The things you find when you’re cleaning up. Came across this piece I did for Fastball.com, a now-defunct esoteric baseball site. It’s one of several “theme” teams I created in my obviously too-copius spare time. I’m sure there are many other plasyers who fit the bill since I worked on this.
Opposing reviews for Jonathan Eig’s Opening Day. Pro and Con. And an interview with the author.
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This just in from Onion Sports: Aaron credited with 50 “lost” home runs.
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I usually don’t consider this type of book, but I was intrigued by the press release. There’s a new bio due out about Phillies’ slugger Ryan Howard. Titled Ryan Howard: King of Swing, 
it’s marketed for “fans of all ages.” But one look at the cover indicates it’s not on an editorial par with say, The Teammates. Other self-referential accolades include:
Think I’ll wait for the movie to come out.
“Casey at the Bat” has served as fodder for generations. Ernest L. Thayer’s poem (subtitled “A Ballad of the Republic”) has appeared 
in several incarnations as a juvenile picture book, portrayed by the likes of Leroy Neiman 
and C.F. Payne, among others. In one of the most visually and socially dazzling versions,
Joe Morse depicts the story from an urban, inner-city point of view.
“Casey” has also led to dozens of imitations and extensions of the original story (”Casey Returns,” “Casey’s Daughter”) Listen Garison Keeler’s version, “Casey: The Other Point of View” from A Prairie Home Companion; the poem appears at the 35-minute mark in the second part of the show. The poem has been recorded by seasoned performers such as James Earl Jones and baseball stars such as Johnny Bench and Dave Winfield, with full orchestral backup.
One of my favorites treatises is The Annotated Casey at the Bat: A Collection of Ballads About the Mighty Casey/Third, Revised Edition, released by Dover Publications in 1995, which includes many of the aforementioned versions.
The ballad has also spawned several full-length works of 
fictional prose, including Frank Deford’s Casey on the Loose (1989), as well as a 1986 film version starring Elliot Gould, Carol Kane, and Howard Cosell. Here’s a review of The Night Casey Was Born, a new non-fiction “biography” of the poem, written byJohn Evangelist Walsh.
Dodger photographer highlighted game off the fields
Barney Stein was an elfin man who loved his work, and it shows in the faces of his subjects,
the Brooklyn Dodgers, for whom he served as official shutterbug for 20 years.
In an effort to preserve his legacy, Stein’s daughter, Bonnie Crosby, collaborated with Dennis D’Agostino to produce a collection of his
work, Through a Blue Lens: The Brooklyn Dodgers Photographs of Barney Stein,
1937-57 (Triumph Books).
Crosby and D’Agostino a former public relations employee for the NY Mets, discussed their project at a program at a June program hosted by the Yogi Berra Museum and Education Center in Little Falls, NJ.
Stein said her father taught her not only about photography “but about the emotions of the game.” He presented more than the action on the field, she said; he showed the Dodgers and their extended community of employees, families, and fans.
D’Agostino described Stein as “one of the greatest news photographers New York has ever seen. He photographed everything from heads of state, entertainers, tragedies, gangsters, etc.
,” he said. “And then when the whistle blew every day
at five o’clock at the Post [where Stein had a full-time position], off he’d go to Ebbets Field to have his second job.” Flipping through the book, the reader sees the artist himself joining in the fun and managing to capture his subjects with their guards down.
Perhaps his most famous shot is one of unmitigated agony for old-time Dodgers fans: pitcher Ralph Branca, head bowed in grief after yielding baseball’s most famous home run, ‘the shot heard ‘round the world,” hit by the New York Giants’ Bobby Thomson to win the 1951 National League pennant.
On the lighter side, one of Stein’s favorite photos features Marilyn Monroe at Ebbets Field in 1957 demonstrating her “athletic skills” for Israel’s Hapoel 
soccer team during an exhibition with a team of American all-stars.
“The Israelis were asked what they wanted to see during their visit,” D’Agostino said. Their response: “‘As athletes, we’d like to meet the Brooklyn Dodgers; as men we’d like to meet Marilyn Monroe
Photos courtesy Barney Stein Photo Collection, LLC. A version of this article appears in the June 21 issue of the New Jersey Jewish News
Newsday’s review of THE CARD: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History’s Most Desired Baseball Card, described as a “compelling tale” by Robert L. Fouch.
The San Jose Mercury News’ report on David Halberstam’s June 12 memorial service.
From Bob Timmermann at Griddle.baseballtoaster.com, a review of American Pastime, a film about baseball as played by Japanese Americans who were confined to internment camps during World War II. His bottom line: “it cover[s] a worthy subject and it avoids being preachy, even though the topic of Japanese internment could easily be covered that way.”
Timmermann’s opinion aside, the few other critiques I’ve seen about this project indidcate it to be very cliche driven, but so are most other sports films so give it a chance.
ESPN The Magazine lists the following baseball titles in its bi-weekly sports best-sellers list:
I spoke with Joseph Rinaldi, director of publicity at St. Martin’s, at the Book Expo America in Manhattan earlier this month about the publisher’s sports line-up. Rinaldi said Papi was doing very well, in part, because Ortiz was so personable and accommodating at book signings. Opening Day is still in the “honeymoon” phase, celebrating the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut. Clemente has been out for quite awhile, so its staying power is a bit surprising.
The big surprise, however, has to be McLain’s book. After all, aside from his Cy Young seasons and the fact that he won 31 games in 1968, his reputation as a troubled soul — extending well into his retirement (or banishment, depending on your point of view) — supersedes his stardom. Even with all his troubles in recent years, he’s no Pete Rose; it’s hard to conceive that McLain still generates that degree of interest.
RickLibrarian offers a review on Baseball Haiku. In my “day job” as editor of the Real Life page for the NJ Jewish News, I write a weekly haiku on the week’s reading from the Torah. While it has been generally wel-received since I started it (save for the rare reader who thinks they’re blaspehmous), I find poetry, like fiction, extremely subjective, which is why I rarely review novels or poems. Nevertheless, I did review Line Drives, a collection of poems edited by Tim Wiles of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for ForeWard Magazine.
The Museum of the City of New York will host an exhibit on “The Glory Days: New York City Baseball, 1947-1957.”
Accordng to the Website,
The Glory Days… explores how and why New York City came to dominate the sport, how this changed by 1957, and how the events of these eleven seasons shaped today’s game. In addition, the exhibition uses baseball as a lens through which city life in the post-war years is examined, and contextualizes baseball’s dominance in the history of the city.”
The exhibit opens June 27 and runs through Dec. 31.
The Baseball Toaster’s “Griddle” Page offers this review of The Gashouse Gang, by John Heidenry.
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Since newspapers often wind up on my bookshelf (what can I say, I’m not the best housekeeper in the world), here’s a piece from the New York Observer on the recent Alex Rodriguez affair. Well perhaps affair isn’t the appropriate word in this case. Anyway, it’s an interesting examination of how the sports media is turning into gossip columnists, contrary to “back in the day,” when Babe Ruth could practically host an orgy in the hotel fountain and you’d never find a word about it in the next day’s newsprint. Houston Astros catcher Brad Ausmus contributed an article to June 18 issue of ESPN The Magazine on the omnipresent demands of an omnivorous press.
“In an open-locker-room, scoop-hingry sports world, where have all the boundaries gone?” reads the sub-title.
Yet Ausmus seems to believe the blame does not fall entirely on the press.
“I know every news story can’t be rosy. That’s not reality,” he writes. “And there’s little we can do to stem the growing intrusion of the press. So until newspapers stop printing, ESPN stops broadcasting, and the Internet disappears, maybe some of us just need to develop thicker skins. Or do what many athletes do: don’t pick up the newspaper, turn on the TV or listen to talk radio.”
Three baseball titles have been nominated for the 2007 Quill Awards, founded by Reed Business Information (Publishers Weekly) to honor the “most entertaining and enlightening titles” each year. This year’s picks were published between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007, with the winners in 19 categories to be selected by a popular votes of a voting board comprised of over 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians.
The baseball books received three of the four nominations in the Sports category.
In my "day job," I'm a writer/sports editor for a New Jersey weekly newspaper. I'm also the editor of the Bibliography Committee Newsletter for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
I did a piece on the award-winning cartoonist and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
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