Two of Ronnie Joyner’s passions are baseball and art, and in his new book, “Hardball Legends and Journeymen and Short-Timers,” released this spring, he paired those interests.

Joyner, 48, packed 333 “bio-illustrations” into the softbound book, a style that blends black-and-white drawings of players with biographical information that goes far beyond what is on baseball cards. Creating the drawings has been one of his hobbies for 15 years.

Joyner is a graphic artist at the U.S. Senate who lives in Charlotte Hall. He said the bio-illustrations are not caricatures.

“They don’t exaggerate a player’s features” in a humorous way, he said, but rather are sketches from photographs and other sources. Each takes about 12 hours from start to finish, he said.

And although the dominant features in Joyner’s bio-illustrations are the player portraits, the text surrounding them is detailed and often recalls a bygone era.

Hitters are “sluggers” who “smash circuit clouts” (hit home runs). Pitchers are “hurlers” who “toss” no-hitters and “flip” shutouts. It’s a language all its own — one for fans of Topps and Fleer baseball cards of the past — and Joyner speaks it fluently.

“I’ve always been interested in baseball, reading everything I could get my hands on, and I’m just a fan and a historian,” he said. “I wanted to combine the sort of artwork that used to appear in daily papers from the ’30s to the ’50s with the information I researched about each person. . . . It’s not like I’m keeping alive some art form, because this is pretty much extinct. I do it because I enjoy it, and I hope people enjoy seeing it.”

Joyner’s first published bio-illustration in 1998 was of outfielder Jim King, who played for the Washington Senators in the 1960s. Joyner was a Senators fan as a boy and was in elementary school when the team bolted for Texas after the 1971 season.

“Mostly though, I pick my subjects because of something different or unusual about them,” Joyner said. “When I was starting out doing some bio-illustrations for Sports Collectors Digest [a niche magazine and memorabilia site], I wouldn’t pick out Hall of Famers, because there was already so much out there about them. I’ve always enjoyed reading about players who had unusual careers or quirky things about them that made them stand out. Sometimes the things that made them unique were funny,” but sometimes they were tragic.

For example, Joyner placed on facing pages New York Yankees pitcher Carl Mays and Cleveland Indians second baseman Ray Chapman. The two are forever linked in baseball history because in 1920, Chapman was the only man ever killed by a pitch in a major league game — and Mays threw it.

Lighter fare in “Hardball Legends” includes the story of Frank Saucier of the St. Louis Browns. His claim to fame was that in 1951 he was pinch-hit for by 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel as part of a publicity stunt by St. Louis owner Bill Veeck.

Gaedel, by the way, drew a walk.

“Unusual baseball stories have always fascinated me,” Joyner said. “Then, about five or six years ago, when I started thinking about compiling a book, I started drawing more of the big-time players so that there would be some balance.”

Baltimore Orioles legends Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson are among those in the book, along with Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Roberto Clemente and other greats. Active players, such as Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins, are among the most up-to-date bio-illustrations. The entire lineup of the 2010 Yankees is also included.

“There was a time for me, maybe 20 years ago, when I thought of the ’50s as the golden age of baseball,” Joyner said. “Mantle and Mays and all those great teams and players. But then the more I read, the more I enjoyed the ’20s. That was a real rough-and-tumble era. Now, I’m coming around to the ’70s, because baseball was weird and fun in its own way then, too. And that’s the period when I grew up and really fell in love with the game and began to follow it very closely, so it’s a special time to me.”

Natalie Foreman, assistant editor with McFarland and Co., publisher of Joyner’s book, said his passion and knowledge of baseball — combined with his artistic talent — convinced her company to take him on.

“We liked the old-school, newspaper sports cartoon style,” Foreman said. “We were impressed with the incredible detail of the realistically rendered portraits.”

Joyner said he originally did his artwork on Duoshade board, a photosensitive surface with barely visible 45-degree lines “that help bring up the tones.”

That board is no longer made, he said. He now uses coquille board, which has a pebbly surface but produces a softer look than Duoshade.

Although many of the players depicted in the book lived and died before Joyner was born, he has connected occasionally with modern players whom he has drawn.

“I’ve sent bio-illustrations to maybe 10 or 15 percent of the players, just to get their reaction,” Joyner said. “They’ve usually been pretty pleased, and they’ll sign them for me.”

Joyner did a bio-illustration of Butch Hobson, manager of the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs for their first three seasons in Waldorf, based on Hobson’s playing days with the Boston Red Sox.

“I thought it was cool,” Hobson said after he was shown a copy of “Hardball Legends,” when his new team, the Lancaster Barnstormers, were in town April 26 to face the Blue Crabs in their season-opening series. Hobson said he already had seen the artwork before the book came out.

“When he sent me [the bio-illustration] to be autographed, I said, ‘Wonder where he got that?’” Hobson said. “I read the [accompanying text] and was very flattered by it. I really like it.”

Joyner said Hobson, whose full head of hair has long since gone silver, was especially complimentary of the image. “He said he particularly liked the dark hair,” Joyner said.

Joyner’s book also contains a handful of mythical players, such as Charlie Sheen’s character, pitcher Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn, from the movie “Major League.”

“I sent bio-illustrations to Charlie Sheen out in California, and he was nice enough to sign one and send it back,” Joyner said.

About six months into his new full-time job at the U.S. Senate, where he produces pamphlets and other literature for constituents, Joyner said he’s been working on five or six new bio-illustrations between his commutes. One of them is of former senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), who was a renowned big league pitcher.

“The book was already in production when I got this job, so his bio is not in it,” said Joyner, who had worked for a graphics company for nearly 25 years after he graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in design communication. “I had heard he was kind of a grumpy guy, but he saw it and signed it and sent it back.”

Joyner, who said he’s a fan of both the Washington Nationals and the Orioles these days, recently completed a set of baseball cards depicting the 1957 Brooklyn Dodgers, honoring their last season in New York.

“I’m working on some bio-illustrations now, but it’s not as easy to find the time,” he said. “I have a little art corner in our family room, and that’s where I do everything. I’ll keep on plugging away, and in 10 years or so, maybe I’ll put another book out. It’s a lot of fun.”

Dallas Cogle contributed to this report.

“Hardball Legends and Journeymen and Short-Timers” is available at www.mcfarlandbooks.com or thorugh Amazon.com.