‘Forward’ Thinking: Three former colleagues produce baseball titles

What are the odds?

In an amazing example of great minds thinking alike, three former writers for the Forward —Jonathan Mahler, Seth Mnookin, and Joshua Prager — have published critically acclaimed books on baseball, each focusing on a different historical event.

The TV miniseries

Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), had the longest tenure at the Jewish newspaper: four years during the mid-to-late 1990s during which he served — at different times — as Washington correspondent, managing editor, and culture writer.

Published in April 2005, Bronx was named one of The New York Times’ top 100 books of the year and will be the subject of an ESPN miniseries this summer.

Mahler’s is the least sport-oriented. Set in 1977, baseball seems almost out of place in an otherwise “serious” book on the problems that faced New York City that year: a crippling blackout and the ensuing madness it engendered, the Son of Sam attacks, and fiscal and political turmoil. Mahler parallels those issues with the story of Reggie Jackson’s first season with the Yankees.

“The city that summer was a soap opera,” he said in a talk with NJ Jewish News. “Rupert Murdoch had taken over the New York Post and there was a big Yankee scandal on the back page of the Post every day. [Yankees manager Billy Martin and Jackson were epic figures. They came to represent two different eras in New York. Martin was from the 1940s-’50s and Jackson was in the first class of free agents…. He represented the new New York. The conflict on the team was a metaphor for tension throughout the city, he said.

Although born in New York, Mahler’s family moved to California when he was an infant. They returned for a visit in 1977 when he was eight years old. “Those were my first memories of New York,” said the author, who moved back in 1990.

Social networking

Seth Mnookin, the Forward’s city hall reporter from 1999 to 2000, says his writing of Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top(Simon and Schuster) — his look at the inner workings of the Boston Red Sox — was “accidental.”

He was looking for something to do after finishing Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media and came up with the idea of an examination of the Sox since 2002, when a new ownership consortium took over.

As hot as the team was, Mnookin said, his project “wasn’t all glory…. I was blown away by how hard everyone there works. The public relations staff, interns, fan representatives [working] 15 hours a day. The Sox seem so beloved in so many ways; I didn’t have a sense of how people deal internally with the negative side of it. When things go well, there’s the expectation that that’s the way it should be.”

Publishers these days have greater expectations for authors to help publicize their work. Mnookin uses a blog and on-line “Q & A” appearances at sites like gather.com to chat with fans and readers. The process can get a bit overwhelming.

“It’s a complete time-****, a black hole, to put it together,” he said. “Once you start to do it, there’s an expectation that you’ll be there every day.”

Now hear this

“There are very, very few moments that literally millions of people remember where they were when they happened,” said Joshua Prager, author of The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World(Pantheon). “JFK’s assassination, Pearl Harbor, etc. For various reasons…Thomson’s homer was one of them. And to be able to write the definitive account of one of those moments was…really a thrill.”

Thomson’s blast capped a dramatic come-from-behind pennant race in which the NY Giants overcame their hated rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rumors of cheating by stealing catchers’ signals had circulated for many years.

Prager, who contributed only a couple of pieces to the Forward in the late 1990s, first presented the story in a 2001 article in The Wall Street Journal. He spent five years researching, interviewing, and writing his book. “There are 4,000 endnotes in the book,” he told NJJN. “I wanted people to know where every little detail came from. That was very important for me.”

He also narrated an abridged audio version of his opus. “Once I knew that the publishers wanted to do it, I asked if I would be able to read it. I felt I would be able to do it with the right inflection and [read it] enthusiastically.”

The audio version contains about 30 percent of the printed version, he said. “It was very baseball-centric. The 70 percent of the book that’s not there is basically about the lives of the people, the backgrounds, why they reacted the way they did to this moment, and why it is the moment that it became.”

Prager said recording the book took a great deal of time and effort, but he was satisfied with the finished product and “delighted” to reach a different audience.

So far the reviews have been better than the sales, which, Prager said, is “okay. The truth is, if I were to choose between…great sales and great reviews, I would, every time, choose the great reviews. But my publisher probably wouldn’t agree with that.”

For all the technical skullduggery surrounding the event — using a telescope to steal the opposing catchers’ signs, then relaying the signals through an electric buzzer system to the Giants dugout — Prager was more concerned with the impact the event had on the two principals of the story: Thomson, who hit the homer, and Branca, who threw the ill-fated pitch.

The architect of the whole mess was Abe Chadwick, a humble Jewish electrician. “It was thrilling for me to have sort of a central Jewish character,” said Prager. “He was my excuse, in a sense, to be able to talk about everything from Tisha b’Av…to the prayer Aneinu, which is said on Tzom Gedalia” — the Fast of Gedalia, observed during the High Holy Days — “which was the day that Thomson hit his home run.”

Ironically, Chadwick was a lifelong Dodgers fan. “When I talk about that, I talk about Haman because Chadwick was born on Purim and he was ‘hanged’ on a gallows that he himself built.”

The immigrant game

Mahler, Mnookin, and Prager hope to take their place among other high-profile Jewish writers on the game, including Roger Kahn, Mark Harris, Eliot Asinoff, and Bernard Malamud. Each had his own take on why so many Jews are drawn to the topic.

“Partly it’s because sports are a wonderful means of acculturation, and Jews, like many other immigrant groups, took to them upon their arrival in this country,” said Prager. “And partly it’s due to the simple fact that many Jews are writers. We’ll always take to religion and politics and history, [so] we might as well also look for meaning in sports.”

According to Mahler, “Baseball is the great immigrant game. It’s part of Jewish assimilation and Jewish identity, a great Americanizing role.”

There’s also a nostalgia factor. “In my case, my father grew up in the Bronx, in a working-class Jewish neighborhood in the shadow of Yankee Stadium.”

“In the case of the Forward, there was a real sense…of conjoining of certain poeticness about journalism and a level of inquiry that there was something romantic about it,” said Mnookin. “I think that baseball lends itself to that kind of world view, it allows for that type of project. It is so unique in the ways that it can represent so much about life. There’s a certain kind of mimicking of the poetry of life, and the sort of nostalgia that is an integral part of the Jewish tradition.”

A version of this article appeared in the NJ Jewish News.

SABR Bibliography Committee Newsletters

I have the pleasure of serving as editor for the Society for American Baseball Research Bibliography Committee newsletter.

Herewith are links to recent issues, for your edifcation and amusement:

Issue 1, 2006. Featuring a profile of Thomas Oliphant, author of Praying for Gil Hodges; Reviews of Cooperstown to Dyersville: A Geography of Baseball Nostalgia; Pure Baseball: Pitch by Pitch for the Advanced Fan; A Portrait of Baseball Photography; and The Baseball Bibliography, Second Edition.

Issue 2, 2006. Featuring reviews of Kenesaw Mountain Landis; Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series; Baseball Between the Numbers; and Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball’s Lunatic Fringe.

Issue 3, 2006. Featuring reviews on Baseball in St. Louis 1900– 1925; Tris Speaker: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend; Ring Around the Bases: The Complete Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner; Ed Delahanty & The Emerald Age of Baseball; The American Indian Integration of Baseball; and The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime.

Issue 4, 2006. Featuring an author profile on Art Shamsky, author of The Magnificent Seasons, and reviews on The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball; A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball; The Conscience of the Game: Baseball’s Commissioners from Landis to Selig; and The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot Heard Round the World.

The end of an era at The Sporting News

The Sporting News and its parent company, American City Business Journals, have decided to suspend publication of the Baseball Guide and the Complete Baseball Record and Fact Book. There will be no 2007 edition of the Guide, and the 2007 edition of the Record and Fact Book will not appear in print. These decisions were made “for business
reasons.”

TSN had been publishing the Record Book, which went through several variations, for almost 100 years (1909) and began its version of the Guide in 1942; prior to that it had been produced by Spalding.

The hopes are that the publications will appear on TSN’s website (sportingnews.com).

Time Marches On

The Baseball Timeline, by Burt Solomon (Doris Kindersley Publishing).

The Chronicle of Baseball: A Century of Major League Action, by John Mehno (Carlton Books).

A Stitch in Time: A Baseball Chronology, 1845-2000. by Gene Elston (Halcyon Press).

Day-by-Day in Baseball History, by Carl R. Moesche (McFarland).

Baseball Extra: A Newspaper History of the Glorious Game from the Beginning to the Present, From the Eric C. Caren Collection (Castle Books).

From the Archives of The Sporting News: Baseball, 100 Years of the Modern Era: 1901-2000, Edited by Joe Hoppel (The Sporting News).

As the year 20th century drew to a close, book publishers hustled to market titles chronicling the history of this or that: architecture, cinema, presidents, pop culture, etc. So is should come as no surprise that baseball should be the subject of several weighty entrees.

The following selections range from “sumptuous” to “plain-but-wholesome,” considering the differences in presentation and the depth of coverage.

Burt Solomon first published The Baseball Timeline in 1997, a commendable effort to record the highlights of the national pastime since its “birth” in 1845. Nothing fancy, mind you: a simple double column lay-out on recycled paper. But it was a useful reference for the baseball researcher or casual fan.

In 2001, DK Publishing, known for their colorful and informative titles on an amazing variety of subjects, transformed Timeline from an ugly duckling into a swan. The revised version, reassembled with the cooperation of Major League Baseball, is everything the advertising industry had in mind when they invented the phrase “new and improved.”

Although the material is practically identical as the original edition (save for those revisions which brought it up-to-date), the arrangement is very well done. This massive volume (over 1,200 pages) includes photos and illustrations of players and events absent from the oroginal.

Solomon did a superb job, citing birthdays, trades, special games and “best of each season” sections, including league leaders and major award winners.

Timeline is more than just a sports book, however. The author recognized that baseball is part of the American fabric and reminded readers of that with major headlines from each year (“Truman Defeats Dewey,” in 1948, for example) for context.

“Extra information” is sprinkled throughout Timeline, including trivia; league, rule and equipment changes; quotes and other historical notes.

The Chronicle of Baseball, which concentrates on the “modern era” (i.e., post-1900), is similarly lush with photos but lighter on details. Aside from the information on the individual seasons (how many ways can you say “ham and eggs”?), presented in a more narrative format, it offers sidebars for key (and not-so-key) events. Chronicle includes lengthy profiles on the giants of the game such as Ruth , Cobb, Young, Musial, Mays, Mantle, Koufax, McGwire, et al. It is generously illustrated, allowing the reader to watch the passage of time through changes in uniforms, stadium and other aspects of baseball and American life.

Whereas Timeline and Chronicles follow a year-by-year style, Day-by-Day in Baseball History and A Stitch in Time take things one day at a time. Naturally, with a system like this, the off-season months are relatively skimpy, relying mostly on births, deaths and trades. Day-by-Day?s entries are short and to the point, allowing for more entries but this creates a “quantity vs. quality” situation; Moesche makes some odd choices, such as the July 18, 1989 trade in which the Reds acquired Mariano Duncan and Tim Leary for Kal Daniels and Lenny Harris — not exactly a blockbuster deal. But it also contains some hidden gems like August 16, 1954, the date on which the first issue of Sports Illustrated hit the stands.

Gene Elston , play-by play man for the Houston Astros, offers his own slant with A Stitch in Time. Compared with Day-by-Day, Stitch takes a more folksy approach. Elston’s choices are more descriptive and take on both “monumental highlight” and “human interest” angles. Soap opera buffs no doubt already know this, but on March 20, 1963, Johnny Bernardino , former infielder for the Browns and Indians, made his debut as Dr. Steve Hardy on General Hospital. You won’t find that tidbit in any of the other books. Elston does a good job in his folksy way and leaves you wanting more.

Ever since its debut in 1886, The Sporting News has been considered “The Bible of Baseball.” They have opened the massive vaults to produce The Baseball Archives. Unlike the other books, this one follows a much looser structure, highlighting the players and events that shaped the sport.

Archives divides the century into distinct time frames. The “dead ball” days, the “lively” era, the years leading up and including World War II, the post-war years, the first expansion; further expansion, labor unrest, and, finally, the current “feel-good” days.

Archives follows a scrapbook format, with clippings and photographs from the original issues covering such topics as the “Black Sox” scandal, the integration of baseball, relocation and expansion, technical changes, such as Astroturf and the designated hitter, the free agency era, labor unrest and the return of baseball to the public favor, thanks to the efforts of such players as McGwire, Ripken and Sammy Sosa.

The editors of The Sporting News were not afraid to give their opinions on various problems within the game, such as gambling. Save for a brief explanation as to why the 1998 Yankees were not the best team ever (protestations by players and fans to the contrary notwithstanding), there are few examples of that editorial analyses. The volume, festooned with photographs and snippets of the writing of the era, captures the flavors of each time period, beginning with “old-tyme” sepia-tone snapshots and evolving into the explosive action, high-tech productions of the present.

As one might expect, their seemingly limitless resources have plenty to offer. The tough choices must have been deciding what to include and still make it a manageable book. The editors acquitted themselves well with their decisions, but one wonders how much more they could have done. One of the things I miss most about the old format Sporting News is the blurb describing each game which accompanied the box scores. Now you can’t even find box scores within its pages. That’s progress for you.

Many younger fans may not realize it, but there was a time when each major city had several daily newspapers. In fact sports saved many papers, making them more popular with constant updated editions being printed. Mornings would find the latest scores and stories and afternoon editions would have the latest scores and features. This type of journalism is admirably reflected in the pages of Baseball Extra. Rather than relating the news, this large-scale book takes the form of the actual pages, both front and “sports back,” taken from various papers since baseball coverage began, back in the mid-1800s. The front-page coverage is particularly interesting, citing only the most important news while putting it perspective with other happenings in the city and nation. The Los Angeles Examiner of January 14, 1929 carries a banner headline reporting the death of Helen Ruth , the Babe’s first wife, while The Baltimore News Post (June 3, 1941) reports the death of Lou Gehrig above the latest war news.

The quality of the reproductions is a bit off at times, but that flaw actually adds to the authenticity. Reprinting the pages without commentary gives this collection a unique flavor. Again, writing styles have changed over the past 150 years and Baseball Extra combines sports with American history for a fascinating view of America and it’s national pastime.

Minor League Baseball: Community Building through Hometown Sports

Minor League Baseball: Community Building through Hometown Sports By Rebecca S. Kraus. New York: Haworth Press, 2002.

 

Followers of minor-league baseball don’t have it easy. In the best of circumstances, their favorite players won’t be with the local team for long, since this is just a stopover, a tune-up before heading to “the Show.” With a stream of athletes that is commonly in flux, what is it, then, that binds America to its bush-league ball clubs?

 

Kraus seeks to answer that question. “On the minor league level,” she writes, “the relationship appears to go beyond more money and prestige. Minor league teams occupy a special place in our hearts. We are more forgiving when they lose, and extremely proud of them when they win.”

 

The self-proclaimed “baseball sociologist” cites numerous studies on the link between sports and community. While she is obviously passionate about the topic, her methodology is uneven. She writes at length in the appendix about how she set out to “prove” such a relationship, but this assertion simply doesn’t come through in the narrative.

 

Kraus discusses the distinct eras in the long history of the minor leagues. She chronicles the golden days following the postwar years; the “downs,” as other forms of entertainment such as television began to take prominence, reducing game attendance; and the resurgence of the minors as the majors began subsidizing the affiliates and new owners with modern marketing methods took over for the outmoded “mom and pop” administrators.

 

The author’s information is mostly anecdotal and she spends an inordinate amount of words documenting the movement of teams from city to city and the changes in their big league affiliations. Ultimately, it appears she can’t decide whether to make her approach academic or personal.

 

While Minor League Baseball is a warm-hearted overview of an increasingly popular subject, it just doesn’t seem to fit in a supposedly scholarly treatise.

Welcome to the Hall, Cal and Tony

Now that Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn have been elected to the Hall of Fame, expect a few new titles to hit the bookshelves in the very near future.

Actually, both fan favorites are already the subject of multiple titles.

When Ripken was approaching Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, writers worked overtime to mark the event, either in newspaper columns or elsewhere. Books by or about him include Cal Ripken Jr.: My Story (Dial, 1999); Baseball’s Iron Man: Cal Ripken Jr.: A Tribute (Sports Publishing, 2007); Nine Innings with Cal Ripken Jr. (Beckett Publications, 1998); Ironman: The Cal Ripken Jr. Story by Harvey Rosenfeld (St. Martin’s Press, 1995). Ripken has also had a hand in several instructionals, particularly for younger players.

Gwynn never received the ink that Ripken did, despite the fact that he was arguably the better hitter. Still, a couple of books have his name on it, including Tony Gwynn , Mr. Padre, by Barry Bloom (Sports Publishing, 1999) and Tony, by Gwynn and Jim Geschke (McGraw-Hill Contemporary, 1986), and a couple of instructionals, including Tony Gwynn’s Total Baseball Player (with Jim Rosenthal, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1992) and The Art of Hitting (with Roger Vaughan, GT Publishing Corporation, 199

Several of those on this years ballot who did not get the nod have already had their stories captured on the page. Herewith a selected and annotated bibliography. The astute reader will not from the release date that many publishers took advantage of a player’s notoriety after a particularly good season or specific event. For example, Jose Canseco’s Juiced came out immediately prior to his appearance before the Senate Committee hearings on steroids and baseball. Similarly, though less dramatic, Eric Davis‘ Born to Play hit the bookstores after a successful comeback following his battle with colon cancer.

After he broke Roger Maris’ single season record for homers, Mark McGwire was the subject of numerous exciting and colorful books, including Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season, by Bernie Miklasz (McGraw-Hill Contemporary 199 and Mark McGwire: Home Run Hero, by Rob Rains (St. Martin’s Press 1999).

Canseco’s tell-all tome, Juiced : Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Basebal l Got Big (Regan Books, 2005), opened the whole can of worms that no doubt contributed to McGwire’s exlcusion this year, and perhaps for the foreseeable future. Canseco makes some pretty outrageous claims and did not endear himself to ex-teammates or fans (or Bud Selig or any of the congressmen, who certainly didn’t ask for that kind of headache). Albert Belle was another whose surly relationship with the writers couldn;t have helped his cause any. Not that he had the numbers anyway, although he was the most feared batter in the game for a time. He tries to explain himself in Don’t Call Me Joey: The Wit and Wisdom of Albert “Joey” Belle (ECW, 1998).

Andre Dawson: Andre Dawson, by Dawson and Tom Bird (Zondervan, 1995). “The Hawk” was a solid leader and gained notoriety for winning the NL MVP award while playing for a last-place Cubs team.

Goose Gossage: The Goose Is Loose, by Gossage and Russ Pate (Ballantine Books, 2000). The perpetual scowl tried to convince readers that he wasn’t such a meany after all.

Orel Hershiser: Out of the Blue: Orel Hershiser by Hershiser and Jerry B. Jenkins (Wolgemuth & Hyatt Pub, 1989). This one was released after his standout 1988 season in whiuch he set the new standard of 59 consecutive scoreless innings, a 23-8 record, and MVP awards for the NL Championship Series as well as the World Series. Both Out of the Blue and Between the Lines: Nine Things Baseball Taught Me About Life, written with Robert Wolgemuth (Faithwords 2005) stress his fervent Christian faith.

Tommy John enjoyed a successful career following pioneering surgery by Dr. Frank Jobe. John won 166 games after the procedure that bears his name, to finish with 288 victories in 26 years. He found time to pen three books: The Tommy John Story (F.H. Revell Company, 1978); The Sally and Tommy John Story: Our Life in Baseball (Macmillan, 1983); and TJ: My Twenty-Six Years in Baseball, written with Dan Valenti (Bantam, 1991).

Don Mattingly: The best we can do is a instructional that’s due out this year: Don Mattingly’s Hitting Is Simple: The ABC’s of Batting .300, with Jim Rosenthal, Don Mattingly, Rod Carew, and Joe Torre (St. Martin’s Press)

Dale Murphy: Murph by Murphy, (Bookcraft 1978). Murphy was another Christian athlete and gentleman, playing primarily for the Atlanta Braves.

Paul O’Neill: Me and My Dad: A Baseball Memoir by O’Neill and Burton Rocks (Harper, 2004), a surprisingly thoughtful effort by a player who was charitably known as a “red ****.”

Analyzing the Hall of Fame

(A version of this review appeared on Purebaseball.com in Oct. 2005)

The Road to Cooperstown: A Critical History of Baseball?s Hall of Fame Selection Process, by James F. Vail (McFarland, 2001, $29.95)

Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of Glory, by Bill James (Fireside Books, 1995).

In recent years, the Hall of Fame Board of Advisors announced a major change in voting process. Players who had heretofore met the basic qualifications for consideration but were still found wanting and subsequently were dropped from the ballot would now have new hope because the Veteran’s Committee has been revamped to include all the living members of the Hall.

 

Extrapolating on James F. Vail’s new examination, The Road to Cooperstown, which was released before the announcement, this could open up a whole new level of cronyism. He already considers the level of the Shrine’s politicking as “more corrupt than Chicago politics.”

 

Vail points out the failures of the Hall to set forth any “meaningful” standards in deciding which players deserve a plaque in Cooperstown. His cogent, humorous points are well delivered. Even the most knowledgeable fan will probably find uncover new information. For example, in the early years of the Hall, votes were allowed to be cast for active players.

 

Vail offers some unusual analyses to indicate various biases that play a part in the selection process. He demonstrates, for example, how players from large market teams in New York, California and Chicago stand a better chance of election that their small-market brethren. Players also have been the victims of “prejudice” because of defense position, post-season appearances or the number of awards they garner.

 

He also downplays much of the criteria used to pick the members of the Hall; many of the qualifications seem arbitrary. Numbers are in flux from generation to generation, opines Vail, and can be subjective. Does a player with 400 home runs deserve more consideration than someone who hit “only” 399? In an era when hitting fifty home runs in a season is no longer Ruthian feat (and 500 for a career are losing their veneer), how will future voters use statistics? Does pitcher who has attained 300 victories by dint of a 20-plus year career deserve more attention that one who wins 220 in a considerably short time-frame? Should longevity play a factor? Will the quest for statistical glory be enough to keep today’s multimillionaire players going?

 

Vail chides both the writers and veterans committees for their shortsightedness. Oftentimes writers would leave blank spaces on their ballots when one or two votes could mean the difference in either election for some or being dropped off the ballot for others.

 

Also submitted for consideration is criteria for players from the Negro Leagues, those who built their reputations out of a single skill or event (“The Wambsganss Syndrome,” named for the Cleveland infielder who pulled an unassisted triple play in the 1920 World Series), and the hypocrisy of continuing to keep Pete Rose out of the Hall.

 

Although Vail makes many interesting points, his statistical presentations can get a bit overwhelming and his zealousness can get a bit hard to take after the first several chapters.

 

****

 

There are two sayings that are applicable here: “Lies, damn lies and statistics” and “Even the devil can quote scripture if it suits his purpose.” Vail and James have done thorough jobs of using facts and figures to back up their premises, but someone in the opposing camp could probably be just as mathematically ingenious to “prove” them wrong in defending their own candidates.

 

Still, The Road to Cooperstown and Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame both serve as eye-openers for anyone who wants to know the inner workings of the Valhalla of baseball.

 

James spends several detailed chapters on the history of the Hall itself, making his book a more complete overview than Vail’s.Bill James wrote on this subject a decade ago in Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame, which had previously been released as The Politics of Glory. As one would expect from the “father of Sabrmetrics,” he uses statistics to shore up arguments such as why Player A is in Cooperstown when Player B, with almost identical numbers, remains on the outside. He includes his own formulas so the reader can determine on his own which of his favorites might one day be elected.