I have given major props to the L.A. Daily News‘ Tom Hoffarth for his thoughtful month-long series of baseball book reviews. Today’s the last day, so here’s his “whole freakin’ list” which lists and links all 30 titles.
He was also gracious enough — self-promotion alert — to mention The Bookshelf in his wrap-up. Thanks for the plug, Tom.
Few things get me misty eyed, but I couldn’t even get through the opening paragraphs of George Vecsey’s column today, about the compassion of opponents at a women’s college softball game.
As you will read, Sara Tucholsky, a Western Oregon senior with a four-year batting average way south of .200 had a dream come true when she launched a pitch over the fence for the only home run of her college career — and promptly hurt herself on the basepaths. Rules dictate that she would be called out if aided by a teammate and that if she could not continue, the hit would be a two-run single. But Mallory Holtman, the first baseman for the Central Washington team, asked the umpires if it would be okay if she and a teammate carried Tucholsky.
The umpires huddled and said it would be legal, so Holtman and the … shortstop, Liz Wallace, lifted Tucholsky, hands crossed under her, and carried her to second base, and gently lowered her so she could touch the base. Then Holtman and Wallace started to giggle, and so did Tucholsky, through her tears, and the three of them continued this odd procession to third base and home to a standing ovation.
Vecsey notes he learned about the story from other sources, so I’m linking to the ESPN article.
In the words of that great philosopher Tony Kornheiser, “how great is that?”
Oh “great”; here we go again.
Although the author doesn’t employ “greatest” or “best” in his title, The Last Great Pennant Race does have connotations that there haven’t been any since.
I’m guessing thousands, if not millions, of fans would beg to differ.
From a GKG press release:
It wouldn’t be spring without baseball. Nor would it be spring without the annual “Art of Baseball” exhibition at the George Krevsky Gallery.
Now in its 11th year, the exhibit opens with a reception on Thursday, May 1st, and will be on view through Saturday, June 7th.
This year’s theme – Building a Team – refers not just to the coach’s task of choosing a roster to play the game, but also to the curator’s task of bringing together talented artists from all over the country who depict the game that obsesses fans of all ages. For five weeks the gallery’s walls will be densely hung with over 40 artworks by more than 25 artists; men and women who interpret Abner Doubleday’s invention through an artist’s eye.
“You can observe a lot by watching,” Yogi Berra said. You can also learn a lot about our national pastime by looking at the remarkable range of artworks that will be on view — from hyperrealism to folk art, from commentary on current issues confronting the game to unapologetic doses of pure nostalgia. “Building a Team” will be a visual delight for the baseball lover, the art lover, and the many people who love them both.
For more information and additional images from the exhibition, please visit our website at www.georgekrevskygallery.com.
The Wall Street Journal also ran this review by Pete Hausler of the new bio on the Yog by Carlo Devito.
In sifting through [more than 4,000 sources], Mr. DeVito makes what seems initially like a strange choice: He includes many stories, anecdotes, and quotes that are now widely considered to be apocryphal (his word). Mr. DeVito, in good faith, states this fact whenever he’s sure that the story is not entirely true. It feels like an odd strategy for a biography, but the more these incidents appear in “Yogi,” the more it makes sense to include them.
Because, as Mr. DeVito makes abundantly clear, there are and always have been two Yogi Berras: 1) the public celebrity — a goofy, good-natured, strange-looking (sportswriters at the time used far-worse adjectives), malaprop-spewing simpleton from the Italian slums of St. Louis and 2) the real person behind the public persona, a far more complex and intelligent character.
![[Yogi Berra]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BI953_yogi_b_20080428180210.jpg)
The review is supplemented with an excerpt from the book.
It’s still early in the season, but the pitchers seem way ahead of the hitters. Some sluggers are faring pretty poorly (Carlos Delgado, Prince Fielder, Frank Thomas, among others). Run production is down, as are home 
runs. Seeing any correlation between this and the Mitchell Report?
Speaking of steroids, Barry Bonds is still “on holiday,” as noted by this piece in The Wall Street Journal. Not that Bonds is George Bailey by any stretch, but as much as you might not want to admit it, his life touched many others. An interactive feature of the article shows what his departure has meant to various people at Pac Bell, including the guy who rents the kayaks for McCovey Cove; the Giants’ media relations and “stadium logistics” guys; the sales vendor (whose sales of rubber chickens used to taunt opposing pitchers is down 20 percent), and the home run seeker and other fans.
Pirates vs. Yankees, October 13, 1960, by Jim Reisler (Carroll & Graf)
I thought I had addressed this book when it came out, but evidently I was think about Reisler’s previous book, A Great Day in Cooperstown: The Miraculous and Unlikely Beginning of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
To me, “Best” is on a par with “Greatest” and one should be careful in its use. Sure, the seventh game of the ‘60 series was one for the books, dramatic and exceedingly happy for a town that had not enjoyed such success in many decades. And I’m sure there are many who witnessed the come-from-behind victory and did decree it as the “best game ever,” a conceit that has been popping up more and more of late.
To be honest, I read this one when it first came out and do not remember details, other than looking at it with suspicion based on Reisler’s previous work. My problem is in the craftsmanship more than the title.
As he did in A Great Day, Reisler makes several egregious factual errors. In A Great Day, the largest commission was attributing a quote to a player purported to be at the opening of the Hall who had been deceased long before the event.
Several reviews I’ve read on this book forgive Reisler and his editors the typos and over-sentimentality, but my philosophy is that if these are errors we’ve caught, what have we missed? What are we taking on faith versus what is not true (see the dead man’s quote above)? Perhaps I’m being overly harsh? I must be, since it was deemed worthy of consideration as a finalist for Spitball Magazine’s Casey Award, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Other reviews for The Best Game Ever:
Two baseball related items in the May 2 issue of The Week: The Book List has mini-capsule reviews of four titles including But Didn’t We Have Fun?, The Greatest Game; We Would Have Played for Nothing; and The Code. In “The last word” section, “The truth about baseball’s roots” is excerpted from Kevin Baker’s “At the Ballpark” essay which appears in the new anthology Anatomy of Baseball.
Baseball’s Grand (and not-so-grand) Finales, by Bill Chuck and Jim Kaplan (Acta Sports, 2008).
Interesting in concept, but falling short on execution, the authors no doubt wanted to convey the feelings of exhilaration (for the winners) and agony (for the losers).
Chuck and Kaplan (no relation) lead off with a chapter on pennant races and, to be sure, include the memorable down-to-the-wire battles. But others don’t seem to belong. For example, they note, albeit briefly, the three-game sweep of the Orioles over the Twins in the 1969 AL Championship Series (the first scheduled post-season affair to decide the pennant winner), but make no mention of the Mets-Braves games. Since the Orioles were such heavy favorites throughout the post-season, one might imagine the NLCS, in which the New Yorkers appeared after a “lifetime” of ineptitude, would be the source of more drama. Even after they defeated the heavy-hitting Braves, there’s no mention of their underdog victory over the Orioles in five games for the World Championship. And four years later, the Mets improbably beat the Big Red Machine (again, no mention) to face the Oakland A’s in the Fall Classic. The series went the full seven games, but there’s barely a mention of it, other than to note that reliever Darold Knowles appeared in each game, a fact that merits all of two sentences. Why bother? Knowles’ feta was not particularly heroic or dramatic.
The comments about the 2004 Yankees-Red Sox ALCS bears examination. After pinch runner Brian Roberts stole a base in the bottom of the ninth, they write, “Red Sox Nation knew their team would become the first to rally from three games down in a postseason series and go all they way.” Really. They collectively “knew” the team, which had been a colossal disappointment for almost 90 years, with numerous heartbreaking defeats along the way, would win eight consecutive games. Or did they mean four straight against the Yankees? Either way….
Further, the reader is told he “can’t imagine the joy, the elation throughout New England, maybe the world” this event engendered. More than, say, the end of World War II or man walking on the moon? It’s this kind of hyperbole that reduces otherwise serious sports content to the category of children’s literature.
They also include chapters on perfect games, being sure to list the batter who made the final out in each to fit into their theme, and the circumstances surrounding the end of various streaks, including Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak, Orel Hershiser’s scoreless innings mark; and Cal Ripken games-played. (They also feel compelled to note pitcher Doug Minton’s homerless games, Darren Lewis’ errorless game, Joe Sewell’s strikeout-free at bats, Cecil Fielder’s games without a stole base, among others; absent is Anthony Young’s consecutive losing game mark.)
A nice feature is the final game played in all the defunct major league stadiums, but in the same “Final Outs” section, they discuss “Final Goodbyes” — the deaths of ballplayers during the season.
Walkoffs walks off with “Hall of Fame Farewells” and the appropriately-named “The Last Chapter,” in which they offer the answers to what are several trivia questions (and you have to admit, “the only” by definition includes “the last,” if a semantical).
Overall, this book — well-meaning and with quality authors — is a disappointment. Rather than writing detailed accounts of some of these major events, they go for quantity rather than quality, dropping in information that doesn’t necessarily work (Larsen’s perfect game in the ‘56 World Series, although one of the highlights of the sport, was does not fit in the title’s “mission statement.” Chuck and Kaplan try to be too much to too many and will probably end up being too little to too few.
The baseball lifer played only three seasons and managed two in the Major Leagues, but he still managed to put out a hefty tome about his experiences in Safe by a Mile, which gets a lengthy “preview” treatment from Google Books.
Recent baseball segments on NPR programs include:
The New York Times has recently published baseball material in non-sports sections.
A review of the American Experience documentary on Robert Clemente ran on Monday, April 21. The program is available for viewing on the American Experience Web site.
In the “Escape” section of the Friday, April 25 weekend Arts, this piece about minor league baseball in Scarnton-Wilkes Barre, PA.
Leading off the Sunday New Jersey section on April 27, Kevin Coyne contributed a piece about “Black Baseball’s Rich Legacy.” The piece heralds the Newark Eagles and includes comments from Monte Irvin and Lawrence D. Hogan, author of Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball.
Finally, in the Book Review section, Jose Canseco’s Vindicated dropped from No. 5 to No. 15 on the best-seller list. Coming soon to the remaindered section of your favorite bookstore.
So where’s this merger of XM and Sirius I keep hearing about?
When my wife leased her car, it came with a trial subscription to Sirius, which, of course, is the satellite radio station that does not carry the baseball channel.
Nevertheless, I found this entertaining series of Baseball Confidential on iTunes and highly recommend it, based on the interview with Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter. The program was hosted by the Hall’s Brad Horn and produced in a very professional manner (as opposed to those podcasts that sound like the host is talking into a tin can in a wind tunnel; even some of ESPN’s content is guilty of these crimes against audio. Shame, shame.)
In addition to Sutter, the interviewees include:
It’s worth noting that everyone but Sutter has been the subject and/or author of a book.
By the way, XM offers a free trial.
The “spring edition” of my semi-annual Bookreporter.com baseball review roundup takes an “anti-Vindicated” spin, concentrating on books that look at the good behind the game, including:
Remember “The Book,” that Bible-like tome where-in lay all the answers to baseball strategy? Forget it, according to this article in The Wall Street Journal.
Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, Ron Washington, and Co. are rewriting the rules, making it up as they go along, bucking traditional/ conventional wisdom to tailor their maneuvers to the modern game. With complete games by pitchers almost unheard-of, micromanagement of match-ups becomes even more critical, as do defensive alignments.
With all these manipulations, is it any wonder that games take so long?
Time to play catch-up:
From a rival site about baseball book reviews, this piece on Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and The Say Hey Kid (another of those books that uses words like “greatest” and “forever” in its title).
The 19th-century answer to George Steinbrenner. From Nine.
This is a PDf version of the original. Sorry for the inconvenience, but you probably have to scroll down a bit.
According to Jon Friedman on MarketWatch.com, it’s Sports Illustrated’s Gary Smith.
Perhaps a secret to his success is that he maintains a distance from his peers. “I don’t read that much sports journalism,” he said. He prefers fiction and philosophy, which shouldn’t surprise his fans because he’s a master storyteller and amateur philosopher.
The Wall Street Journal published this item about the long-in-the-tooth pioneers of rotisserie/fantasy baseball, including Glen Waggoner, now the executive editor of ESPN books. There’s also a video clip of WSJ “fantasy sports expert” Nando DiFino on these fine fellows who revolutionized the way the game is enjoyed, for better or worse, by thousands of ersatz general managers.
by Steve Johnson, as critiqued in the Gary (IN) Post-Tribune.
Upshot:
Chicago Cubs fans will soon receive an opportunity to enjoy a gem that will give them an appreciation of the history and heritage of one of the country’s most beloved sports franchises.
Here’s a PSA from an unexpected source, the American Jewish Committee, extolling the benefits of working together for a common cause. The cartoon was one of four in a series designed “to foster tolerance and human rights,” according to the edition of Variety (April 21, 1954), which gave AJC its annual award “for the best use of television in the field of human relations.”
The 60-second spot — produced in 1951 by Milton E. Krents, the Committee’s director of radio and television, was performed by Tom Glazer, a popular folk singer of the era, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” with lyrics by Lynne Rhodes; Fred Arnott provided the artwork.
The April 28, 1951 issue of TV Guide included a feature on the baseball ad for its “Kids Korner” section, calling it “The little illustrated song with the big message.” An AJC memo, dated April 14, 1952, announced that the cartoons had received “a special award from the 16th annual American Exhibition of Educational Radio and TV Programs, sponsored by the Ohio State University’s Institute for Education by Radio-Television.” They were evidently very popular, appearing “on a regular basis by 77 of the 108 television stations in the United States,” according to the memo.
Our nation is like a baseball team. Only when people of all races and religions team up can the USA roll up a winning score.
AJC promo material
The LiterateLives blog highlights two baseball titles for young adult readers: Mike Lupica’s The Big Field, and Six Innings, by James Preller.
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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