Released. For Eric Pettis, that word took on entirely different meanings within the span of one tumultuous week.

On March 25, the 23-year-old right-hander released his first book. Entitled, Just A Minor Perspective: Through the Eyes of a Minor League Rookie, this online-only tome chronicles Pettis’ 2010 campaign as a member of the Class A Short-Season Williamsport Crosscutters. It’s the sort of account that Minor League Baseball fans should lap right up, chock full of anecdotes about what life in the lower ranks of professional ball is really like.

And what it is is an inherently awkward existence, in which “home” means sleeping on balloon-adorned sheets in a host mother’s basement and “road” equals claustrophobic bus rides and hotels of questionable hygienic standards. Perhaps the only true constant in the midst of this surreal lifestyle is a steady diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Click here to read the full Q&A

Juicing the Game by Howard Bryant — I’ve flipped through different parts of this book on various occasions, so I figure now it’s time to sit down and put it all together. Beginning with the origins of Major League Baseball’s devastating labor strike in 1994 (and Bud Selig’s concurrent rise to the commissioner’s office), Bryant recounts the skyrocketing revenues, growth of players’ bodies and shattering of long-standing records that took place over the next decade.

Leon Day, as depicted in Mark Chiarello’s ‘Heroes of the Negro Leagues’ (Photo / copyright Mark Chiarello)

Although not a new book, Heroes of the Negro Leagues will still stand out among the annual flood of springtime baseball offerings.

The book’s narrative is provided by Jack Morelli, but it’s the illustrations by Mark Chiarello that carry it. A series of watercolors of Negro League ballplayers, some were originally published as trading cards in 1990, while others Chiarello painted specifically for the book. When first published as trading cards, many were the first time the player’s images had ever appeared as such.

Chiarello is best known for his work in the comic book field, as is Morelli for his lettering and editorial efforts.

In Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, the depiction of a certain aspect of college, that nagging fear that you cannot possibly exist in a world outside the small fishbowl of your university, is beautifully rendered.  The characters in this book absolutely cannot exist without their alma mater. The fear of graduating, and losing their familiar world, is crippling. Henry Skrimshander, Mike Schwartz and Guert Affenlight are like my worst fears come to life: they are what happens if you don’t force yourself to move on after university.

This is the story of Henry Skrimshander, whom Mike Schwartz discovers and recruits to play baseball at Westish College, and his friends and associates. The baseball is a powerful force throughout the book.  The book is a stream of descriptions of the rhythm of the game, the reliance on your teammates, and the excruciating struggle to push your body beyond it’s limits. The characters melt downs are reflected in their bodies; and the author has a scientific, but kind of poetic way, of describing the body.

There were certain characters  that were constantly referenced but not developed enough. Pella’s  (Mike Schwartz’s girlfriend)x-husband, for example, was a constant reference but felt thrown in as an after thought. Some of the team members, particularly one who hooks up with Henry’s sister, were basically caricatures of a college student. The chef that both Pella and Henry worked for seemed to be forced into a few scenes, with no apparent narrative purpose.

A few books I’ve read recently are starting to blend together, and feel a bit stale. The Marriage Plot, Freedom, A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Art of Fielding are all brilliant novels, each in their own right. But each book follows  a similar recipe – beautiful prose + a cast of tragic characters + a smidge of romance + sharp observations/critiques of American culture + a deep exploration of each character’s motivations. They are dense; they make you think hard about what kind of person you should be striving to be; they are deeply moving while deeply depressing.

If you like those books, you will love The Art of Fielding.

Pitching in a Pinch by Christy Mathewson — First published in 1912, this work by inaugural Hall of Fame inductee Christy Mathewson is at various times autobiography, social observation and unique insight into the game as it was played a century ago. Mathewson, who won 373 games in the National League between 1900 and 1916, also offers a perspective as only he could on luminaries such as Rube Marquard, John McGraw and Honus Wagner.

Here’s how it hopefully works: If you have blogged a review of your own that isn’t already covered on the books blog, and you wish for us to include it, leave a comment here with a link to your post. We will try to highlight it, linking back to your full review. The goal is for this to be the best baseball-book outlet around.

You can find my MLB.com reviews of R.A. Dickey’s outstanding debut Wherever I Wind Up and our spring roundup, and feel free to add comments on those articles with your own thoughts about the books.

NEW AT MLB.COM:

Tell us what you think of the new-look MLB.com homepage, and while you’re at it, jump into the fun we are having with our HBO friends since we did a mashup of “Game of Thrones” and MLB 2012 — two seasons set to begin. Like we said on the MLB.com Blogs front, take a look at the mashup video, and then in your own blog post tell everyone who is going to take the crown in Major League Baseball. Lots of people looking forward to both seasons.

GUESS WHO MITCH WILLIAMS LIKES IN A.L.

MLB.com columnist and MLB Network studio host Mitch Williams just blogged about his American League prediction for 2012, and you can click here and find out who he likes. Make sure you are blogging your own picks right along with him and leave him some comments!

“I like adventure,” R.A. Dickey writes in his book Wherever I Wind Up, which hit bookstores on Thursday. He is talking on page 289 about spending part of his first Mets season in 2010 at a condo in Greenwich, Conn., belonging to former Met Shawn Green.

Dickey, his wife, Anne, and their three young children toughed out five sweltering days without power because the management company evidently wasn’t told he was coming. . . . Read More

You really shouldn’t mess with Ray Knight.  At 6 ft 1” and 185 wiry strong pounds, the former gold glove boxer had a fast and stunning jab.  On July 22, 1986 in the 10^th inning at Riverfront Stadium, that is exactly what Eric Davis did.  Davis stole third and laid on top of the Mets third baseman.  As they separated, Ray popped Davis on the chin.  Chaos ensued.  The dugouts and bullpens emptied.  Catcher Gary Carter pinned Davis to the ground as shouts and threats poured from the Reds outfielder.  After a 10 minute delay things settled down.  Knight, Davis and Mets outfielder Kevin Mitchell were ejected.

The score was tied.  The Mets were out of 3^rd basemen and back-up outfielders.  Manager Davey Johnson placed Gary Carter at 3^rd base, where he had not played since sandlot days.  Johnson sent lefty reliever Jesse Orosco to the outfield.  He placed righty reliever Roger McDowell on the mound.  For the next 5 innings, Johnson shuffled Orosco and McDowell back and forth from the mound to the outfield depending on who was hitting.  Meanwhile, Gary Carter had the time of his life playing 3^rd base as the Mets won it with 3 runs in the 14^th.

Carter gleefully embraced that chance to play 3^rd.  He grabbed a fielder’s glove, whipped off his catchers gear and thought, “This is great !  I get to play Brooks Robinson’s position.”

That was how Mr. Carter approached life.  All of it.

A Dream Season.  Gary Carter with John Hough.  Harcourt Brace.  1987.

Dream Season is the story of a dream fulfilled.  Gary Carter grew up in Fullerton, California, playing wiffle ball with his older brother, Gordy, in back of their home.  He spent a lot of time standing at the plate, dreaming he was Mickey Mantle. 

World Series.  2 outs. 2 men on.  Bottom of the 9^th.   Team down by 2.

He spent a lot of time thinking about Ernie Banks.  19 MLB seasons.  512 homeruns.  Two time MVP.  He thought of how Ernie Banks never played in a World Series.

Young Carter would give anything to play in a World Series, he thought.

After being drafted and signed by the Expos in 1973, Carter progressed through 3 minor league seasons and landed in Montreal.  There he established himself as an All Star catcher with a big smile and a knack for hitting with men on base.

Clubhouse haters were jealous of Carter’s popularity.  The Hawk, HOF’er Andre Dawson, kept his distance.  Ellis Valentine and Warren Cromartie, among others, mocked the catcher.

Carter earned numerous accolades & achievements while an Expo, including 7 All Star appearances, 4 Gold Gloves, 2 Silver Sluggers, 1 RBI title, 2 All Star Game MVP awards, and 5 times garnering NL MVP votes.

Team owner Charles Bronfman resented his All Star catcher.  Expos President John McHale had talked Bronfman into signing Carter for $14 million over 7 years in February of 1982 to preclude Carter from leaving via free agency.

$2 Million may be what a mediocre reliever earns today but it was top dollar in 1982.  Only Dave Winfield and George Foster were pulling down $2 Mill at that time.

Bronfman was dissatisfied with Carter.  He hit well, averaging .285 B.A., with 24 or more homers and 94 RBI from 1982 to 1984.  Bronfman wanted more. 

LA Times columnist Jim Murray wrote, “What does Gary Carter have to do to be appreciated ?  If he were to save an infant from a burning building, the mother would ask, Where is my kid’s hat ?”.

Bronfman wanted Carter to lead the Expos to the World Series. It didn’t happen. In successive years after the contract signing, the Expos finished third, third and fifth.

On Dec. 10, 1984, the Expos sent Carter to the Mets for four players including Hubie Brooks.

The Expos finished no better than third for the 7 seasons that followed.

The book details his days as an Expo, the departure from the dysfunctional Montreal locker room and the arrival in the nirvana of the Mets organization, studded with young hitting and pitching stars.

Carter takes us through the championship season, one of the last years before the widespread tainting of MLB by performance enhancing drug use.  It’s a story from a slightly more innocent time, told to us by a God fearing family man.

Carter captures the demise of the 1986 Boston Red Sox in great clarity.  Some golden nuggets:

The guilt of the monumental “passed ball” in Game 6 is placed on Rich Gedman’s shoulders.  The pitch was wild but it was obvious exactly where that ball was headed.  It was a catchable ball.  That is why Wilson, the batter, was able to get out of its way. 

Carter repeatedly calls Marty Barrett “a little pest.”  Barrett earned the sobriquet.  He batted .433 in the 2-hole between Boggs and Buckner.

Bruce Hurst did not live up to Bob Ojeda’s scouting report as “soft”.  Carter said that Hurst could pitch in any league.  He was super.

Calvin Schiradi had been the stopper in the Sox bullpen all year.  But Calvin’s former team mates on the Mets knew they could hit Cal.  They did, hanging 2 losses and a 13.50 ERA on him in the Series.  Schiraldi’s failures were the key to the World Series defeat.

Interestingly, Carter cites Mookie Wilson’s desire and positive energy as a reason that the ball slipped between Buckner’s legs.  Wilson played all out as a sub in 1986 after having lost his starting job in the outfield.  When Wilson weakly hit a Bob Stanley pitch up the line in the bottom of the 10^th in Game 6, he busted to 1^st base with everything he had.  Wilson’s speed was on Buckner’s mind when he took his eye off the ball for a micro-second, at exactly the wrong time, according to Carter.  It made all the difference.

Carter closes this book by recognizing that he had reached the World Series, his promised land, and that he would not end up as Ernie Banks did.  He thanked Jesus Christ.

With the passing of Gary Carter on Feb. 16 came multitudes of praise for a decent, wholesome, fun loving man, a man who loved his wife, Sandy, and children.  There is nothing in this 25 year old book to make you think otherwise.  He takes his shots in a fair manner and keeps this very interesting book positive.

There’s no better time to pick this book up for a read.  It helps to put Gary’s life, now complete, in perspective.  And helps us do the same with our own.

Go Sox.

Baseball in the Lone Star State by Tom Kayser and David King — The history of professional baseball in Texas goes well beyond the state’s two big-league franchises in Arlington and Houston, with organized roots dating back to the 1880s and including teams from all across the South and Midwest. In what amounts to a breezy, informative history of the Texas League, Kayser and King examine over 100 years’ worth of unique characters, stories and records that continue into the 21^st century.

Glorious things come to mind when thinking of Bob Welch, the right handed power pitcher with a 211 – 146 record & 3.47 ERA over 17 years.  He is the last major leaguer to win 27 games.  He pitched in 4 World Series, earning rings in ’81 and ’89.

Welch is the winner of the 1990 Cy Young, trumping Roger Clemens even though his E.R.A. was 2.95 and Roger’s was 1.93.

As a Dodger he played with Garvey, Baker, Sutcliffe and Fernando.  As an Athletic he teamed with Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckersley, Ricky and Jose.

As a 21 year old, he struck out Reggie Jackson in the ’78 Series.

I did not used to think of Bob Welch as a former alcoholic who was on a sure fire path to an early death. Doomed until Fred Claire and Tommy LaSorda intervened.

Reading this book changed that perception.

Five O’Clock Comes Early.  A Cy Young Award Winner Recounts His Greatest Victory.  Bob Welch and George Vecsey.  (1982).  1991/Fireside edition.

“Of course, the Welches are a drinking family.”, writes Welch.

The Welches lived in Ferndale, MI and sent Bob to Hazel Park High School.   His family came from Paducah, KY.  They were driven by the Great Depression and WWII employment opportunities in the Motor City.

The Welches came north in search of a better life.

“Of course, the Welches are a drinking family.”

He remembers talking his first drinks at age 10 at a wedding, when he and a cousin guzzled down abandoned 7 & 7’s.

He got drunk for the first time at age 15, when he chugged a bottle of Mogen David before attending a football game with a bunch of friends who each slugged down a bottle of pre-game booze.

“Some of the other kids couldn’t keep it down…I was a good drinker.  I could guzzle down a lot of beer, too, more than most guys.”

“Pot or cocaine made me jump around, want to eat, want to go to sleep…I liked depressants and I liked the feeling of getting drunk…You could sit in a bar all night and drink and tell stories and laugh your ass off.”

Young Welch’s daily passion for drinking became a daily habit early on.  He suffered from frequent black outs, not remembering his verbal abuse of family, friends and strangers, or his physical destruction of property, or the embarrassing scenes in restaurants.

By the time he reached the major leagues he was lost; a 21 year old reliever for Tom LaSorda’s Dodgers, drinking beer during games and kicking in hotel doors at night.

Welch was set up to fail.  He grew up in a drinking home.  His habit grew unchecked until he was on the path of self-destruction.

The search for a better life is Mr. Welch’s journey.

Hazel Park kids were tough.  They were greatly competitive in sports, and equally competitive when chasing women, drinking beer or playing pool.  After a game, Hazel Park folk head for the Rainbow Bar to trade insults, cuss up a storm, eat pizza, and buy a round.  “And drink some of those beers just to show I was one of the guys.”, says Welch.

Raised on Howard, Giff and Dandy, bred on McLain, Kaline, Harwell and Lolich, Bob Welch was equal parts Detroit fan and local sports star.

It wasn’t all about baseball, though.

He loved to shoot the basketball.  He was so confident that he sought games against black players in the city.  He won the Detroit City P.A.L. Championship while moonlighting on the West Side Cubs.

He was unable to sit still.

He was an often injured kid.  By the time he was 8, he broke his arm, fractured his collar bone and took 10 stitches in the head in 3 separate instances.  Parrot fever threatening his life at age 11, causing a 39 day hospital stay and requiring Bob to wear drainage tubes in his ears for 1 year. 

His injuries persisted until his sophomore year in college, when he tore up his knee and committed to stop taking risks with his body.

“I thought the scouts were interested and I got it in my mind to be the next Mickey Lolich.  I kept waiting for the Tigers to draft me.”

But, the Cubs took him in the 14^th round of the 1974 draft and offered $5,000.  “…hell, I could have cleared 5 grand selling marijuana in the neighborhood.”, wrote Bob.

Welch chose college instead of the Cubs.  Many schools wanted him, but Eastern Michigan State’s Ron Oestrike and Roger Coryell cared the most about him.

Welch drank his way through EMU.  He drank right through freshman and sophomore years and into the subsequent off season when he toured Japan with a college all star team coached by the famed Ron Dedeaux of U.S.C..

“You’ve got to stop drinking.  You act just like an alcoholic when you’ve had a drink.”, Deadeaux told him.

That was the first time anyone had confronted him about his drinking.  He denied and deflected Dedeaux.  But he never forgot what the Coach said.

As a junior, Welch progressed well toward the June draft until his elbow exploded.  Surgery was required.  As he rehabbed, most of the scouts disappeared.  All of them except for the Dodgers’ Dale McReynolds, that is.  McReynolds kept showing up. He liked what he saw. 

He was picked by the Dodgers in the 1^st round of the 1977 Draft.  The team flew Welch to L.A..  They wined him, dined him and had Dr. Frank Jobe examine him. They suited him up for a tossing session at Dodger Stadium.

Welch remembers Dodgers Stadium being so bright and clean that day that you could eat off the floors.  (A striking contrast to the dirty, run down park operated now by Frank McCourt.)

Nobe Kawano gave him a uniform.  He dressed silently near Don Sutton, Tommy John and Davey Lopes.

The Dodger brass watched Welch throw in the bullpen.  “…and I knew I had some really nasty shit.”

His agent, Bob Fenton arranged a $55,000 signing bonus and off to AA San Antonio went Welch.

After striking out many and walking few in the minors, LaSorda called up Welch.  He debuted on June 12, 1978.  He was still 21 years old.

Lasorda used him in relief 10 times.  He started Welch in 13 games.  The pride of Hazel Park went 7 – 2, with a 2.02 ERA and 3 saves.  Welch did not deliver an overall good performance in the World Series, but he did have his star moment when striking out Reggie.

Welch would contribute in relief and as a starter in 1979, too, going 5 – 6, 3.98 with 5 saves.  But he was displaying risky behavior.  He learned that he could slip into the dugout during the game and down a can of beer before anyone noticed he was gone, or so he thought.  In addition to getting a buzz-on during games, he showed up for games hammered.  Team mate Rick Sutcliffe sobered him up more than once. 

Bob was getting drunk every day.  He was drunk as soon as he had one drink.  He frequently stayed up all night drinking.

None of this was new.  Bob had been acting this way since college.  No one except Rod Dedeaux had said anything to him about it.

That changed in January of 1980 when the Dodgers arranged an intervention.

The rest of the story is about how Welch stopped drinking and faced his fears during an extended stay at an Arizona rehab facility.

Hats off to LaSorda and Claire for making Welch the first participant in a newly established alcohol treatment program with The Dodgers.  They saved his life.  He owes the last 15 years of his baseball career and everything else to them.

You’ll find the balance of the book honest, ugly and renewing.  If you have a friend you suspect is an alcoholic this book is of special value.  You’ll learn there are 20 questions.  If you answer yes to 3 of them, you are an alcoholic. 

Baseball is life.  Baseball is about so much more than just baseball.

Choose your cliché.

This is one book that proves it.

This book is the story of how Bob Welch found a better life.

Go Sox !

It will be the second book I have read by Dirk Hayhurst, although you may also know him as @thegarfoose on Twitter. His first (The Bullpen Gospels) was fantastic, I remember laughing a LOT when I read it, so I hope this one will be just as good. If it’s anything like the first one, I’ll probably be finished with it by tonight, I just couldn’t put it down.

The Mental Game of Baseball by H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl — Another baseball season is on the horizon and I’m lucky enough to be playing on an actual team again this summer, so the time is ripe for me to read Dorfman and Kuehl’s seminal 1989 work examining the non-physical approach to the game. Widely praised by players, coaches and fans alike, The Mental Game of Baseball delves into such areas as setting proper goals and maintaining a positive outlook while offering specific techniques to become a better ballplayer.

I picked up a crisp new copy of George Vecsey’s 2006 book, BASEBALL, at a bargain book sale.  An intoxicating black & white vintage Yankee Stadium photo beckoned from the dust jacket.

It is a pathetically short book of just 211 pages.  The Glen Stouts and John Thorns of the world crank out BB history books 2 or 3 times that length as fast as Kevin Youkilis changes wives, legal or otherwise.  I wasn’t expecting much.

I met Mr. Vecsey at a SABR function at a time when I had read the first 40 pages of BASEBALL.  Looking like a bearded monk or philosophy professor and in jacket & tie, Vecsey smiled warmly when he recognized which title I was asking him to sign.  “Oh, god !  This little book.  Great.”, he gushed.  He signed the title page, “To Karl, Thanks for caring about my history book.”

I did not start out liking the book.  By the time I was done I was connected to George Vescey’s personal family link to Our Game, and enlightened with a concise view of where Baseball now resides with Bud Selig and the owners.

BASEBALL is organized into 20 chapters.  Each tells a significant part of baseball’s narrative, from the origin of a bat and ball game by the nomadic Berbers of Libya to the four scandals that rocked the game between 1980 and 2010.

The writing is elegant and concise.  Vecsey covers ground quickly.  He reveals that Baseball evolved rather than being invented.  He tracks A.G. Spalding’s entrepreneurial rise. Doubleday is dismissed. The Deadball Era explodes with roughnecks and the occasional gentleman.  And then…The Black Sox.

Vecsey’s opens his chapter on the 1919 White Sox with 53 words straight from heaven.

“They are the lost boys of baseball, lashed together, eight of them, in a ship that can never return to harbor.  Even today, as the eight exiles from the 1919 Chicago White Sox bob outside the boundaries of the sport, they are a living reminder of what can go wrong when leadership fails.”

The author spends just 6 pages on the big fix.  Anyone who has read the Eliot Asinof book and seen the John Sayles film will recognize this summation of all the players and parts.  This is the Cliff Notes.  It is not satisfying, but is still pretty good, and wonderfully written.

The author moves onward, focusing on the Babe, Branch Rickey, the Negro Leagues, Radio broadcasters, WW II, Integration, Westward Expansion, Free Agency, the historical context of the Yankee ballclub, the International game, labor-management strife, four scandals (recreational drugs, Pete rose, Collusion, and P.E.D’s.), and finally, the reversal of an 86 year-old-curse, and others.

George Vecsey brings it home in the end with a story about how his kid brother Chris, a distinguished Professor at Colgate, plays Town Ball on July 4^th  in Hamilton , N.Y..  The annual game is played for fun with loose rules and teams made of men, boys and girls.  On one occasion, a batter was chased far from the diamond into a wooded stream in order not to be soaked, i.e., hit with the ball and made out.  After a wet crossing, the batter stood on the far bank, taunting his pursuers, who finally gave up and walked back.  The play that day on Colgate’s rugby lawn was all in fun, just as it was all in fun for Vecsey 50 years ago when he and his brother played the game as boys on the back lawn of their childhood home.

Vecsey has covered the game for 50 years.  He has lived with the game for 70 years.  He has shown us where the game lives in his heart.

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High Heat by Tim Wendel — As a Rangers fan who began following the team in the 1990s, the glaring set of eyes that grace this book’s front cover are unmistakable: they belong to flame-throwing lefty Randy Johnson, who shut down Texas’s powerful lineup on multiple occasions while with Seattle. Author Tim Wendel examines the history and true masters of the fastball in his new work, High Heat, from standard-bearers such as Bob Feller and Nolan Ryan to minor-league phenoms like Steve Dalkowski.

The new season opener is February 17.  A three-peat in the making, since the Gamecocks won the national championship the last two years in a row.  A three-peat would be the first in college baseball history.

The history of the baseball program at the University of South Carolina, 119-years long, is chronicled in the extraordinary book fashioned by co-authors, J David Miller and Ron Kule, with a foreword by NCAA Coach of the Year, Head Coach Ray Tanner.

The book’s purpose is to help generate the funds to help coach Tanner build a Miracle League ballpark in Columbia, S.C., where kids with physical disabilities can play baseball for th first time, and for the rest of their lives.

©Ron Kule, 2012. All Rights Reserved.  Any copies, reproductions or unauthorized use of these contents, in whole or in part, without express written permission of the copyright owner is prohibited and is a violation of all applicable copyright laws.  Permission to copy or use the materials may be obtained through KuleBooksLLC@gmail.com.

Recently, I received an email from a friendly writer named Jane Newcomer who asked if I would accept a free copy of her first novel called  ”Her Team” which is a story about a woman who wins the chance to manage the Boston Red Sox.  I like to read…I especially like to read about baseball and Jane was offering the book in eBook format so I could read it on my Kindle (which is second after my MacBook on my list of material things I don’t want to have to live without).  I’m terrible at writing reviews.  Back in the early days of my online life, I used to write movie reviews and I could never bring myself to being truly critical of them.  Same goes with most books that I read.  These days, the most criticism I can give a book is that I decided to stop reading it before I was finished (I’m at a point where I find time too precious to waste reading a book that I can’t stand).  So what I’ll say about “Her Team” is that I read the entire thing and enjoyed it!

It was definitely an idea I could get behind…fan wins the opportunity to manage a team for PR reasons…I once wrote a short story about a woman who became the Red Sox shortstop under similar circumstances…so it was fun to read someone else’s take on it.

So for $2.99 you can visit either Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble online and purchase the ebook “Her Story”.  I’d like to point out that, apart from the free eBook, I wasn’t “paid” to write up this entry.  Any time I can throw a writer a shout out, I’m happy to do it.  I would like to thank Jane for reaching out and giving me something entertaining to read during this off-season!

Texas Rangers by Eric Nadel — Published on the heels of the first playoff berth in franchise history, Nadel’s authorized account of the Texas Rangers begins in 1996 with their unexpected ride to the A.L. West title and subsequent loss to New York in the ALDS. From there, Nadel recounts the team’s humble origins in Washington, DC, its early struggles under a colorful array of managers and the 24 seasons’ worth of mostly mediocre baseball in North Texas that ensued before the ’96 division championship.

When you think of Bill White, do you think of a player that led integration of the Carolina League ?  A broadcaster who suffered & delighted in decades of cannoli talk in the Yankees broadcast booth with Scooter ?

How about the 4x all Star ?  The 6x Gold Glover ?  The announcer who had a good grip on (and kept a distance from) George Steinbrenner.  The N.L. President who was smack in the middle of the Pete Rose – Bart Giamatti pot boiler.  The guy who stopped the A.L. owners from blackmailing 50% of new franchise fees from their N.L. counterparts.

White is also the guy who watched from close range the self-destruction of Fay Vincent after Bart Giamatti’s sad passing, and the establishment of the Pseudo-Commissioner Era in which we currently live.

White’s life has been one successful string of accomplishments weaved through a sequence of important milestones for Our Game.

Uppity.  My life in Baseball.  My untold story about the games people play.  By Bill White with Gordon Dillow.  Grand Central, 2011.

Bill White titled his autobiography Uppity because as a black man that helped integrate Baseball, he carried an assertive attitude into the Carolina League in 1953 and maintained it until his playing career ended in 1969.  He was Uppity.  He likely still is.

In 1953, while batting on the road in Winston-Salem, he heard one obnoxious cracker chant, nigger ! nigger ! nigger !

White took his anger out on the ball, drilling it over the right field wall.

Then he heard the same cracker yell, “Well, Bill White, after that home run I guess I’ll have to call you Mister Nigger !”

The cracker crowd then chanted “Mister Nigger !  Mister Nigger !  Mister Nigger !”

Despite the ever present attempts at intimidation, White never backed down from a racist.  In fact, he found that every time he stood up for himself, the racists backed down.  Even on the road in the Carolina League.

White describes the impact that Jim Schoolboy Tugerson had on him as he suffered indignities in the minors. 

Tugerson, a 6’4” sidearm pitcher who roomed at one time with Hank Aaron in the Negro Leagues, signed with the Arkansas Bathers for the 1953 season.  The Cotton States League then kicked the Bathers out of the League for hiring black players.  The Bathers then moved to Knoxville in the Mountain States League. The Knoxville Smokies finished with a fine 70 – 55 record and Tugerson won 29 games.  He moved up to AA Dallas the next year, but he was already 31 years old and was destined to call it a career after 5 years in the Big D.

Tugerson’s advice was simple.

“Stay focused on the game.”, Jim would constantly tell me.  “Don’t react to those racist rednecks in the crowd calling you names.  They’re trying to sidetrack you, take your mind off the game.  Don’t let ‘em.”

It was good advice, from someone who had been there, and I took it.  I still heard the racist slurs coming from the stands, but I never let myself show any reaction to them.  I didn’t give the bastards the satisfaction.

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In Uppity, White gives us more than his memories of racism and civil rights progress through which he lived.

Among the precious recollections is a trove of anecdotes from the 18 years he broadcasted Yankee games with the Scooter, Phil Rizzuto.

Here’s a great on-air exchange involving Scooter & part-time announcer Fran Healy:

They were in Seattle, and they and the team stayed in one of those tall, modern, cylindrically shaped hotels.

Healy (on-air):  What did you do last night, Phil ?

Rizzuto:  Well, I didn’t like the room I had.

Healy:  Why ?

Rizzuto:  Well, it was a round room and I couldn’t corner my wife.”

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White shares how his family escaped poverty in the great black northern migration when he was a baby.  His mother insisted that African Americans came from a highly-evolved, even superior culture.  He was indifferent to a stingy contract offer by the NY Giants after Leo Durocher watched him whack home runs in Forbes Field during a private tryout.  (After 2 homers, Leo hustled White off the field in hopes that Rickey hadn’t seen him.)  But he signed after Leo OK’d a sweetener.

White developed into a strong hitter and slick fielder through a 4 year progression through Danville, Sioux City, Dallas and Minneapolis.  He arrived in the Polo Grounds for MLB duty under Bill Rigney in 1956, where he rang up a .256, 22, 59 season.  In addition to those rookie totals, White made the NL Top 10 with 15 SB’s and 4 HBP’s.  Not a bad start, but Uncle Sam would delay his sophomore year in the Bigs.

White served his Country in 1957 and 1958, then returned eagerly to the Giants, then just relocated to San Fran.  He got only 29 at bats.  He was now stuck behind future HOF’er Orlando Cepeda, who was having one of the greatest ROY seasons in history with .312, 25, 96.

More competition was on the way.  San Francisco had another 1^st Baseman killing it in AAA Phoenix with .319, 14, 89.   A 6’4” swatter named Willie McCovey.

In the Fall of 1958, Cepeda’s promise prompted the Giants to send White to St. Louis principally for Sam Jones.  McCovey would later inspire the Giants to trade Cepeda away, too.

The Giants thus played 3 young 1^st Basemen successively in 9 years, a cluster that would produce a combined .283 BA, 1,102 Homeruns, and 3,760 RBI over the course of their careers.  Boy, could the Giants pick ‘em .

White’s trade to St. Louis was a dream come true.  Despite that city’s reputation for racial bias, White was well treated and team ownership had his back.  There was an overt act of discrimination when White tried to buy a house in the suburbs, but the Cardinals pushed the sale through.  Once settled, White found his white neighbors sane and friendly.  (The developer was the dog.)

White put up great numbers in St. Louis, batting over .300 4x, named to the All Star Team 5x, and capturing 6 Gold Gloves.  Even better, after the Cardinals hoodwinked the Cubs out of Lou Brock in 1964, the Cardinals became a hot team, moving from the middle of the pack to capture the NL pennant on the last day of the ’64 season, and knocking off the Yankees in a 7 game series.

The wine was sweet.  The adulation intoxicating.  All was swell in St. Loo, until White publically corrected GM Bob Howsam at a team celebration.  White openly attributed the Championship to former GM Bing Devine.  Moments earlier, Howsam had stood up and taken all the credit for himself.

White was goose hunting in mid-October, ’64, when his car radio carried the announcement that he had been traded to the Phillies with Dick Groat and Bob Uecker.

The best part of his playing career was done.  White’s Cardinal stats totaled a .299 B.A., 140 Home Runs, and 627 RBI in 7 years.  Plus the All Star appearances and GG’s.

He would play 4 more MLB seasons but his numbers declined steadily.

White was uncharacteristically accepting of the end of his playing career.  “The game will tell you when it is time to leave, if you are willing to listen.”  So rare.

He listened.  And he didn’t mind leaving.  He had things to do.

XXXXXXXXX

You get so much value in this book.  The player memoir.  The broadcaster memoir.  The Baseball Executive memoir.  13 years playing.  18 years broadcasting.  5 years as League President.

The 40 pages on his time with Rizzuto are a hoot.  The chapter on Steinbrenner confirms (once again) that George was a sociopath.   The Executive story shows how an honest man can hang on, barely, in the shark tank with billionaires proficient in the art of gain.

 This book is a pleasure to read and packed with history.

Don’t miss it.

Go Sox.

Right before all this nasty business started, however, I had the pleasure of reading Spalding’s World Tour: The Epic Adventure That Took Baseball Around the Globe–And Made it America’s Game. An enjoyable and informative book, it only takes slightly longer to read the 280 some pages than it does to read the title. Author Mark Lamster has carefully recreated the globe-trotting tour that Albert Spalding, owner of the Chicago White Sox and budding sporting goods magnet, assembled as a way to promote baseball–and his products–all over the world.

It is amazing what elements of the game have remained the same since 1889, but most reassuring to me and definitely most humorous is the story that finds Spalding’s all-stars having arrived in Nice just in time for the “battle of the flowers,” a Carnival ritual in which folks assembled along the street to throw bouquets at passing carriages, whose occupants, in turn, threw them right back. Apparently, this was a highly organized flirtation party in which a bouquet of flowers actually had a useful purpose unlike today when they represent an account book tally mark confirming that yes, the man remembered the wedding anniversary, or that he’s sorry, or that whatever, blah, blah, blah. But I digress.

It just so happened during that particular battle of the flowers in 1889, that Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales was riding along in his carriage, flowers in hand, looking for some comely French lass at whom to chuck them. When the ballplayers discovered this fact, it was obvious what needed to be done. They pooled their money and bought two bouquets apparently based less on the artistic merits of their arrangements and more on their ballistic qualities. John Healy and Mark Baldwin, two pitchers, were assigned the task of garnering the Prince’s attention, the thinking being that they were most likely to be the surest bouquet tossers on the team. They were. Baldwin’s heave hit Albert on the cheek and when the Prince turned to gaze upon that comely French lass who clearly did not throw like any girl who the Prince had ever met, Baldwin nailed him right in the nose.

While the game has changed some since 1889, baseball players clearly have not.

Well friends, one of my favorite Christmas gifts was a $50 gift card to Amazon.com.  I enjoy a lot of the product categories that Amazon has to offer, but none more than the books!

And as an avid readers, I am always on the hunt for the next great read to throw into my personal ‘On-Deck Circle’.

So, I will officially list the titles of my newly acquired books on my ‘Required Reading’ page, but here is a picture of all six books that I recently scooped up:

Happy Reading!!

The imperfectly perfect life of Harry Kalas was a non-stop show.  He was the man in the bar that draws a crowd and stays until last call.  The man who never uttered a disparaging word about anyone.  A drinker and an addicted smoker.  A force of nature with a marvelous baritone voice.  He loved everyone. He followed the fun where it led him, which in Harry’s case was into the hearts of nearly everyone he ever met, including ballplayers, bartenders and pop icons.

HARRY THE K, the remarkable life of Harry Kalas.  Randy Miller.  2010.  Running Press.

He was a young man that wanted a degree but got the boot after freshman year from Cornell College, then subsequently graduated on time after partying through 3 more years at IOWA.

He was a man who never wanted to hurt anyone but somehow dumped his wife at age 49 for a younger woman, choosing a Partier (like himself) over a classic Mom and Wife.

Harry was born in 1936, the son of Harry Sr., at the time the Minister at Trinity Evangelical Church in Chicago.  His first home was three blocks from Wrigley Field.  But it was a certain Washington Senator that made Harry into a hard core baseball fan.  Under a drizzling sky at Comiskey Park in 1946, 10 year old Harry was seated next to the visiting Washington dugout.  Batting Practice was rained out.  Senator first baseman Mickey Vernon noticed the boy and pulled him into the dugout.  Vernon, a 7x AS and 2x batting champion, entertained little Kalas for 10 minutes, introducing him to players and giving him a ball.

Vernon touched Kalas’ heart.  Incredibly, they reconnected 25 years later in 1971 and remained in contact for the rest of their lives, speaking on the phone and visiting regularly.

Baseball was Harry’s #1 sport.  His true love.  He would become one of the hardest working and best prepared Baseball announcers in the U.S.. But he was also damn good at announcing football and hoops.

Harry’s career must rank as one of the most productive in history.  He broadcast collegiate sports at Iowa, simultaneously working high school basketball for a Quad Cities radio station.  He did play-by-play for High School Football & Hoops on KGU Radio in Hawaii, and later announced PCL AAA Hawaiian Islanders games from 1961 to 1964.  In 1965, he arrived in Houston to broadcast MLB games from the spankin’ new “5^th Wonder of the World”, the Houston Astrodome, and worked University of Houston Football games as well.  In 1971, Harry joined the Phillies broadcast team, first picking up Eagles Games in the offseason, and then traveling widely to do NFL games from San Francisco to New York, plus Notre Dame Football & Basketball games. He also broadcast Philadelphia Big 5 Basketball (LaSalle, Penn, St Joseph’s, Temple & Nova.) 

And he was continuously busy with commercial work.  Beginning in 1975 Harry became the #2 voice to John Facenda at NFL Films, where he worked until his death in 2009 on such programs as NFL Review and Preview, Pro Magazine, NFL Films Presents, and This is the NFL.  His gigs included work for General Motors, Campbell Soup, Coors Light, Animal Planet, movie trailers, narrated self-guided tours at the U.S. Mint, character profiles on the Cartoon Network and much more.

His resonant voice, keen intelligence, and social graces magnetically drew work to Harry just as they enchanted new friends.

His national identity will always be linked to his work with the Phillies and NFL Films, but it was in the  Philadelphia market where his fame first grew.  It is where his family took root, where he melded with the community and where Harry came to represent Philadelphia itself. 

He came to the Phillies in 1971, when they were a last place team in the NL East.  That’s where they stayed until 1974, when they rode Carlton, Schmidt & Luzinski to the start of 9 consecutive winning seasons, including 5 NL East Flags. Harry saw the transformation. The opening of The Vet. The firing of Frank Lucchesi.  The hiring of Danny Ozark.  The arrival of Pete Rose and the first world championship in 88 years of Philly baseball.   The Pennant in ’93.  The World Championship in 2008.

But it wasn’t all sunshine.  Far from it.

1993 was a sandwich year.  A Pennant, preceded by 6 losing seasons and followed by 7 more of them.  Those Kruk-Dykstra-Schilling Phils won at a .599 clip.  But the 13 years adjacent years carried an average winning percentage of .444, including 6 last place finishes.

Harry was the heart and voice of Philly baseball through bad and good.

After Harry’s sudden death in April 2009, his wife, Eileen received a poignant sympathy card that spoke to Harry’s ability to carry Phillienation through the ups and downs.  It came from 13-year-old Tyler Fortna.

“His voice always gave me inspiration.  I always wanted to be like him when I grew up, but I know I will never be like him.  When I watched Phillie games, Harry made me feel like they were winning when they were losing.”

The Man never stopped working, even as he aged.   He stood in stark contrast to Vin Scully, 9 years older than Harry, who premeditatedly cut down his gigs to select Dodger home games as he aged. Meanwhile, Harry almost never said No.  He continued with his weekly work with NFL Films, the commercial work  and the March-to-October Baseball grind.  He would NOT allow himself to miss any of it, not even after developing heart problems in 2007.

After learning that he had suffered 4 silent heart attacks and that he needed vascular surgery to compensate for dead heart tissue, Harry postponed the surgery for 14 months.  During those months, the Phillies won the 2008 Series, celebrated, and prepared to defend their title.

Harry was the Master of Ceremonies at the celebration but dropped dead just 6 games into the title defense. He passed in the broadcast booth at Nationals Park while filling out his scorecard.  He wrote in the first 4 names in the Nationals lineup and suffered a massive fatal heart attack. The fourth name he filled out was Adam Dunn.  Ironically, he wrote Dunn, and was done.

Harry couldn’t stop working.  He couldn’t stop living and he couldn’t stop giving. 

Miller notes that Harry taught his children, sons Todd, Brad and Kane, to befriend people of all races, religions and classes….Harry kept an emotional keel and never lashed out in anger….Harry always went out of his way to help strangers while expecting nothing in return.

He was a special guy.

As young Tyler Fortna wrote in that sympathy card, “I met him when I was 7….I told him that I wanted Baseball.  And he said, ‘Long drive, deep to center, that ball is outta here !  Home Run, Tyler Fortna ! Thank you for all of Harry’s memories, the great calls.  He’s the best broadcaster ever.  He’s up in Heaven now and still calling the Phillies.”.

Asides & Nuggets:

Harry’s Frat at IOWA, Phi Delta Theta, votes annually to give the Lou Gehrig Award, one of Baseball’s highest honors.  The award was started in 1955 by Phi Delta Alum and sportswriter Grantland Rice.  Harry was President of the Iowa Chapter and served for many years after graduating on the committee that did the selecting.

HOF anxiety.  The author refers to 3 or 4 broadcasters and journalists as having been inducted into the HOF.  He refers to the Writers and Broadcasters Wings in Cooperstown.  No such wings exist.  These folks are not inducted.  They receive the Frick and Spink Awards and are recognized for one year in an exhibit called “Scribes & Mikemen” at the Hall.  Much as I revere Pete Gammons & guys like him, calling these talented folks HOF’ers and referring to them as “inducted” is marketing talk.  It’s just wrong.

Speaking of Spink winners, 2011 winner Bill Conlin is widely quoted in this book.  The Hall is now struggling with whether to remove Conlin’s photo from the Scribe & Mikemen display due to the multiple pedophile charges lodged against him.  Only the current winner is displayed and it stays up for one year.  They can leave Conlin up for 6 more months, take it down now, or discontinue the practice for all Spink/Frick winners in the years to come.

HOF’er Richie Ashburn, a.k.a Whitey, or, His Whiteness, was Kalas’ on-air partner for 27 years until his sudden death by heart attack in 1997.  Whitey was the color man.  He got off a million solid gold lines.  Ashburn, who logged a .308 lifetime B.A. & two batting crowns often said, “I never would want my daughter to marry a pitcher.  You can’t trust ‘em.”  He and Ted Williams certainly agreed on that.  J

Reading into things

If you are a Philly phan you’ll likely love every scrap and morsel in this book.  I enjoyed it greatly but struggled with some of the minutiae.  It seems like the author had access to the key people in Harry’s life such as former wife Jasmine and current wife Eileen.  He interviewed an endless cast.  Broadcasters, Players, Journalists, businessmen, friends, highschool and college pals, neighbors, the cop who rode with Harry’s casket on the way from D.C. to Philly.  It is almost too much.  After finishing this book I jumped 100 pages into UPPITY, the autobiography of the outspoken and plain speaking Bill White.  A refreshing change.

On the same day that the media made me smile by reporting that Hal Steinbrenner tried to cheat the I.R.S. out of $460,000, author Jim Kaplan made me doubly happy when I read in his book that the Evil ones buried Vic Power in the minors for 5 years because his skin was too black.

That’s the kind of Yankee dirt for which I’m always looking.

I came across this factoid in Kaplan’s well-researched and eloquent book, The Greatest Game Ever Pitched, Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn and the Pitching Duel of the Century.  (Triumph, 2011.). 

The subject is the 16-inning duel on July 2, 1963 at Candlestick between 42-year old Warren Spahn and 25-year old Juan Marichal.  The old man and the kid, future Hall of Famers.  Both men pitched a complete game.  Spahn threw 201 pitches.  Marichal threw 227.  Willie Mays beat Spahn with a solo homer in the bottom of the 16^th.  Final score Giants 1, Braves 0.

7 HOF’ers saw action.  Spahn, Marichal, Mays, McCovey, Aaron, Matthews and Cepeda.

There were 256 warm up pitches.  427 pitches thrown to batters.  Great fielding plays and errors.  Stolen bases and pickoffs.  Singles, doubles, and a final culminating confrontation between 2 All Time Greats, Mays and Spahn.

The game itself is a 16 inning delight.  But if the telling of the game were all the story, this book would be very short — or so stretched out it would be boring.

So Kaplan gives us much more than the game.  He intersperses Marichal and Spahn’s life stories.  He writes sidebars about other notable pitching duels, record games and other studies.  He recreates Jack Morris’ 10-inning complete game in the 7^th game of the 1991 World Series, Harvey Haddix’s 1959 13-inning perfect game loss to Lou Burdette & the Braves, the 1981 duel between Yale’s Ron Darling and St. John’s Frank Viola in which the former pitched a no-hitter for 11 innings while the latter pitched a shutout for 12.  He lobbies for Johnny Sain’s HOF-worthy career as a pitcher and a coach, and details the 33 inning game in 1981 between the Rochester Redwings (with Cal Ripken) and the Pawtucket Red Sox (with Wade Boggs).  All of these diversions are crisp and riveting.

One thing that Kaplan does singularly well is to meld in germane insights from other authors to illuminate a point — or render one poetic.

For instance, Kaplan first compares the MLB crowds of today to those of 1963.   In 2011, they rock to rap music, semi-aware a game is being played.  In 1963, they are focused on play completely.  Kaplan borrows a line to transport us:  “Immersed as they were, the fans reflected Paul Gallico’s description of baseball onlookers.  ‘The crowd as a whole plays the role of Greek chorus to the actors on the field below.  It reflects every action, every moment, every changing phase of the game.  It keens.  It rejoices.  It moans.’”.

Seamless.  Smooth.  Brilliant.

Bullpen

There were many golden nuggets.  Here are two of my favorites.

Willie Mays hit 22 extra inning HR’s in his career.  He is the only player to have homered in every inning from 1 through 16.  I say, with everything else we know that makes Mays worthy of the title “Greatest Player of All Time”, these two additional facts help to make the case complete. 

When Spahn entered the post-game locker room, his team mates applauded.  There were tears in his eyes and everyone else’s.  His mates lined up to shake his hand.  After the game, Carl Hubbell, Hall of Fame screwballer and minor league supervisor for the Giants, remarked, “Here is a guy 42 years old who still has a fastball.  He just kept busting them in on the hands of our guys and kept getting them out….He ought to will his body to medical science.”

Last thoughts

One thing stopped me in my tracks.  Ken Burns’ 1994 landmark Baseball documentary is breathtaking in its scope, arresting with its images, and fascinating through its use of historians, writers and artists.  Kaplan makes the point that Burns all but ignored Latino ballplayers in that 10 volume work.  That seems undeniable.  Think about it.  Burns shined the light briefly on Clemente.  Marichal was absent.  Tiant.  Aparicio.  Cepeda.  Carew.  Perez.  All largely MIA or without emphasis.  This absence in the Burns’ work is ironic given how important the film maker positions race in Baseball history.  I suspect most of us watched the documentary and never even noticed.

Howard Bryant’s fine recent biography of Henry Aaron brings to life the extraordinary Braves teams of 1956 to 1959, among others.  Because Spahn’s MLB timeline starts fully 8 years before that of Aaron, Kaplan gives us the other end of a talented Braves continuum that stretched from Spahn/Sain/Holmes to Aaron/Matthews/Spahn.  I hope Atlantans appreciate the majesty of the bloodline that connects to Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz. They should read both books.

I heartily recommend Greatest Game to you. 

And if you have any good Yankee dirt, a la Vic Power, by all means send it my way.

Go Sox.

The Catcher Was a Spy by Nicholas Dawidoff — It’s been said that former big-league catcher Moe Berg could speak a dozen languages (although he reputedly couldn’t hit in any of them), and he is the only ballplayer to have his card on display at the CIA headquarters in Virginia. A notoriously private man, Berg became an OSS spy during World War II on missions in Europe, the Caribbean and South America, and Dawidoff does his best to peel back the layers of Berg’s enigmatic life.

I have hundreds and hundreds of baseball books. I have more baseball books than I have shelf space for, so they pile up on the floor, making for a rather untidy office. Does anybody have an extra bookcase they could give me?

Here is a list of ten baseball books that I especially enjoyed. You could call this my recommended reading list, I suppose.

In no particular order:

A False Spring by Pat Jordan. Jordan was a hot-stuff high school pitcher who signed a professional contract and entered the low minor leagues as a teenager. Far from home for the first time in his life, he struggles on the field, questions his coaches, experiences self-doubt, gets injured, and flames out. Luckily, he could write – and this book is an extraordinarily well-written journal of a young man experiencing failure. 

The Bronx Zoo by Sparky Lyle. First came Jim Brosnan, then came Jim Bouton, and then we had Sparky. I think each generation has its favorite player-author. Bouton’s Ball Four remains the class of this field, but my contemporary was The Bronx Zoo. I read this as a teenager, and unlike Bouton’s book in this one I knew who all of the players were. This book details the New York Yankees 1978 season in a day-by-day diary. As it was being written, Lyle had no idea that the Yankees were going to pull off a miracle comeback and beat the Red Sox in a one-game playoff. The book contains hilarious anecdotes on George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Lou Piniella, Mickey Rivers… you name it.

Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever by Satchel Paige. If you’ve never read Ol’ Satch’s autobiography, add it to your list. His stories from the Negro Leagues and barnstorming days are classic baseball tales, and then he becomes the oldest rookie in MLB history. Highlights include the story of when Ol’ Satch called in his outfielders, and of course his legendary list entitled “How To Keep Young.”

Babe: The Legend Comes To Life by Robert Creamer. This is the Mount Everest of baseball biographies. It’s difficult to imagine just how popular Babe Ruth was in the 1920s and 30s – until you read this book. Creamer spent decades as a writer for Sports Illustrated; he was an extremely talented sportswriter. He wrote this book in 1974.

Baseball Dynasties by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein. Full disclosure: Neyer is a friend of mine. This is an excellent and entertaining work that reviews and compares the 25 best teams in MLB history, and the authors reach a conclusion deciding which was the best of all-time. While the authors do use advanced statistical analysis to compare the teams, stats are a mere fraction of the book: there are plenty of stories and historical anecdotes about each of the great teams. Unfortunately, this book was published in 2000 – one year before the Mariners won 116 games.

Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck. Veeck was baseball’s great promotional owner. He bought and sold teams, battled with baseball’s old guard, and tried all kinds of marketing tricks. Veeck was the first to put names on the back of uniforms, he invented scoreboard entertainment, he oversaw Disco Demolition Night… this is the man who signed Eddie Gaedel, a dwarf actor, to a major league contract and sent him to the plate (he walked on four pitches). Veeck had a wooden leg with an ashtray built into it, for crying out loud. All of the stories are in here, and it’s entertaining.

The New Historical Abstract by Bill James. James gets pigeon-holed as a stats guy, but he can really write. This book is a class in baseball history, with enough entertaining sidebars to keep you turning the pages. I actually try to avoid this book because if I open it up to a random page and start reading, there goes the afternoon.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Don’t go see the movie – read the book, its way better. Seriously. Lewis is such a great writer that he makes seemingly boring subjects exciting. One of the fun parts of watching PCL baseball over the last ten years was seeing all of these draft picks in Sacramento. The chapter on Gig Harbor resident Scott Hatteberg is outstanding.

Dollar Sign On The Muscle by Kevin Kerrane. Kerrane, a university professor, delves into the mystery of baseball scouts. In 1981 the Phillies gave him access to their scouts, and he spent the year meeting with them. The scouts share stories on their hits and misses, and the book also gives a history of baseball scouting. If you are interested in scouting, or if you want to read some great scouting stories, this is a good read.

Hoopla by Harry Stein. The only fiction on the list, this is historical fiction. Stein uses a duel first-person narrator structure: one narrator is Buck Weaver of the Chicago White Sox, and the other is a fictional newspaper writer who breaks the story of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Both characters are brilliantly developed, and the author does a wonderful job presenting the era. This book has been out of print for decades and is nearly impossible to find in a bookstore – but you can order it online with ease.

One bonus book, Mariners style:

Out Of Left Field by Art Thiel. As far as I know, this is the only history on the Seattle Mariners. From the expansion days to the ugly teams in the Kingdome to the miracle of 1995 to the building of Safeco Field to the 116 wins – it’s all in here.

There, that should keep you busy for a while. All eleven book reports are due on my desk by Opening Day.

Getting in the Game by Josh Lewin — As Major League Baseball’s annual winter meetings descend on Dallas this week, I’d be remiss if I didn’t read this book by former Rangers broadcaster Josh Lewin; its subtitle is Inside Baseball’s Winter Meetings, and it’s probably about as close as I’ll get to actually being there. Lewin uses the 2002 meetings in Nashville as the platform for his work, taking readers into the Opryland Hotel as deals are made (and not made), club executives mull over everything from announcers to mascots, and ambitious job seekers pursue their respective dreams of a career in professional baseball.