* Satchel among Times’ 100 notable books for the year

Congratulations to Larry Tye. His biography on Satchel Paige won a spot on The New York Times list of the year’s “notable books.”

It’s the only baseball title on this exclusive roster, though not the only sports book. Tye’s critically-acclaimed offering is joined by Andre Agassi’s Open.

* Bits and pieces

• The Daily Reflector ran this piece on Chasing Moonlight. Moonlight Graham was a North Carolina product.
• Bronx Banter ran a Q&A with Arnold Hano, author of the acclaimed A Day in the Bleachers, his account of the first game of the 1954 World Series.
• BaseballDigest.com’s review of Satchel, by Larry Tye. Upshot: “Before I read one page, I was impressed. Thoroughly researched, I thought this book might be the answer to so many poorly written biographies of baseball players. I thought Satchel would be the page-turner my summer reading list was missing. Alas, it was not.”
• The Washington Examiner’s review of Lew Paper’s Perfect. Upshot: “Baseball purists and non-fans alike will find a lot to enjoy in “Perfect,” a home run of a look back at Larsen’s gem, the golden age of baseball and the men who made the game great.”
• Will the madness never end? They’re still talking about the guilt or innocence of Shoeless Joe Jackson, as per Chicago Lawyer magazine.
• Will the madness never end, part II. “Alcor sues ex-employee to block Ted Williams cryonic expose,” in which said author, Larry Johnson, supposedly writes about the Splendid Splinter in Frozen: My Journey into the World of Cryonics, Deception, and Death. And more from John Kass of the Chicago Tribune.
• BostonRedThoughts reviews Mike Vaccaro’s compelling The First Fall Classic. Upshot: “Extremely well researched and written, The First Fall Classic is perfect book for a student of the game, or anyone looking for a great TRUE baseball story….” Jeff Frier’s interview with Vaccaro appear’s on BleacerReport.com.
• Here’s an interesting way to preview the post season: via baseball cards (which can be kept on a bookshelf).
• All Things Considered recently considered the best time for post-season games. Interesting thought processes that go into the decisions, which are made by the television gods with little concern for how the fans might be inconvenienced. The gentleman who was interviewed commented that his 10-year-old son has never seen a single pitch of a World Series game.  Most first pitches begin before nine o’clock; what time does that kid go to bed? You can hear the feature on the Oct. 18 podcast of Pop Culture, available on iTunes.

* RK reviews: The End of Baseball and Safe at Home

I don’t often read baseball fiction these days. I find them too hit-or-miss, pardon the metaphor. One problem is that authors often employ too much exposition, as if their readership knows nothing about the game. Those who do know a fair deal about how baseball is played or its history, might find this boring and even insulting. Still, this is one person’s opinion. Fiction is so subjective, which is another reason I dislike commenting negatively about the hard work of these writers, who obviously have a love for the game and the craft, otherwise they would have picked another topic. So kudos to them all for seeing their dreams through. The only thing I would strongly suggest, especially for those who self-publish: have someone look over the manuscript, or at least use spell-check. Nothing says “amateur” more than tons of typos (speaking as one who’s been guilty of that sin).

Having said all that, there are two titles from 2008 that do justice to its shared theme of African-Americans in the national pastime, a subject which is not told very often, other than in juvenile literature and/or books about Jackie Robinson.

Peter Schilling Jr. goes the pro route in The End of Baseball, a theory held by those in the game’s hierarchy when it came to the color line: allow black players in, and that’s the end of baseball as we know it.

The author poses a “what-if” scenario, allowing Bill Veeck to stock a team full of Negro Leaguers in the period immediately after World War II. He weaves real-life athletes and personnel such as Veeck, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Branch Rickey, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Roy Campanella, and many others in this against-all-odds story that may or may not come to the desired conclusion.

Schilling– who hosts the wonderful Mudville Magazine website — has a good eye for research and detail in this predictably sad and often shocking novel, which, at times, pounds the points home a bit overmuch: the degradations of finding suitable accommodations and places to eat; the seething hatred of opposing players and baseball’s administration; and the empathy of the far-seeing “maverick owner” trying to accomplish more than just keeping a faltering team afloat.

Safe at Home, by Richard Doster, picks up the game in small-town America, specifically the minors in the southwest in the early 1950s, as one team, faced with dwindling attendance and in dire straits, must decide whether to make an ultimate gamble and add a Negro to its roster.

This one is a little more cliched, using an enterprising and upright journalist as the voice of reason, urging others to rethink generations-held beliefs and do the right thing against the odds (again. One can easily picture this as a feature film, prehaps aimed at teaching tolerance to a younger audience. Think The Express) as a talented, shy player battles to win the respect of teammates and fans who were brought up with the belief that the races should not mix. To borrow from Schilling’s book, to do otherwise would mean “the end of baseball” and other slices of long-held customs.

* Baseball theater

Channel surfing over the weekend. Found a few baseball flicks of varying quality.

Don’t Look Back: The Story of Leroy “Satchel” Paige, a 1981 biopic starring Lou Gossett, Jr. as Paige, Cleavon Little as some annoying sidekick named “Rabbit,” and Clifton Davis as Cool Papa Bell. Came in on a scene where Paige is auditioning for a spot with Bill Veeck’s Cleveland Indians. Lots of close-ups of a determined ballplayer, mixed with long shots of the stand-in throwing strikes to an ersatz Lou Boudreau. Generally wooden performances, full of cliches and the obligatory homespun Paige quotations. One thing that struck me: Gossett’s glove was waaay too modern for the 1940s. Shame, shame, set dresser!

The other movie — The Final Season — was also a time-worn story or good vs. evil, earnest little vs. unfeeling, more powerful entity. In this case, it’s Norway High School, a small time institution that’s doomed to merge with a larger, more efficient “big city” school. Too bad, because their baseball team was one of the best, a dynasty, in fact. Based on a true story, it’s a combination of Field of Dreams meets The Rookie. Underdog triumphs in the wake of overwhelming odds. Yawn. Good cast, including Powers Booth, Sean (Rudy) Astin, Tom Arnold, Larry Miller as a stereotypical sports reporter, James Gammon (manager Lou Brown in the Major League franchise), and Dayton Callie (Charlie Utter from Deadwood), but, again, a cliche-lidden flic.

* Bookshelf Q&A: Larry Tye

Larry Tye, author of the critically-acclaimed new biography of Satchel Paige, is a busy (and happy) man these days, making the rounds of TV and radio shows and enjoying reading the favorable reviews as they pile up.

He was gracious enough to take some time from his hectic schedule to answer a few questions from The Bookshelf about the difficulties in working on the project and the the fun but sometimes frustrating problem of answering the same questions from myriad interviewers.

* * *

Bookshelf: What did you hope to accomplish when you began working on the book?

Tye: I hoped to answer my questions, and presumably others’, about whether any pitcher could really have been as spectacular as my dad and others said that Satchel was.

We all knew about him, but for most everyone that knowledge was just an inch deep. That is understandable since Satchel played his first 22 years in the pros in the shadows of the Negro Leagues, with few reporters around to record his performance and no record-keepers tracking what he did.

Bookshelf: With so much anecdotal information, how did you go about sorting fact from fiction?

Tye: I interviewed more than 200 aging Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers who had played with or against him. I dug up old clippings from black papers and ones in small towns where he barnstormed. I talked to his family, his friends and others, and tried to piece it all together into a portrait that separates myth from fact and portrays the real Leroy “Satchel” Paige. You can judge whether or not I succeeded.

Bookshelf: Do you think being a white author brought anything different to the table?

Tye: Sure. It made some people hesitant to talk to me, at least at first, but over time I think it didn’t matter whether I was black or white, green or purple. What mattered to most of the old ballplayers and others I talked to was that I was the one who was there and they had a chance, many for the first time, to tell their stories about this most extraordinary baseball star and man.

Bookshelf: Were the rules in the Negro Leagues the same as organized ball, in particular the requirement of five innings to earn credit for a win? Paige claims to have won thousands of games, yet he seems to have pitched a relatively low amount of innings in many exhibitions.

Tye: Yes and no. Most of the rules were the same in terms of how the game was played and how stats were kept, or how they were supposed to be. But the league didn’t keep good records because it couldn’t afford to, and so Satchel kept his own. When it came to wins and other matters, those records at times didn’t conform to the official rules. What amazed me, was how most of the time he seemed to have gotten it right, and sometimes he even understated his accomplishments.

Bookshelf: How much of Paige’s self-proclaimed information — as well as that of his contemporaries — do we have to take with a grain of salt? Having read Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends, I’ve become tremendously skeptical when it comes to relying on memory. I know you address this towards the end of the book.

Tye: Skepticism is critical, but so is faith. Memory does play tricks, and brilliant storytellers like Satchel can’t help but embellish. What is surprising is how precisely so many players who didn’t know one another recount the most sensational of Satchel’s accomplishments in almost precisely the same terms, from his calling in his outfielders to his throwing balls over matchbooks. After a while any decent journalist or author develops a sense of what to believe and what to be skeptical about.

Bookshelf: Tell us about the creative process: How did working on Satchel differ from your previous books? Did this one have a special interest for you, or was it “just” another project?

Tye: It was more fun than any writing/reporting I have done in 20 years of journalism and 10 of book-writing. Imagine, for two fulls years, being able to call baseball and race work.

Bookshelf: Listening to one of your many interviews, this particular host seemed less “into it” than others. Do you ever get that kind of vibe?

Tye: Without naming names, sure, you can tell when an interviewer really cares and when she or he is going through the motions. The latter is understandable if unfortunate.

Bookshelf: Does your publisher send the media a list of talking points? I can’t imagine they (or their staff) read every book cover-to-cover and create their own questions…

Tye: Yes, we send a list of questions. Good interviewers generally reframe them or use their own entirely.

Bookshelf: And what about you? Does it ever get tiring answering the same questions over and over? Especially given the topic, do you ever find yourself mixing up the “facts?”

Tye: Sure, I sometimes kick myself after an interview realizing that I got a fact wrong. But NO, I never get tired of telling Satchel’s stories or mine.

* Happy Birthday, Satchel

Born this date (or not) in 1906.

Paige has returned to the public eye thanks to Larry Tye’s excellent new biography.

Here’s a brief review from Booklist, the magazine of the American Library Association (thanks to Greg Spira for the tip).

And one more go around — for the time being, at least — on NPR, in this case The Leonard Lopate Show:

* RK Review: Satchel: The Life and Times of An American Legend

by Larry Tye (Random House).

As appears on Bookreporter.com.

* But of course, the Irish love baseball

From the Irish Times, this review of Tye’s new book.

Upshot:

[F]ormer Boston Globe reporter Larry Tye has done a fine job of separating fact from fiction in Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend , published by Random House. Combing through back issues of black-audience newspapers of the day and the memoirs of Paige’s contemporaries, he has produced a book that may not solve the riddle, but is the nearest thing to a definitive account possible.

* Review: Satchel

The Christian Science Monitor published this review of Larry Tye’s well-received biography of the Negro League legend.

Upshot:

It’s about time somebody wrote a good biography of Satchel Paige, the great baseball pitcher, personality, showman, and entrepreneur. In Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, journalist Larry Tye has done just that.

Likewise, the Boston Globe:

Tye’s writing is a pleasure, relaxed but economical, providing a more vivid sense of life in black baseball than any of the several other books on Paige and the Negro Leagues.

By the way, congratulations to Tye for having his book break into The New York Times‘ best-seller list this week. It debuted at number 15 last week and is at number 13 this week. Joe Torre’s The Yankee Years is in the ninth spot, having spent 14 weeks on the list.

* Review: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend

The New York Times’ Janet Maslin published this review of Larry Tye’s new biography of the great Paige.

Upshot:

“All the African-American luminaries had climbed to the top of their fields, but none did it with Satchel’s over-the-top style and charm,” Mr. Tye claims. “And none of the others had been seen up close by as many blacks in as many places as the itinerant Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige.”

Mr. Tye’s willingness to come to these or any other level-headed conclusions about his subject is made remarkable by the elusiveness of hard facts.

***

Mr. Tye … approaches the Paige story with a grasp of what it meant for black men to be traveling all over segregated America….

He also radiates an obvious affection for Mr. Paige, but his is not a fan’s unquestioning love. He sees the aloofness beneath the crowd-pleasing charm, the caginess behind the exaggerated sang-froid and the selfishness behind the self-promotion.

“Satchel” succeeds in putting these attributes into perspective.