For the better part of two decades, Darryl Brock was a history, English, and psychology instructor in San Francisco Bay Area high schools. He holds a BA from the University of Redlands and has many graduate units in history at UC Berkeley. He has served as a writing consultant to the State of California and worked with Educational Testing Service to establish essay-scoring programs. Since 1984, Brock has been a full-time freelance writer, and is the author of numerous articles and reviews, many of them about early baseball and/or Mark Twain.

He is an accomplished public speaker on the subjects of the Red Stockings, early baseball in general, and his experience in researching those pioneer pros. He is heavily involved in the world of baseball, attending Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) regional meetings and occasionally national conventions, as well as other baseball organizations' functions.

Darryl lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and daughter.