), both playwrights and filmmakers. Most recently he has written about the history of baseball, including a biography of Smoky Joe Wood, legendary pitcher and outfielder from the Deadball Era. He has also completed two unproduced screenplays.He and his wife live in a 120-year-old house in the small Tennessee village of New Market. For relaxation he runs, gardens, and plays golf. As a Chicago Cubs fan since 1951, he has died hard many times, including from the left-center field stands in the 7th game of the 2003 NL playoffs, the game following the Bartman ball fiasco.His biography of Smoky Joe Wood has won the 2014 Harold and Dorothy Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research as the best book in baseball history or biography in the past calendar year. According to SABR, in order to be chosen, the book needed to demonstrate "exceptional scholarship, superior writing skills, and the full range of conceptual, theoretical, investigative, and analytical skills employed by accomplished historians."