NEWBURYPORT — The "phantom cheering noise" coming from Fenway isn't the echoes of the season that came to an abrupt close after a tough loss to Tampa Bay, it's a noise that has plagued the night shift at Fenway for a while now, according to Dan Gordon, co-author of "Haunted Baseball: Ghosts, Curses, Legends and Eerie Events."

The cleaning crew and security guards hear cheering and, every once in a while, a fresh crack of the bat late at night when no one is in the ballpark. It's not just Fenway either.

Gordon and co-author Mickey Bradley collected stories exploring the spooky connection between baseball and the paranormal from more than 800 managers, coaches, stadium personnel, fans and players (including Jason Varitek, Bill Lee, Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome, Chipper Jones, Mike Piazza, Paul Konerko, David Wright and many others).

The Newburyport Public Library will be hosting Gordon on Monday. Gordon will sign copies of his book and present a program filled with spooky baseball tales, including the humorous, touching and bone-chilling.

Gordon first experienced the magic of Fenway in the summer of 1975 when his father took him to his first game.

"I was 10 years old, and I had been following it before then, but stepping into Fenway Park for the first time was life-changing. I was amazed by the grandeur of the stadium and its history. I remember my dad pointing out Rico Petrocelli's footwork at first. There's a lot of memories." Gordon said. "For every child, you never forget your first trip to Fenway."

After that, Gordon was hooked. With a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, Gordon studied global baseball culture in Japan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Nicaragua.

"I was a die-hard fan growing up, even to the point where my dad threatened to send me to baseball rehab."

He moved to the Cape to write a memoir about his international baseball trip; while there, he got distracted with talk of ghost stories. Gordon began writing with a friend whom he had worked with at a baseball card shop who would talk about ghosts at his house, and the two released "Cape Encounters: Contemporary Cape Cod Ghost Stories," which has sold more than 10,000 copies in its first year of print.

"I began realizing as I was writing that these stories might exist in baseball. Baseball has such a history, and around here there was always incessant talk of the curse," Gordon said. "We think so much about the past; I mean, Babe Ruth has been dead 60 years, and he's talked about as if he were still alive."

Gordon teamed up with a friend from college, who was also a huge baseball fan — of the rival Yankees.

"We always talked baseball. So we pulled together and put aside our different world views and began to capture a lot of what's in the game," said Gordon, who is working on a second volume of "Haunted Baseball" for 2009. "Baseball, more than any other sport has so much history to it. People honor the past and have a sense of nostalgia."

Gordon will also tell about how Bill Lee believes Tom Yawkey has been reincarnated into a pesky pigeon and how Johnny Damon believes he was pinned down by a ghost for 15 minutes, among many other stories.

"As this is the last year of historic Yankee Stadium, we were surprised by just how many players believe ghosts were there," Gordon said. "People would be walking through the tunnel, past the batting cages, and hear someone in there taking swings when no one was there."

And, of course, and most importantly, was there ever really a "curse of the Bambino"?

"Up until 2004, superstition was on the mind of a lot of fans," Gordon said. "Mickey and I didn't go at the book as huge believers (in the curse). We wanted to capture the stories because they are part of the game. There's storytelling at lockers and on team buses; players are afraid of going into certain places, and some even whisper about curses."

IF YOU GO:

What: Haunted Baseball book signing

When: Monday, October 27, at 7 p.m.

Where: Newburyport Public Library

How: Free and open to the public