"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." — Tommy Edison
Author: fartheroffthewall
Tom Hoffarth is a sports journalist in Los Angeles, born and raised (reared is the correct phrase, but it just sounds wrong) and specializing in the sports media business. A USC graduate from the School of Journalism (it still exists, somewhat) in 1984, he is also available for service at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhoffarth/
Jack Snow, Los Angeles Rams Jerry Robinson, UCLA football Bob Klein, USC football Charlie Weaver, USC football Shaun Cody, USC football
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 84:
Andy Robustelli, Los Angeles Rams Paul Maguire, Los Angeles Chargers
The most interesting story for No. 84: Jack Snow, Los Angeles Rams receiver (1965 to 1975) via St. Anthony High in Long Beach J.T. Snow, California Angels first baseman (1993 to 1996) via Los Alamitos High Southern California map pinpoints: Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Los Angeles (Coliseum), Anaheim
Jack Snow, left, and his son, J.T., in the family Long Beach den, circa 1986. (Long Beach Press-Telegram archives)
Whatever joy came from hearing about a “snow day” for kids going to school is pretty much lost for anyone growing up in Southern California.
The closest thing anyone could make of that term was that, if you followed the Los Angeles Rams in the ’60s and ’70s, it meant Jack Snow had himself quite a day.
Ironically, and for what it’s worth, Jack Snow’s aversion to snow was what kept him L.A. bound.
The Long Beach native from St. Anthony High gave the Minnesota Vikings the cold shoulder after they picked him in the third round of the 1965 NFL Draft, following a season where he set several school records at the University of Notre Dame — a place where rain and snow and gloom of chilly nights in South Bend, Indiana were rather common.
On the bright side, Show was also picked in the ’65 AFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers. At that time, the rival leagues could bargain with players. Alabama quarterback Joe Namath was a prime example.
When the Los Angeles Rams engineered a trade with Minnesota to get the rights to Snow, it turned out that greater Southern California was all the greater for it.
Soon would come a California Angels sure-handed first baseman who earned an MLB Gold Glove. Maybe not such a surprise as he was a chip off the block coming from a sure-handed NFL Pro Bowl wide receiver.
There’s your weather update on what a real SoCal “Snow day” looked like.
Jack Snow, Class of ’61, was inducted into the St. Anthony High inaugural Hall of Fame ceremony in 2013, five years after he had passed away. He was 62, and was taken down by tragic complications from a staph infection.
His son, Jack Thomas Snow, better known as J.T., admits he didn’t know his father’s true athletic ability until it was too late to really nail him down on it.
J.T. had retired from a 16-year MLB career — four of them as the Angels’ first baseman, after enjoying three-sport stardom at Los Alamitos High — and was talking to a Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter about how he found out more about pop’s legacy. It came from just hanging around with his dad’s former teammates, coaches and friends at the funeral.
Jack Snow is presented a game ball after the Los Angeles Rams’ 35-23 win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the Dec. 27, 1975 NFC Divisional Playoff victory at the Coliseum, Snow’s final game at the Rams’ home field. (Robert Lachman/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
“Every one of them came up to me and said, ‘Your dad was probably one of the best athletes in Long Beach at the time, if not of all time.’ And I was like, ‘You’re kidding me. He never said that.’
“They said, of course, he was a hell of a football player, he was a great baseball player, he could have played basketball or ran track. I got a big smile on my face because he never let on to me about that. He just said he was someone who had to work really hard and give all he had.”
J.T. had always seen a different side.
A father who was demanding, tough and strict. Just as his father was.
For two years, Jack and J.T. didn’t even speak to each other — overlapping a period where Merry Carole, Jack’s wife and J.T.’s mother, was undergoing cancer treatment that eventually took her life.
That dynamic was difficult for everyone in the family. Now, J.T. had a time to reflect on it all.
“He was just an old-school guy who was very black and white; not a lot of gray,” said J.T. “He stuck to his word and he expected the best out of all of us whether it was school or sports. Until we were all grown and had kids, then he had grandkids, he softened up a lot. But I don’t think I could have ever made it to where I got without him. I think if he would have been easier on me, like a lot of parents, there is no way I would have gotten to where I got.
The final post of 2026 new baseball book reflections, in a lineup posted between April 1 and June 16 covering more than 40 titles and leaving even more uncovered.
It leads us into this temptation to deliver baseball from its many evils. Instead of stewing, we read about its history, its culture, it’s pull on our psyche.
A few closing thoughts from a wanna-be set-up man and/or innings-eater who starts his day in the bullpen:
Facebook post, May 24, 2026
== Father’s Day gifts don’t always have to be the newest and shiniest books.
Ten years ago, Pete Drier pulled together what he believed to “The 51 Greatest Baseball Books of All Time” for the now-defunct Huffington Post. “These books will provide baseball fans with great enjoyment and food for thought,” the subhead read. “But readers with little interest in baseball will also discover much they didn’t know about American society through the lens of this fascinating sport.”
What books would I add to this list, if asked?
First, add a well-placed “0” to that “51,” and you’ve got Ron Kaplan’s “501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die,” released in 2013. It still has an impeccable shelf life, although Kaplan admits it’s worthy of a refresh. You go Ron. And thanks for the connection 13 years ago. Visit to his website, and he’ll send you an Excel checklist of all 501 books for you to knock out.
Admittedly, the newest releases keep us fresh on historical perspective, cultural trends, humanity, rules, trivia, Hall of Fame reconsideration. But our topics of interest keep evolving as well. I might do better now re-reading books I once reviewed. It’s healthy to see what we read years ago resonates differently now. It’s a newly-turned 65-year-old grandfather approach, I suppose. What do I want to pass along to the next generation? Start with kids titles, eh?
Reading, and writing reviews, and posting them with no charge is an honor. They are extended social media posts.
“Only yesterday, it seems, nearly every American newspaper, dozens and dozens of them, even in midsize cities, ran book reviews by local critics. The alternative weeklies (I wrote for many of these) had feisty and clamorous and occasionally nutty book sections. “Sometimes an off-the-wall review,” Norman Mailer said, “can be as nourishing as a wild game dinner” . . . The recent shutting of The Washington Post’s Book World, one of the nation’s last free-standing books sections, feels like the end of something larger. It marks an inflection point in America’s literature, which can’t thrive without serious, fervent and quick-witted criticism: public talk, back and forth, between competing voices, in something like real time. The thin crust of American intellectual life, long flaking, has begun to show bald patches.”
From that came a response from the astute writer Craig Calcaterra: “It’s never been a mystery to me why newspapers and other outlets don’t really run substantive book reviews anymore. But it’s still a shame. There’s honor, utility and, sometimes, literary and intellectual merit in a well-written book review. A good book review is something that can nourish and inform readers in ways that a hell of a lot of stuff in the newspaper can only dream of providing. But there’s no money in it for the newspapers. And, honestly, not enough people care.”
I care. I feel a duty. I have a need. I also have no real data to back any of it up, except an occasional comment or email. Certainly, no data to show any consistent readings of these posts. It’s faith and a baseball community I hope generates some circulation. These are therapeutic to do in a set period of time at a point in time when some people just seem to be “settling.”
I sense a gradual erosion of mining the most accurate information, because it takes extra effort. Put in the work. Take the journey. Don’t AI this stuff.
In fact, curate a list like Ted Giola did here with “The Honest Broker.” It’s “A Reading List for the End of Civilization.” It’s a response to The Atlantic pinning him as “the ultimate source on the death of civilization.”
Don’t kill the messenger.
If you’re in search of a Father’s Day gift-gifting list, consider this 2026 spring selections, in order of enjoyment — and if the title is from the University of Nebraska, which eloquently provided the platform for “Perfect Eloquence: An Appreciation of Vin Scully” in ’24, the publisher is offering a 50 percent discount on its titles through July 31 with the 6SUMM26 discount code at the finish line. (Please, order them straight from the website and avoid the Amazon shitshow, even if it promises to deliver the order at 3 a.m.)
And before the next round of reviews: Could someone just make the typeface a little bigger?
Top of the lineup:
Day 15: “The Ballpark and Beyond:An Illustrated Celebration ofBaseball’s Rich History” by Todd Radom (Sports Publishing/Skyhorse/Simon & Schuster, released May 26, ’26). Also celebrated: “Art But Make It Sports: Where Art and Sports Collide,” by LJ Radar (Chronicle Books, released March 16, ’26.)
Day 18:“Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life” by Dusty Baker (Crown Publishing/Penguin Random House, released June 9, ‘26)
Day 19: The Magical Game: The Spirit and History of Baseball’s Superstitions, Rituals, and Curses” by Addy Baird (St. Martin’s Press/MacMillian, released June 2, ‘26)
Day 16:“Nolan: The Singular Lifeof an American Original” by Tim Brown (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette, released May 19, ’26) and “So Young, So Great:Bob Feller ElectrifiesBaseball and America” by Jim Ingraham (University of Nebraska Press, released June 1, ’26). Also mentioned: “Baseball As It Was: Building Champions Before Free Agency Changed Everything,” by John Ferling (Tatra Press, released April 26, ’26; $32)
Day 4:“Death in the Strike Zone:The Mystery of America’s First Baseball Hero” by Thomas W. Gilbert (David R. Godine Publishing, released March 24, ’26)
Heavy hitters:
Day 14: “Bleacher Seats andLuxury Suites:Democracy and Division at theTwentieth-Century Ballpark” by Seth S. Tannenbaum, Ph.D. (University of Illinois Press, released March 31, ’26)
Day 13: “How Retrosheet Saved Baseball” by Jay Wigley (Wiglesius Press/self published, released April 3, ‘26) Also celebrated: “Out of the Ballpark: How to Think About Baseball” by David L. Henkin (Oxford University Press, released March 16, ’26)
Day 6:“Kings and Pawns:Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America” by Howard Bryant (Mariner Books/HarperCollins, released Jan. 20, ’26) and “Royal Treatment:Jackie Robinson, Montreal,and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Barrier” by Sean J. McLaughlin/cover design by Gary Cieradkowski (University of Nebraska Press, released April 1, ’26) Also celebrated: “Integration at Second Base: Jackie Robinson and the Quest for Black Citizenship” by Peter Eisenstadt (University of Virginia Press, released April 15, ’26); “Opening the Door for Jackie: The Untold Story of Baseball’s Integration” by Keith Evan Crook (McFarland, released Nov. 26, ’25); “Black Baseball’s Heyday: Capturing an Era in Art and Words,” by Denny Dressman; illustration by Anthony High (McFarland, released Dec. 4, ’25); “Simulating Satchel: A What-If History of Integrated Major League Baseball in 1934,” by John Graf (McFarland, released March 5, ’26)
Protecting the heart of the order:
Day 12: “The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.,J. Henry Waugh, Prop.,” by Robert Coover, new introduction by Ben Marcus (NYRB Classics, originally released in 1968; re-release March 17, ‘26) Also celebrated: “Out of the Ballpark: How to Think About Baseball” by David L. Henkin (Oxford University Press, released March 16, ’26)
Day 3: “Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy LasordaAnd the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History” by Eric Vickrey (August Publications, released Dec. 7, ’25) Also celebrated: “The Gifts We Take from Baseball: A Dodger Photographer Memoir,” by Richard Kee (Taylor Publishing, published Nov. 8, 2025); “The Ross Porter Chronicles: Vol. 1: The Dodgers Years,” by Ross Porter (with Mike Kunert, Halcyon Street Press, released Oct. 13, 2025)
Day 11: “Ford Frick: Baseball’s Third CommissionerAnd His Four Decades of Shaping the Game” by Dave Bohmer (University of Nebraska Press, released April 1, ’26) and “A League of His Own:A. G. Spalding andThe Business of Baseball” by Mark A. Stein (Lyons Press, released Jan. 6, ’26) Also celebrated: “Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It,” by Jane Leavy (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette, released Sept. 9, ’25)
Day 10: “The First All -Star Game:Babe Ruth, FDR, andAmerica at the Crossroads” by Randall Sullivan (Grove Atlantic, released June 2, ’26)
Role players:
Day 1: “Decoy Saves Opening Day” by Shohei Ohtani and Michael Blank/Illustrated by Fanny Liem (HarperCollins,released Feb. 3, ’26) and “Shohei Ohtani: A Little Golden Book Biography” by Nicole de las Heras/Illustrated by Toshiki Nakamura (Little Golden Book Biographies/Penguin/Random House, released March 3, ’26)
From 1912, published by Forbes and Company, “Baseballogy,” which can fetch up to $3,500 in the used book market, can be rediscovered in Leonard Skonecki’s “Baseballisms” almost 115 years later.
Day 9: “Baseball’s Most OutrageousPromotions: From Wedlock and Headlock Dayto Disco Demolition Night” by Joseph Natalicchio (McFarland, released Dec. 4, ‘26)
Day 8:“Baseballisms: A Murders’ Rowof Metaphors and Idioms” by Leonard Skonecki (McFarland, released May 22, ’26)
Day 2:“The Finest in the Field®:A History of Baseball Through 50 Iconic Gloves” by Ed Wheatley (Rizzoli USA Publishing, released March 24, ‘26)
Motion with the cupped hands over the ears …
Day 17: “The Complete Book ofBaseball Trivia:Test Your Knowledgewith 750 Questions” by Matt Chandler (Sourcebooks/Callisto publishing, released March 3, ‘26)
Day 7: “Unhittable: How Technology, Mavericks and Innovators Engineered Baseball’s New Era ofPitching Dominance” by Rob Freidman/aka Pitching Ninja (HarperCollins, released March 24, ‘26)
Day 5: “Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team” by A.M. Gittlitz (Astra House, released March 31, ’26); “Willie, Duke, and Mickey: New York City Baseball’s Golden Age Amid Integration” by Robert Cottrell (Bloomsbury Academic, released Feb. 5, ’26); “The Subway Series: New York City’s Illustrious Baseball Tradition” by Rick Laughland (Lyons/Globe Pequot, released Feb. 3, ’26); “Mickey & Billy: The Glory and Tragedy of a Yankee Friendship” by Tony Castro (Diversion Books/Simon & Shuster, released Feb. 24, ’26); “7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle — Legend and Victim of American Culture” by Robert E. Weir (Summer Game Books, released November of ’25); “The Bosses of the Bronx: The Endless Drama of the Yankees Under the House of Steinbrenner” by Mike Vaccaro (HarperCollins, released March 24, ’26); “Hot Foot: My Hijinks and Upside-Down Life with the 1986 World Champion New York Mets” by Roger McDowell (with Doug Feldmann, Triumph Books, released March 24, ’26); “The 50 Greatest Players in New York Mets History” by Robert W. Cohen (Lyons Press/Globe Pequot,released March 3, 2026).
Reading the room going forward:
Regrets for those authors whose titles we haven’t been able to carve the time or attention to absorb in a way that’s up to our standards, but are worthy to post here for further research and consider as they sit atop the pile of next-up:
Available in English and Spanish. A wonderful piece of art and collectable for Dodgers’ fans. Young and young at heart. We still struggle to accept he’s gone. He’s the heart of our SoCal Sports History 101 bio project when it comes to sizing up No. 34. Astra Publishing House even has a download to print out a Valenzuela book coloring page. Alonso is a Cuban American bilingual writer and journalist working as a reporter and producer at MLB.com’s Spanish-language sister site, MLB Español. She also did “Call Me Roberto! Roberto Clemente Goes to Bat for Latinos.” Parra’s work includes “Frida Kahlo and Her Animalitos,” which drew a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award.
The review we pulled together on Curtis Pride’s 2025 book, “I Felt the Cheers: The Remarkable Silent Life of Curtis Pride” gave us a better window into this subject, as Pride described his connection to these players. The remarkable event is Hoy and Taylor once played against each other, in 1902. Here’s more from the SABR bio projects of Hoy and of Taylor. There a movement to get Hoy consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame — Gallaudet University named its baseball field for him, he’s been the subject of two recent films, a documentary, at least three children’s books. Now, this. Taylor made.
One of our favorite modern-day baseball historians — as we wrote about his 2023 epic, “Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years,” which held our attention for 624 pages — so there’s a trust established. The Korean War came up on baseball as it was still trying to re-calibrate after World War II, so the seasons of 1950, ’51, ’52, and ’53 are now in the cross hairs. From our historic lens, that’s also when we got the debut of Sports Illustrated in 1954, sporting a cover that highlighted baseball. Gietschier notes that this period produced the Philadelphia Phillies’ Whiz Kids in 1950, the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” in 1951, the debuts of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, and the final days of Bill Veeck owning the St. Louis Browns. How much could America, and baseball, afford to give to this conflict? It’s a conflicting time.
Side note I: Gietschier closed the 2024 NINE symposium of baseball writers in Arizona with a remark he said was once told to him and classmates by Father Ray Schroth, SJ: “Go forth in peace. Have courage. Hold on to what’s good.”
Side note II: Gietschier posted this recently on Facebook that resonated with us as well:
Former MLB umpire Dale Scott eventually responded: “It is ridiculous that the official rule book shows up when the season is halfway over. One of my biggest complaints when I worked for MLB.”
Check it out: Author Jay Jaffe recently posted on Facebook that Clair “is more passionate about international baseball than anyone else I know — his colleagues at MLB even gave him an award to that affect.” Jaffe calls this book “a great and touching account” about how the Czech Republic figured out a way to make it to the 2023 World Baseball Classic (the one that ended with Ohtani striking out Trout to win the title for Japan). The Czech team, making its WBC debut, had to scramble out of a preliminary tournament against Panama, Great Britain and Nicaragua to make it Pool B in Tokyo. The Czechs then outlasted China, 8-5, in its opener lasting nearly four hours, then lost to host Japan (10-2), South Korea (7-3) and Australia (8-3). Here is an excerpt of the book as well as a sample of what he does for the MLB.com International Beat Newsletter. One more plus for Clair: He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and plays in the punk band, The Subway Ghosts.
Aside from a beautiful cover illustration/image by Laura Boyle, the chapters Gallagher devotes to Davis as the lead to his latest Expos history project aren’t a real comfortable read. Our Davis infatuation stems from seeing him in the 1971 MLB All Star Game in Detroit, his first, and the lone Dodger represented in a contest better remembered for Reggie Jackson’s home run nearly leaving Tiger Stadium and the fact there were 22 future Hall of Famers (plus Pete Rose, and three more HOF managers and coaches) participating. That could have bode well for Davis. It didn’t. Davis came into that game in the bottom of the fourth to replace Willie Mays in center field — the game also included Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell — and Davis singled in his only at bat off Jim Palmer in the top of the fifth. We also snuck in a look at Davis’ Strat-O-Matic and ABPA cards from the board games from our youth in the mid 1960s during our recent review of “The Universal Baseball Association Inc.” reboot. We also did his obit for the L.A. Daily News in 2010 when he was 69. We included the graph about his financial issues in the piece with this quote: “I spent it as soon as I got it because I always knew there would be more,” Davis once told the Montreal Gazette. “I spent it on women, clothes, cars …”
“Destitute Darlings,” by Mel Proctor (self published, 91 pages, $15, released April 17, ’26).
A chapter in his 2013 book titled “I Love the Work But I Hate the Business” gave the former Los Angeles Clippers’ play-by-play radio broadcaster a chance to explain that time in his life when he called games for the San Diego Padres’ Triple-A Hawaiian Islanders. This edition offers a stand-alone version of the team that in 1975 and 1976 that won back-to-back Pacific Coast League titles despite searching for a solid home base, essentially kicked out of the league, and buried in debt. There hasn’t been a team that can survive in Honolulu since the Islanders went under water in 1987 and moved to the mainland. “Destitute Darlings” was the name Proctor stamped on those teams, and this one might feel more like a magazine story inserted into a yearbook-sized publication to accommodate the new cover illustration.
“Sacred Grounds,” by Robby Incmikowski with Kyle Fager (self published, 200 pages, $55): A lot of landscape to cover, and well done in this case. It’s just kind of an expensive whim purchase. Ah, what the heck. It’s dad we’re thinking about here:
If you had a chance to see the two of them recently in Hermosa Beach — their only West Coast appearance in an abbreviated run — or heard them as guests on Mason & Ireland/KSPN-AM (710), that was enough to whet the appetite. The baseball hook to this: “How Is This Even Possible? Shohei Ohtani, Rocket Launcher,” starting on page 55, which explains the fandom related to the Dodgers’ two-way unicorn and the homer he hit over the right field roof at Dodger Stadium on July 21, 2024. Schur put in 12 miles of the 82,490 for that visit. With the notation: “Since the method of transportation is “driving to Dodger Stadium,” it takes like three hours.” Schur writes: “What has stuck with me the most about that home run – besides learning in that moment that the laws of gravity are mutable – was how it slightly changed my concept of fandom. A guy on the opposing team (he’s a Red Sox fan) hitting a monstrous home run ins generally thought of as ‘bad.’ But in that instant, I was happy. I was a Shohei Ohtani fan, a baseball fan, and I felt what fans always hope to feel at sporting events: joy, awe, reverence, the thrill of watching an athletic genius do what he does, as well as it can be done.” One more note: Pages 371-391 are reserved for a chapter called “The Great Mookie Hug Caper,” where they try to figure out a way to measure the greatness of getting a hug from Mookie Betts. Awwwwww. Are you sure you want to do this, Schur? There’s also this nice review in America magazine, so if the Jesuits find joy in it, this has to be working on many levels. More from NPR’s Scott Simon, AwfulAnnouncing.com, Kirkus and “Late Night with Seth Meyers” below:
Henig let us know that he was able to make it to Los Angeles for the Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals induction last fall, as it included the celebration of LeFlore, who appeared despite some health challenges. “I finally got to meet Ron in-person, after speaking with him only by phone for the last five years,” Henig said. “It was a surreal experience.” It would have to be. The Detroit MetroTimes allowed Henig to promote the release of his book with this piece. In Kirkus Reviews, it notes that “Henig, an industrious author of books on Black history … has a solid biography” of a man LeVar Burton once portrayed in a 1978 TV movie called “One in A Million” after serving a three-years plus in a Michigan prison for armed robbery. The film was made as LeFlore, who led the AL with 68 stolen bases in ’78, topped that with 78 in ’79, and then led the NL with 97 during his only year in Montreal, was still amidst his nine-year career that started at age 26.
If you wonder about overlap with “Your Detroit Tigers”: A book that breaks the franchise down into the top 258 hitters and 142 pitchers slots LeFlore at No. 41 among the hitters, in between Bob Fothergill and three-time AL All-Star Pinky Higgins, and a bit ahead of Rocky Colavito. Every team should have a book like this one done on its history — and the Tigers, celebrating their 125th season this year, is prime for a roaring tribute. Longtime writer Tom Gage, who also did “Big 50: The Men And Moments That Made The Detroit Tigers” for Triumph Books in 2017, and “Joy in Tiger Town: A Determined Team, a Resilient City, and our Magical Run to the 1968 World Series,” for Triumph in 2017, screates 14 performance metrics for hitters and eight for pitchers before settling on this 400. So, where does Ernie Harwell land?
We found this listed in an advertisement amidst the May 28, 2026 issue of The New York Review of Books, featuring a publisher blurb about how Faflik “erases the lines between politics and sport, which routinely blurred in a city suffused with an anti-Black racism that was both deceptively subtle and fiercely overt.” However, says a review in Publishers Weekly: “Frequent instances in which ordinary objects are freighted with heavy racial symbolism — most notably the Red Sox’s official hot dog, the Fenway Frank, which the author says ‘became as deeply implicated in Boston’s contest over racial equality as any other aspect of the club’ — feel like a stretch. The result is more of a lofty thought experiment than a successful argument.” We also put trust in Charlie Beavis for BevisBaseballResearch.com when he concludes: “This is a solid foundation for future research (and book sequel) to follow-up on the book’s sub-title ‘the making of Red Sox Nation’ and Faflik’s conclusion that ‘the White haven that was the Boston Red Sox’ home stadium of Fenway Park in the 1970s proved to be as difficult to racially desegregate as the city’s schools.’ : Otherwise, Beavis calls this “a ground-breaking, illuminating examination of the intertwining of sport and society in Boston during the 1970s.”
Misc.:
“One Splendid Season:” Baseball and America in 1912,” by Phil Rosenzweig (PMR Books, $32.50): The kind of publication best enjoyed with a nice glass of scotch and a Macanudo. The Hassan Triplefolder Set of baseball cards are here in a nice glossy presentation — the American Tobacco Company designed that famous 1911 T205 set and added another dimension to it that fit in a pack of Hassan Cork Tip Cigarettes. It includes Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker, Napoleon Lajoie and Shoeless Joe Jackson.
“The Land of Sand and Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, and Professional Baseball in 1888,” by Bill Brewster (University of Nebraska Press, 336 pages, $39.95, released April 1, ’26): Austin was just branded the capital of Texas when it joined Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio, and Austin, where the new state capitol building had just opened when the Texas League was created. Enter cowboys, gunfighters, longhorns and wagon trains. Maybe even the first sighting of Nolan Ryan.
“Spitballer: Stan Coveleski and the 1920 Cleveland Indians,” by William C. Kashatus (University of Nebraska Press, 256 pages, $36.95, released May 1, ’26): Lickety split. Do we trust a Facebook post that someone named Edward Paul Gardner did for the Baseball Books platform: “(Spitballer) is solid and a quick read, but there wasn’t much to Coveleski outside of baseball. I recall his quote from ‘The Glory of Their Times’ (‘Baseball is a worrying thing’) and he’s a Hall of Famer who won a World Series in 1920, was grandfathered in to use the spitball. … Indians/Guardians fans will probably want to be sure it’s part of their library, but Coveleski’s SABR bio (written by Dan Levitt) will probably tell you as much as you need to know about him.” Thanks Ed.
“Baseball’s Imposters: The Dark Side of Fandom” by Rob Sheinkopf (self published, 160 pages, $24.99, released March 26, ’26): It’s a nice idea, a fun one to bounce around in a group of baseball fans, probably worthy of an expanded magazine piece. Dig into what W.P. Kinsella once called “The Eddie Scissons Syndrome,” inspired by a character in his novel “Shoeless Joe,” which inspired the film “Field of Dreams.” Probably worth half as many pages devoted to this topic — or just the 53 pages he dedicated to a master’s thesis on the topic in 1985. The LA84 digital library also offers this document scanned.
“Cape Cod Baseball League: From College Stars to Big League Futures,” (SABR publications, edited by Mike Richard and Bill Nowlin, associate editors Len Levin and Carl Riechers, forward by Peter Gammons, $29.95, released June 1, ’26): Formed in 1923, with roots back to 1885, the CCBL featuring top college players launched last week with 10 teams. Living more off the motto “Where the stars of tomorrow shine tonight,” there’s a SABR gang of 25 members wanted its own interpretation with analytical and historical pieces essays, plus biographies on players and teams. Editor Richard has been a CCBL historian since 2018.
Later this year:
“Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson, 25th Anniversary Revised Edition,“ by David L. Fleitz (McFarland, $39.95, to be released August, ’26). “Shoeless Joe’s” posthumous reinstatement to baseball’s good graces in 2025 warrants this re-issue as those who will clamor for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in spite of whatever part he had in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal that led to his expulsion.
“You Gotta Love These Guys: Fifth Years of Seattle Mariners Baseball,” by David M. Schmidt (University of Nebraska Press, 456 pages, $39.95, to be released Nov. 1, ’26): Schmitz is a history chair emeritus at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington who did bios about FDR and Richard Nixon in the past.
The Magical Game: The Spirit and History of Baseball’s Superstitions, Rituals, and Curses
The author: Addy Baird The details: St. Martin’s Press/MacMillian, 304 pages, $29, released June 2, ‘26 The links:The publisher,the author, Bookshop.org
A review in 90 feet or less:
Eric Poulin’s recent Facebook post made us feel kinda icky, as much as the game was doing that to his own psyche.
Poulin wasn’t finding it — no poetic justice in some of the things around the ball diamonds of an America charging into its 250th birthday celebration. If baseball holds a mirror up to the country, both might be in need of some magical cleansing.
Poulin wrote this before more of the latest missteps made at various MLB pride nights — specifically by players. Then, opportunistic legislators in over their heads. It’s almost poetic that in Poulin’s referencing the Cubs’ PCA, who had already alienated the Los Angeles Dodgers’ fan base he grew up with, that he finds himself embraced this week at the Friendly Confines:
Comments to Poulin’s original post included:
== Bruce McClure, recently elected to the board of directors for the Society of American Baseball and the longtime SABR chair covering Maine and New Hampshire: “It’s inevitable that this de-evolution of American culture (and dare I say behavior) spill over into our great game. Baseball is so closely associated with our culture and fabric that the seeming nastiness of our daily lives has infiltrated major league stadia across the country. … With a little work, I can get around the $%^& that we are subject to nearly 24/7. … Eric, you’re spot on here.”
== Scott Lawson Pomeroy, a singer, guitarist and song writer from Hartford, Conn.: “Politically Correct currently means Woke to the majority of men today, and so the pushback against that is what the rest of the world views as the Ugly American. … I’m pretty grossed out by how over the top toxic the energy is these days too.”
== Jason Cost of Hickory, N.C.: “Saddest part is that the season may be the last we get for awhile with the imminent lockout.”
Yeah, there’s that, too.
As Eddie Brown wrote for the San Diego Union-Tribune: “Baseball is about to argue over payroll inequality while the rest of the country argues over rent, groceries, wages and gas prices. … Baseball keeps acting like nostalgia can (fix things). It can’t. Nostalgia is what you sell when the present stinks.” As Jim Bowden wrote for The Athletic: “The game is in a great place — embrace it, grow it and don’t ruin it” with a work stoppage.
My angst centers more on tweaks the game’s gatekeepers thrust into the flow, deciding things still needed to be sped up in concert with creating a product as perfect as possible.
Clocks and video-generated challenges seem necessary for half-hour TV game shows created by LeBron James’ friends. Not for baseball.
My perfectly cynical mindset sees these two elements merging the game’s psychology with its business functioning. Speeding up the action sure feels like it’s trying to keep up with the fever pitch of those now gambling legally on it. Instant gratification and impulsive wagering have no time for lulls. The waiting was the hardest part between what the next prediction prop bet comes up on the screen. It’s why we apparently also need to make sure a bang-bang play at first or a slide at second has no human element mucking things up. The betters need to know the game is trying to be as auto-correct as possible. No one wants to lose money based on an umpire’s eyesight.
If a pitched ball is less than 0.1 of an inch outside the imaginary batters’ box, and that technology is then displayed up on a scoreboard for 50,000 to anticipate a verdict, what’s to stop someone from placing another bet on what that outcome will be?
The questions fester: Has baseball’s aura been hijacked and misappropriated? Has its charm of imperfection been contaminated and reconstituted to fit the needs of financial, political or other outside forces that clash with communal pleasure? Have bookies and the sharps interrupted our pure, timeless enjoyment.
If there is indeed a growing enshittification of baseball, has it been maxed out, perhaps, by a misguided hex?
We want to exclaim: Did you see Ohtani did last night? Is he some kind of wizard?
And then you see what MLB’s capitalists do to authenticate anything remotely related to it. How cruel.
This current world of like, follow and subscribe leads us to verify the words of Addy Baird, a Salt Lake Tribune political reporter, New York Mets fan and self-assigned astrologer who has had these same questions and tries to align them with her own cosmic choreography of how the game brings her enjoyment.
She signs off on Chapter 8, “The Death of Magic,” with the reminder: “An unchanging thing is a dead thing.” It’s her fortune cookie response to spending the previous 30 pages wrestling with her own angst over the game’s re-calibration, which included better defining infield defensive shifts, larger bases and all those other clockings. It’s along the lines of what Jane Leavy nailed to the MLB front door with her “Make Me The Commissioner” petition. The church of baseball can’t be selling its sacred indulgences.
Thomas Jefferson installed a spherical sundial of his own design at his home in Monticello, likely based on examples he had seen in Europe. Does it not look like a design of a baseball that could be created for our enjoyment?
This is the break out part of Baird’s current events section.
She finds so many instances going back to the 1800s when writers were handwringing over baseball’s changes. She finds a fabulous Bill James’ line: “Until 1945, baseball did have a clock. It was called the sun.”
He also wrote in 2024: “The vast proliferation of (and fascination with) small measurements (exit velocity, pitch counts, pitch movement, launch angles, etc.) represents not the success of sabermetrics, but its failure. We have fallen back into details. It’s like our clothes have been caught in the machinery.”
A May 30, 2026 post by Daniel Evensen’s “The Baseball Replay Journal” titled “The Ever Dying Sport.”
Reformation and enlightenment and adversity and people’s schedules have brought us to this moment, and maybe the magic is more nostalgia in our minds … and just what is nostalgia? Baird does a fabulous job of explaining that word’s origin and how it’s been twisted a bit. She also extracts, on page 223, how the MLB rulebook since 1901 had this: “The umpire shall call a ball on the pitcher each time he delays the game by failing to deliver the ball to the batsman for a longer period of 20 seconds.”
The rule had simply been unenforced. It was there to make sure the game was fun. It had “an excitement and vim about it.”
We do as well after soaking all this in.
A day before her book’s official launch, she wrote a piece for the Trib that led off with a conversation she had in 2024 with former Angels pitcher Clyde Wright, trying to pick his mind as to whether or not the franchise he played for in Anaheim was, well, just plain doomed.
“It was a winding and special conversation, and it became one of my favorites among the dozens of interviews I did for my new book,” she wrote.
Wright’s conversation is embedded the start of Chapter 3 titled “The Jinx,” when he discusses how teammates tend to act goofy when a pitcher is in the middle of crafting a no-hit bid — which Wright succeeded with on July 3, 1970 against Oakland before just 12,000 on a Friday night in Anaheim. It makes one think how, 45 years later, the same sort of incredible thing could happen with just as few fans on a Fourth of July weekend.
Clyde Wright 1971 Topps card No. 240 backside.
As much as Wright added to this jinx discussion, we’re reminded of a spot-on assessment Vin Scully gave in a 1960 story that ran in the Los Angeles Times: “It’s insulting the listeners to make them think they’re silly and superstitious enough to believe my telling them that a no-hitter is going will affect the game. You see, no one expects a listener to hang on to every word for three hours. They leave the radio from time to time and this service must be rendered.”
Scully, who called three perfect games among his 20 no-hitters, as well as many that were spoiled late, absorbed that philosophy from Red Barber, who Baird quotes from his 1993 book saying: “This hoodoo business started in the dugouts with a fairly reasonable premise — fear of putting undue pressure on his pitcher, who just might be blissfully unaware … Then, before the radio came along, this hoodoo, or jinx, got up in the press box … it spread into the broadcasting booths. Not mine.”
Wright could have added to the discussion about this long-held belief that the Angels are a cursed franchise.
The author: Dusty Baker The details: Crown Publishing/Penguin Random House, 416 pages, $32, released June 9, ‘26 The links:The publisher, Bookshop.org
A review in 90 feet or less:
Johnny B. Baker Jr. has had a good number of moments that he refers to as “crossroads”as he comes up on his 77th birthday.
At least, a baker’s dozen of these pivotal events. When things could have headed down some dusty road full of potholes and regrets.
So many of us have felt some cosmic connection to Baker over the years — tossing him bubblegum as he ran out to his left-field position at Dodger Stadium during his eight seasons, listening to him deconstruct the time he managed the rival Giants to the edge of a World Series title in 2022 only to see the Angels snatch it away — here is a road that opens up, to travel back in his time, reconnect and understand.
Baker almost lets us feel as now we’re qualified to be part of his “grand counsel of advisers,” people he could lean into “anytime I was at a crossroads,” as he writes on page 253. “I wasn’t always read to hear what they might have to tell me — or show me. Some of it was forced on me and I learned from it later …”
Baker embraced wearing the No. 12 for the Dodgers, as well as every team he played for and those five he served as a manager, because it honors Dodgers outfielder Tommy Davis, wh0 Baker admired as he grew up in Riverside. That’s the number he’s assigned as part of the franchise’s “Legends of Dodgers Baseball” as of August of 2024.
Knowing he had a brilliant writing sherpa in sports journalist Steve Kettmann, co-director of the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, to keep him digging deeper, we offer these six experiential joys we took away from the project and encourage to find your own:
Chapter 1, page 11: This up-and-down relationship he had with his father — his first baseball coach — shows a path on how to forgive and move on to more positive memories:
My dad taught me … no one controls your own emotions but you, not unless you let them. My dad was one of the coolest dudes I ever met. … My dad explained something … that took years for me to understand, which was the difference between what he called outer dignity and inner dignity and the importance of knowing which was which. The outer dignity is what you’ll do to keep your job and feed your family. There has to be room for that to stretch a little sometimes. Your inner dignity is different. … (it) involves fixed points that cannot be moved. No man should intrude on your inner dignity. You can’t let that happen. … Along the way you have to learn for yourself what you will take and what you will not take. You must be more determined and have more character. You have to find a way to pull strength from some of the negatives. … I’ve always been taken care of when I guarded my inner dignity.
“The Complete Book of Baseball Trivia: Test Your Knowledge with 750 Questions”
The author: Matt Chandler The details: Sourcebooks/Callisto publishing, 208 pages, $12.99, released March 3, ‘26 The links:The publisher, the author, Bookshop.org
A review in 90 feet or less:
Something here just wasn’t lining up right. Even for someone like me who has to think a second — are the Atlanta Braves in the National League West, East, or American League Central with Houston’s Colt .45s?
Charging down the backstretch of a dopamine-demanding 750-question baseball trivia quiz, Question No. 460 seized up my cerebral cortex where reasoning and uncommon sense are stored.
The left side of the menu wasn’t matching up with the right side.
Jack Morris — grinded out the 10-inning, 1-0 Game 7 win for Minnesota (not Detroit) over Atlanta in 1991, earning him Series MVP and, whether deserving or not, an eventual spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Knew that.
John Lackey — a rookie called on to start Game 7 of the Angels’ 2002 World Series against San Francisco at Angel Stadium. I was there. They even got the name right: Anaheim Angels.
Randy Johnson — dominated the 2001 World Series for Arizona over the heavy (and emotionally) favored New York Yankees. After a complete-game 3-0 shutout in Game 3, five more shutout innings to start and win a lopsided, survive-or-die Game 6, and then, the next day, loping out of the bullpen for Game 7 with two out in the top of the eighth to wrap things up as Luis Gonzalez delivered the bloop-slap dagger in the bottom of the ninth.
So, that makes it 1d, 2a, 5b.
According to how we were taught to take the SAT some 50 years ago, how do we resolve the last two possibilities? Is this where we pull out phone and Ask Jeeves?
(That’s rhetorical, of course. It is with some nostalgic regret that we discovered the unbeloved search engine ran out of gas just recently. It was said to be a quiet, peaceful death. No next of kin to notify. Someone, however, still has possession of the domain name “ask.com” Here is the official obit):
For the good of society and our own mental health, we can’t just give in to the urge to search engine everything when our brain pauses for a second to gather itself.
If needed, we’ve constructed a few healthy guidelines.
First, don’t default to Google. It’s become Garbage.
Google man control some 85 percent of the search-engine market, but this cesspool of misguided algorithms, paid-sponsored AI inserts, unhelpful suggestions and outdated references is why Corey Doctorow has included it as Exhibit A in hiss book, “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It.” Get the book, of course, just not on Amazon, which is another tech giant/digital platform that, as Doctorow writes, “systematically degrades user experience for profit.” That description is even on the Amazon book listing, luring you to still buy it.
If you can also override whatever is causing your software to default to Bing — aka, Microsoft Revenge — because that powers Yahoo Search and AOL. Lycos is as relevant as MySpace. ChatGPT, You.com, Waldo, Ecosia, Yep.com, Perplexity AI … maybe technically in the search engine family, but we still can’t trust what’s being loaded into the front end of its wood chipper. . We smell musty oak that pines for accuracy.
DuckDuckGo is our go-to. There’s first a feeling like entering a changing room at Nordstrom, feeling you’ve got far more privacy than what security cameras are pointed at you in your local Ross Dress for Less.
