YFSF

"Why Aren't There More Good Baseball Movies"

There's an excerpt from Emma Span's recent book 90% Of The Game Is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom available for reading at Deadspin.

Evaluating Billy

Chris Jaffe, who writes for the Hardball Times, has a new book coming out this December titled Evaluating Baseball's Managers, 1876-2008. The Hardball Times is running an excerpt from it about Billy Martin. Here's how it begins:

Billy Martin was the most fearless manager in baseball history. In 20 years of managing, he never backed down from a challenge. As has been well documented by others, Martin consistently caused dramatic improvements to his squads immediately upon arrival by pushing them hard. The A’s went from losing 108 games to fighting for .500. The Rangers, who had posted back-to-back seasons in which they had played .350 ball, suddenly won half their games when Martin arrived. The Twins and Tigers improved by 18 and 12 games for him respectively. The Yankees won their first pennant in a dozen years under him.

I'm looking forward to reading this book, particularly for Jaffe's evaluations of managers I know well. How is Torre viewed? Was Grady Sizemore Little criminally underrated as I suspect? (I kid:)). And I also want to read about legendary managers such as Earl Weaver and Casey Stengel. This should be a fun read.

Master of Shadows

 

Regular readers of this site know that I haven't been posting (or commenting) with quite the frequency as in the past, even with the Yanks on what has thus far been another magical run deep into the playoffs. I've been watching, you can be sure, but I've also been distracted, and for good reason: this week I've published my second book, Master of Shadows, which tells the story of the secret diplomatic career of the painter Peter Paul Rubens. Now I know the first reaction here is: what is a guy who writes about baseball doing writing about art? Well, I'd like to think we can enjoy both high culture and popular culture—I'm no snob. And I'd point out that my first book, Spalding's World Tour, in its own way, was about diplomacy as well, though of a different sort. If you read both books, and I hope you've read the first and will read the second, I think you'll find Albert Spalding and Peter Paul Rubens quite similar as individuals: a pair of orphans with enormous physical and intellectual gifts and savvy business instincts. If you enjoyed the first, I think you'll enjoy the second. Frankly, I think it's a better book. You can read much more about it on my other website. I will say it's an absolutely beautifully made book, so a perfect gift with the holidays looming. If you patronize this site, I hope you will support its proprietors! If you're so inclined, also please do join the Master of Shadows Facebook group for updates and news about events. 

Bottom of the Ninth

My review of Michael Shapiro's new book on the aborted life of the Continental League, a would be addition to the majors, appears in today's Los Angeles Times. (I sure picked the right day to run a baseball story in the paper.) "Bottom of the Ninth" is a book that's absolutely worth your time, though not an easy one, and not without its flaws. Though we all have a tendency to stick our heads in the sand when it comes to the ugly shenanigans that are the business of baseball—we watch baseball because it's supposed to be entertainment—unless we keep an eye on history's fine print it's impossible to hold accountable those who control the game. Those who are ignorant of the past, are condemned to repeat it. Or perhaps we'd be condemned anyway, but a little bit of knowledge doesn't hurt, especially if it comes in an enjoyable package.

The Adults

In this week's New Yorker, Roger Angell, the dean of the press box, looks at the career of Joe Torre, dean of the dugout set, and his new book with Tom Verducci. Some of the choice bits:

For me, a longtime New York baseball fan, the shock of no Yankees in the playoffs was less than the shock of not having Joe Torre in town for the summer, and I feel the same way now, at the beginning of his second year in exile. What’s lost is not the winning so much as the elegant daily and weekly, home and away managing seminar on giving your team a chance to win, or get readyto win—or perhaps lose, if that’s the way things turn out. This tone or strategy may be only another way of enunciating Yogi Berra’s “In baseball you don’t know nothin’,” but it’s a lesson I did not fully grasp until I had watched Torre sitting immobile in the Yankee dugout through many hundreds of innings, with his lidded dark gaze raised to the level of the field; one hand occasionally reaching back for another swig of green tea; his head now and then tilting toward the words of his bench coach; and, late in the evening, his shoulders lifting as he prepared to get up and climb the steps and trudge to the mound to change a pitcher and exchange a word or two with his catcher about the situation at hand.

and the conclusion:

He’s a cinch for the Hall of Fame—as a manager, not a player—whenever he’s ready to retire, and he’s already in the Grownups Hall of Fame, which has a few more members than the one in Cooperstown but tougher admission standards.

Lit Fans Bid Scribe Adieu: John Updike, 1932–2009

A sad day for American letters, and America generally, with the passing of author John Updike. The hero of his great Rabbit series was a basketball player, but Updike knew his baseball as well, and gave us one of our most memorable—and best titled—pieces on the national pastime: Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu. Our cap is doffed. 

A Race Like No Other

 

It's a great week for democracy here in NY. Friday was Halloween, and one of the highlights of that night is always the parade down in the Village. Anyone can participate; all you need is a little creativity and a sense of humor. Or you can just be a spectator. Next Tuesday, of course, we all get to exercise our right to vote, and we certainly hope you'll do that. But as far as I'm concerned, today is always the best day of the New York year: Marathon Day. It's a truly egalitarian world-class sporting event, and a day on which the city invariably puts it's best besneakered foot forward. If you can run 26.2 miles, you can enter. And New Yorkers will cheer you on in all five boroughs. As Liz Robbins notes in her fine new book about the event, A Race Like No Other, 749,741 runners have crossed the finish line since its inception in 1970. The book is an ode to the race, to the racers, and to the city in which it takes place. It tells the tale of last year's event by tracking a series of runners of different skill and background as they make their from Bay Ridge to Billsburg, Long Island City to the Upper East Side, Harlem to the South Bronx, all the way to Central Park. "Fans four deep line both sides of Fourth Avenue as they stand clapping and shouting, some banging on pots and pans for extra emphasis," she writes of the crowd in Park Slope, where we watched. We'll be there again this year, and suggest you join us, if not there than somewhere along the route. Or maybe you're running yourself. In which case, GO GO GO.

Studs Terkel: 1912–2008

The great Studs Terkel—prolific historian, essayist, broadcaster, and champion of the little guy—died yesterday, a hard blow to American letters, and to the many Americans who'd been touched by his sweet but rumbly voice, both on paper and through the airwaves. Studs was a great baseball fan; he even appeared as a reporter in Eight Men Out. Fitting that his last World Series featured the Phillies, a team even older than Studs himself, and one with a similar working-class pedigree. He'll be missed.

Jules Tygiel, 1949–2008

We're a bit remiss in posting a note on the passing of the historian Jules Tygiel, who died earlier this month in California, where he was a professor at San Francisco State. Tygiel was born in Brooklyn, and will always be best remembered for his wonderful biography of Jackie Robinson, Baseball's Great Experiment. He was the author of several books on baseball and Robinson (among other subjects), all required of any sports library. Beyond his work on Robinson, we can be grateful to Tygiel for demonstrating that baseball, and sports generally, are subjects worthy of academic study that tell us a great deal about our culture and ourselves. He will be missed.

Eliot Asinof, 1919–2008

Eliot Asinof, in the starting lineup on any team of baseball literary titans, died yesterday in upstate New York. The nice obits on the author of Eight Men Out from our pals Alex Belth and Jay Jaffe are worth the time.