Baseball Books

Wes Parker's story is fascinating--as is, as the book points out, his inclusion on this, the one name out of nine guaranteed to elicit puzzlement.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/All_Time_Gold_Glove_Team.shtml

On to this now:

http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348440741l/6211199.jpg

http://www.bhcpress.com/publishImages/Books_Morgenstein_A_Mound_Over_Hell~~element149.jpg

It’s 2098 and the last season of baseball -- forever. After the ravages of WWIII, the once all-American sport is now synonymous with terrorism and treason. Holograms run the bases for out-of-shape players and attendance averages fifteen spectators per game. The only ballpark left is Amazon, once known as Yankee Stadium.

America, nearly wiped out by radical Islam, has established a society based on love. Religion, social media, and the entertainment industry have been outlawed. All acts of patriotism are illegal, and the country is led by Grandma. Heading up the Family in her home base in the Bronx, she works tirelessly to build a lasting legacy for the future.

As baseball historian Puppy Nedick prepares for opening day, a chance encounter lands him face-to-face with former baseball greats. Determined not to go down without a fight, the players band together to revitalize the game for one last hurrah.

But not everyone wants peace. Will baseball become the catalyst for WWIV, or will it save America?

out on march 29!

prod. steve bannon

America, nearly wiped out by radical Islam, has established a society based on love.

I feel like if I repeated this sentence out loud 1000 times I would achieve some kind of enlightenment

but I can't because every time I even think of it I start giggling

Um you guys you can read the text of this in Google Books and it's everything you dreamed of and more

When baseball writers wander astray (Bill Reynolds, Red Sox book above, writing about Bill Lee):

"The article caught the outrageousness of Lee, everything from his fascination with the British rocker Warren Zevon..."

http://watchtowergeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/jem-1.png

Great story from the Red Sox book (Bill Lee, who else?). In '75, in the midst of all the furor over busing--the book's almost as much about that as about baseball--Lee, a vocal supporter, got some death threats, and also a visit from the Winter Hill Gang, local mobsters who showed up at his house and threatened to kill him.

"We eventually ended up going out for pizza and getting drunk together, but it was scary there for a while."

Congratulations to Jim Leeke, Steve Steinberg, and Bill Young, who were selected as the winners of the 2018 SABR Baseball Research Awards, which honor outstanding research projects completed during the preceding calendar year that have significantly expanded our knowledge or understanding of baseball.

Leeke was honored for "From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During The Great War," published by University of Nebraska Press.

Steinberg was honored for "Urban Shocker: Silent Hero of Baseball's Golden Age," also by Nebraska.

Young was honored for "J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball," published by McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

https://sabr.org/latest/leeke-steinberg-young-win-2018-sabr-baseball-research-awards

Roger Angell is 98 (!) today. This is my favorite passage of his: pic.twitter.com/jRvjIcI3Tx

— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) September 19, 2018

podcast

https://baseballbythebook.libsyn.com/

Saw two today I really want to read:

http://dellioandwoods.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/split.jpg?w=450
http://dellioandwoods.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/1976.jpg?w=450

I don't remember the '76 season being as memorable as '75 or '77, but Epstein's '70s book was really good, so I'm sure he'll turn up lots I've forgotten or never knew. Stuff I do remember: Fidrych, the AL batting race, Sparky Anderson's condescension towards Munson after the World Series.

i feel like being a fan in the '70s would have made for some good times. i'm too young to remember anything from the '70s (43 yrs old here) beyond a faint awareness of peak '70s baseball guys Dave Kingman and Bill Buckner (i grew up near Chicago), I just remember that I started watching the Cubs in 1982 -- rookie year Sandberg, Leon Durham hitting what seemed like a million home runs (uh, 22), and as a kid my favorite player was Bump Wills because...his name was Bump. Also I very faintly remember people talking up a young OFer named Mel Hall...oops.

Hundred pages into Stars and Strikes, really enjoying it. The '70s are still (and I guess always will be) my favourite decade for baseball. Obviously, nostalgia is a big part of that, but I'd also agree with something James once wrote, that the decade was a perfect mix of a whole bunch of different approaches to the game. Lots of 40+ HR guys, topped by Foster's 52 in '77; Carew threatened .400 more than once, and there was an endless assortment of other speedy, high-average players like Garr and Templeton and Rivers (many of whom don't fare well using modern metrics, but they were fun and exciting at the time); historically flashy seasons by starters (Carlton, Blue, Guidry), and the beginnings of the modern closer (bad for the game from this vantage point, but Marshall and McGraw and Hrabosky and Gossage and Fingers were all memorable). That was the biggest thing--so many characters. Don't have the book beside me, but there's this little detour about John Montefusco ("The Count," 1975's ROY) getting a big raise the next year and hosting a party at the San Francisco Playboy Club that kind of sums up the decade for me. Again, not cool by today's standards. I know.

Wasn't aware of (or, more like, had forgotten) some of the backstage drama over Toronto getting a franchise. The two leagues were fighting over the city at one point; the AL had given them the team after the whole Giants thing fell through, at which point the NL decided they wanted both Toronto and Washington, so they tried to block it. Meanwhile, the Seitz-Messersmith-McNally case was working its way through the courts, and Marvin Miller complained that the owners were so fixated on the Toronto issue, it was hard to get them to the table for negotiations.

One other thing that made it a great decade: a bunch of memorable WS.

1970 - only 5 games, but legendary defense from Brooks Robinson
1971 - 7 games, Pirates come back from 3-1 deficit, Clemente
1972 - 7 games, first A's title
1973 - 7 games, wild A's win over the barely .500 Mets
1974 - 5 games; one of two lousy Series
1975 - 7 games, on the short list of greatest-ever
1976 - 4 games, the other lousy Series
1977 - 6 games, Bronx Zoo, Reggie's 3 in a row
1978 - 6 games, more of the same, Welch strikes out Reggie
1979 - 7 games, Pirates come back from 3-1 (again), We Are Family

Seven great ones for sure, maybe eight, depending upon how you rate the Brooks Robinson Show. Sad and embarrassed to say I didn't watch the '79 Series--pretentious first-year university student who had put baseball behind him.

I read "Big Hair ..." a few months ago and I'll probably buy this one as well. A lot of the stories in that book left me wanting a more detailed treatment.

So I'm heading to Houston in May and figure to include a baseball game or two, are there any must reads on Houston or Texas baseball?

Jim Bouton's I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally, which covers his '70 season with the Astros. (He's in Houston for part of Ball Four, too.) "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be an Astro" is a basic text.

Now, the Astros are a team that likes to go out on the town,
We like to drink and fight and fuck till curfew comes around
Then it's time to make the trek,
We better be back to buddy's check,
It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro.

Now, Edwards is our catcher and he's really No. 1,
Dave Bristol said he drinks too much and calls some long home runs,
But we think John will be all right,
If we keep him in his room at night,
It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro.

Now, our pitching staff's composed of guys who think they're pretty cool,
With a case of Scotch, a greenie and an old beat-up whirlpool,
We'll make the other hitters laugh,
Then calmly break their bats in half,
It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro.

Now, Harry Walker is the one that manages this crew,
He doesn't like it when we drink and fight and smoke and screw,
But when we win our game each day,
Then what the fuck can Harry say?
It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro.

(Not a lot to do with George Springer, though, if that's more what you're looking for.)

Sounds ideal thanks! will let you know how I get on with it

Didn't know a thing about this till just now. Rob Neyer's a great writer.

http://i.harperapps.com/covers/9780062853615/x400.jpg

(It uses an Astros-A's playoff game from last year as a snapshot of "the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades.")

that's one crazy guitar chord

that's one crazy guitar chord

you can say that again!

From the Dan Epstein 1976 book: when the Angels brought Tommy Davis out of retirement in June, he was working as a promo guy for Casablanca Records (just taking off with Destroyer and "Love to Love You Baby"). Dick Williams would catch him shaving and making phone calls between innings. (For some truly inscrutable MVP support, look at Davis's 10th place finish in '73. He was a DH who slugged under .400.)

Neyer is the guest on the latest EW podcast (2nd half)

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1291-power-ball-to-the-people/

A couple more from Epstein (there's no end to them).

Long relief: Dick Tidrow relieves Ed Figueroa in the 7th inning of a 4-4 game vs. the Twins. He pitches 10.2 innings, gives up four hits and no runs.

Most highbrow promotion ever: Bill Veeck's "Ragtime Night," where they give away 10,000 copies of E.L. Doctorow's novel.

Two things I took away from the Epstein book:

1) How contentious player-manager relationships could be through the '70s. It was such a regular thing for players to badmouth their managers publically. Most of the managers were still old-school autocrats, and they'd often try to enforce dress codes and haircuts and whatever they felt like; on top of that, big money was starting to creep in, baseball was catching up to the contentiousness of the '60s, and managers fought (and resented) that. You hardly ever hear about player-manager friction anymore. (I don't think, anyway--am I wrong on that?) Managers had to adapt. I don't know who the last old-school-type manager was...Pinella?

2) That, in his own bumbling way--and based on personal vendetta--Kuhn might have accidentally made the right call on Charlie Finley's rebuked fire sale. (That's my opinion, not Epstein's.) Legally, Kuhn had no standing whatsoever--as Finley pointed out (to no avail), owners had been selling off players forever. But this was just as free agency was about to kick in. I wonder if it would have been too much shock to the system all at once. I can see where all the other owners, panicked over the loss of the reserve clause, might have followed Finley's lead and automatically tried to sell anybody and everybody playing out his contract (partly as a punitive measure). I don't know--but I can see where player movement for those first couple of years might have been so drastic that teams would have been unrecognizable from year to year. Everything would have sorted itself out soon enough, I suppose, but, to use that deathless phrase, I'm not sure if selling off Blue, Fingers, and Rudi would have been in the best interests of the game, at least in the short term.

Let's go with revoked fire sale instead.

Selig cancelled that loan from FOX to Frank McCourt that more or less forced his hand in selling the Dodgers (for $2B -- even when the bad guys lose, sometimes they still win). Legally it was questionable but the commissioner does have the power to do things in "the best interest of baseball". Finley didn't really need the money, but he liked treating his players as cattle, even more so than regular owners. Kuhn's decision can't be viewed in a vacuum, it was the culmination of more than a decade of the league having the deal with Finley's BS, despite the fact that the team was very successful on the field (the Dodgers made the playoffs a bunch of times under McCourt's ownership too). But I really don't think Kuhn cared about avoiding a "shock to the system", he just wanted to hurt Finley. Kuhn was way behind the times on every labour issue of his tenure, I can't credit him with the foresight of "easing" MLB into the free agency era.

Don't disagree at all about Kuhn's motives (I said as much in my first sentence)--he wanted to fuck over Finley, pure and simple. If it had been O'Malley or Yawkey or one of the old-guard owners making the sale, Kuhn wouldn't have intervened. I just think he did the right thing--or at least, at that moment in time, the best thing--for the wrong reasons. If that sale had gone through, I think it would have been a couple of years of bedlam.

Right, although I'm saying that even if the sales had been "bad for baseball" and led to a couple of years of bedlam (which I don't agree with), Kuhn would have made his move anyway because he never grasped what was good or bad for baseball in any context.

Started Jeff Katz's Split Season: 1981, the book I mentioned above. One of the big appeals of such books for me is taking note of major changes in the game. (Major changes from what seems like recent history--obviously such changes would be obvious if you read a book about Ted Williams or Cy Young.) Three for the few pages Katz spends on Len Barker's perfect game:

-- Barker was considered a hard thrower, sometimes erratically so; his fastball was clocked at 91 m.p.h.

-- Cleveland's PR guy had to get special permission from management to allow the Toronto Star's Alison Gordon into the clubhouse after the game.

-- The same PR guy arranged for the Today Show's Bryant Gumbel to speak to Barker the next morning (this had been the first perfect game since Catfish Hunter in 1968--it was national news). Barker cancelled because he wanted to sleep in. I'm trying to imagine a player today turning down a similar chance to (as I heard some YouTube analyst creepily say the other day) "leverage his brand."

A couple of show-biz anecdotes from the split-season book:

1) John Gavin, Janet Leigh's boyfriend in Psycho, was Reagan's Ambassador to Mexico (he accompanies Valenzuela when the latter gets invited to the White House).

2) Doug DeCinces was a cousin of Lisa Loring, who played Wednesday on The Addams Family. (I had no idea DeCinces was convicted of insider trading a few months ago...is he is prison right now?)

Neyer's Power Ball won the Casey Award for best baseball book of 2018. Has anyone else read it? I'd be interested in hearing what you thought. Honestly, I didn't like it that much--and I used to like Neyer's blog a lot. The baseball was fine, although it felt like a broad overview of very familiar terrain. The bigger problem I had was with the tone. Specifically all the exclamation marks. It was like the Seinfeld Jake Jarmel epsisode.

slightly OT, Neyer has started a podcast on the SABR site, it seems.

The premise didn't interest me very much, even though I've loved reading Neyer's stuff for most of his career. Maybe I'll pick up this book after all.

I finished reading Jon Pessah's "The Game", everything up until the fallout from the '94 strike is excellent, with a lot of cool insider looks into what all sides were trying to accomplish. Once he reached the so-called Steroid Era I felt as though I wasn't learning much that I didn't already know, but then again I was following much more closely during that time.

His fawning over the Yankees and especially Steinbrenner gets to be a bit too much. Somehow big Stein avoids catching much flak and is presented as this visionary figure who sees the big picture in ways that the other owners and even (especially?) the commissioner can't see.

Didn't know this was out there.

http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/el9lsa/picture27314104/alternates/FREE_1140/Pine%20Tar%20book%20cover

I guess you could get a book out of it if you pull the camera back far enough. Intrigued.

Found a first-edition Boys of Summer today, very good shape, for next to nothing. It will take the place of the stolen library copy Brian Masini passed on to me 40 years ago (I've been waiting for the Georgetown Library's version of Mr. Bookman to track me down ever since). I've never read it.

i tried to read it as a 9-year-old (or so, can't remember exactly which year) and was disappointed that it wasn't more explicitly about playing baseball. i expect that i'd like it a lot more these days

as is true with a lot of things, like say, brusselsprouts

Yeah, I think I tried at the time (probably 14 or 15) and didn't get very far. I take it it's not a book that someone that age is going to appreciate.

Same here. Should probably read it again after some thirty years.

just picked up that book via someone giving it away on a local "free shit" FB group, got it along with Eight Men Out and W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe.

I read Boys of Summer when I was 10 or 11 and loved it. So dirty.

https://sabr.org/latest/bjarkman-nowlin-grow-flagel-win-2019-sabr-baseball-research-awards

out today, from Lindbergh and Sawchik

https://tht.fangraphs.com/the-mvp-machine-review/

About a third of the way into The MVP Machine, really didn't know the extent to which these independent coaches/entrepreneurs were changing player development among big leaguers (I knew about Trevor Bauer a little, not so much about Justin Turner -- or that Marlon Byrd had jumpstarted JT's renaissance). Anyway, a must read. (You'll be surprised to read about the relevance of the hippocampus size of London taxi drivers.)