* Lists: Suggested readings

From the Ground Rule Double blog, this eclectic list of favorite books, including Shoeless Joe; Ty and The Babe; We Are the Ship; The Catcher Was a Spy; I Was Right on Time; The Teammates; and Clemente.

* Baseball book roundup: Chicago Sun-Times

With the dozens of new titles out each year, it’s interesting to see if there’s a consensus among the major media as to which titles to promote. I’ll be looking into that further a bit later, when more data comes in.

For now, here’s the take from the Sun-Times:

• Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Modern Baseball (Rodale)
• Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids and the Rush to Judgment (Triumph)
• The Code: Baseball’s Unwritten Rules and Ignore-at-Your Own Risk Code of Conduct (Triumph)
• Wrigley Season Ticket: An Annual Guide To Chicago Cubs Baseball Maple Street Press)

It should be noted that the last three books mentioned have Chicago connections: Triumph is based in the Windy City and, well, the final title is self-explanatory. Coincidence? Is Triumph an advertiser perhaps?

* Bits and pieces

With the dawn of the season, news coverage is picking up substantially. Several topics constitute the bulk of the early buzz:

• The final season of Yankee and Shea Stadiums. There are several new and revised titles about The House That Ruth Built; there are none, as of this moment, specifically about Shea. Go figure.
• Anniversaries are always rife for discussion. This year we mark the centennial of the last Cubs’ World Championship, the 60th of the last Indians’ World Series victory, and the 50th anniversaries of the Dodgers and Giants in California. Oh, and the tenth since Mark McGuire broke Roger Maris’ home run record.
• The book reviews are coming in fast and furious. It almost seems as though, if they don’t catch the readers attention at the beginning of the season, they won’t be able to make the sale.

So with that, here are a few bits and pieces:

• From the Los Angeles Times book section, “Reflections on the Baseball Encyclopedia and the keeping of a sport’s records,” by blogger Mark Lamster. Fans of a “certain age” will remember the Encyclopedia, which pre-dated Total Baseball, The Elias Sports Bureau annuals, and the Bill James Analyses. It was nothing but numbers, and, speaking with the brilliance of hindsight, “bad” numbers, as James and his fellow SABRen have opined.
• From The Wall Street Journal, a review and lengthy excerpt (Brooks Robinson) from Fay Vincent’s new oral history We Would Have Played the Game for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved.
• Via the Staten Island Advance Web site, this AP story about the new book, Baseball Greatest Hit.
• From the Seamheads.com blog, a review of Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends.
• From Joe Posananski’s blog, an interview with said Neyer. Posnanski is the Kansas City Star columnist and author of The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America.
• Mike Lupica’s assessment of Vindicated from the New York Daily News.
• A Philadelphia Inquirer review of Chris Coste’s new book, The 33-year-old Rookie.

* Sure, why not?

From ESPN.com:

Victor Conte will amp up the sports world once again — in a much different way, however.

According to the New York Daily News, the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative is working on a tell-all book that he claims will spill the dirt on athletes and federal gents.

* Coming soon: Opening Day coverage

On the Sunday before Opening Day, most major market newspapers — primarily those who field a major league team — include some sort of preview for the upcoming season, whether in the form of a supplemental section or bound within the sports page. I’ll be reporting on these in the days ahead. Just so you know.

* The Bookshelf hits the mainstream press

My five “must-reads,” as reported in the Lawrence (KS) Journal World & News.

* Because it does

‘Nuff said.

* RK Review: Baseball’s Greatest Hit

The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game

by Andy Strasberg, Bob Thompson, and Tim Wiles. Hal Leonard, 2008.

This year marks the centennial of what baseball fans believe to be the true “national anthem” and this trio of authors have done the ditty proud.

Baseball’s Greatest Hit is an “everything you always wanted to know” about the song, and then some. The curious reader will learn how the team of Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer joined forces to collaborate on the tune which by the authors’ count amounts to hundreds of versions. They explore the mythos of creation: what were the circumstances under which it was created? Were both men equally responsible, or was there an about understanding about credit between partners?

Among the other highlights of the book:

• A team-by-team appraisal on how they handle their seventh inning stretches. Prior to 9/11, Take Me Out was standard fare. For a time afterwards, that was replaced by God Bless America. While many ball clubs have returned to the Norworth-Von Tilzer song, some, notably the Yankees, still tug at the patriotic heartstrings.
• A look at the eponymous movie, starring Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, and Betty Garrett.
• An extensive time line of the song
• A tribute to Harry Caray, the Chicgao announcer who “gave it back” to the fans
• Collectibles on the TMO theme
• A discography of myriad artists and formats who have recorded the song
• A list of”all commercially printed music about baseball in the collection of the Library of Congress”
• Some punchy parodies (my favorite is the Passover seder version)
• “Professor Hedlam’s Formal Musical Theoretical Analysis of Take Me Out to the Ball Game” which comes with a “warning” for those with a less than serious approach: stay away.

The book includes a bonus CD with several versions of the song.

When I first heard about this book, I didn’t have high expectations. A few years ago the University of Wisconsin Press published Baseball and Country Music, an unimpressive little paperback. Frankly, I was thinking along those lines. I’m happy to see how wrong I was. The authors each have bona fides which well-qualify them to write on this topic. Strasberg is acknowledged as one of the foremost authorities on and collectors of the song. Thompson is co-producer of the Baseball Music Project, a series of theatrical concerts with the national pastime as its theme. And Wiles is director of research at the baseball Hall of Fame. Together they make up a Tinkers-Evers-Chance combination, each using his particular specialty to produce the final product, tremendously enhanced by the work of graphic designers Bernadette Malavarca and Damian Castaneda, whom Wiles called unsung heroes (unfortunately, Damian’s name is misspelled on the book jacket).

In a telephone conversation, Wiles noted that even after the manuscript was completed, more information kept coming in. He discovered that in addition to his musical skills, Norworth was an inventor, responsible for the device that gave the impression of movement in old films. He was also a serious collector of miniatures. “We’re still finding stuff out,” Wiles said. “I’d love to do something biographical about Norworth and Von Tilzer, but I think the moment might be now…and we’re a little tied up right now.

“A lot of the things we’d like to do, we just don’t have time to do.”

CBS Sunday Morning will feature a segment on the centennial of Take Me Out To the Ball Game, on March 30. As the saying goes, check local listings.

The Amazon Report:

Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”

* Announcement: Worship service considers “Reflections on Baseball”

Perkins School of Theology will host a worship service entitled “Reflections on Baseball” in Perkins Chapel at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 2.

Speakers include Dr. Mark W. Stamm, associate professor of Christian Worship at Perkins and Dr. Kathleen Sullivan Porter, Academic Advisor in Dedman College, Southern Methodist University.

In addition to being lifelong baseball fans, Doctors Stamm and Sullivan are members of the Society for American Baseball Research.

As a graduate school of theology, at times we are also a liturgical testing ground; “Reflections on Baseball” stands in this experimental mode.

Perkins School of Theology is one of five University-related official schools of theology of The United Methodist Church.

This service is open to the public.

The Amazon Report — Baseball and Religion:

And God Said, “Play Ball!”

Sermon on the Mound: Finding God at the Heart of the Game

Rounding the Bases: Baseball And Religion in America (Sports and Religion)

The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture

The Great God Baseball

* On this day

…in 1978, the A’s end the fifteen-year career of Dick Allen by releasing the aging superstar. The Wampum, Pennsylvania native finishes his stormy relationship with major league baseball with 351 homers, 1,192 RBIs and .292 batting average. (Thanks to NationalPastime.com.)

The Amazon Report on Richie Allen:

Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen

September Swoon: Richie Allen, the ‘64 Phillies, And Racial Integration