Author: fartheroffthewall

“Spitter: Baseball’s Notorious Gaylord Perry”

The author:
David Vaught

The publishing info:
Texas A&M University Press
456 pages; $38
Released November, 2022

The links:
The publishers website
At Bookshop.org
At Indiebound.org
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com
At TheLastBookStoreLA
At Skylight Books
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

When Gaylord Perry passed away from the lingering effects of COVID last Dec. 1 — just about a week after this book’s release – the cursory and bland Associated Press obituary started this way:

GAFFNEY, S.C. — Baseball Hall of Famer and two-time Cy Young Award winner Gaylord Perry, a master of the spitball who wrote a book about using the pitch, died Thursday. He was 84.

The book reference wasn’t to this biography.

It was the 1974 as-told-to autobiography, “Me and the Spitter,” with noted Cleveland sportswriter and columnist Bob Sudyk (Saturday Press Review, 222 pages). It had the subtitle: “An Autobiographical Confession.” A book that this book, if truth be told, has swallowed whole, chewed up and is ready to spit out.

But also note: When the paperback version that book from almost 50 years ago came out by Signet, the subtitle was enhanced to read: “The Candid Confessions of Baseball’s Greatest Spitball Artist (or How I Got Away with It).” It was also brightened up with a different, more casual typeface font for the cover title, versus the block letters from the hardback version.

The media-created legend of Gaylord Perry was set in motion, and labels had to continue to be adjusted.

The AP obituary, lacking much depth or context, rambled on about how, in that old autobiography, Perry said he was the “11^th man in an 11-man pitching staff” for the Giants. He needed an edge. He learned the spitter from teammate Bob Shaw. Perry said he first threw it in May 1964 against the New York Mets, and ended up going 10 innings without giving up a run. Soon enough, he won a spot in the Giants’ starting rotation.

The new book explains as much just from the intro:

That first time was May 31, 1964, before 57,037 at Shea Stadium, in the second game of what was the longest double header in major league history.

(Could the AP obit be any less compelling?)

In the bottom of the 13^th, the game still tied at 6-6, Giants manager Alvin Dark called in Perry, only because it was his last available arm (aside from Bob Hendley, who was supposed to start the next day). The 25-year-old Perry had just seven appearances that season, a 2-1 record and a 4.77 ERA. He got through “two shaky innings” when catcher Tom Haller came to the mound and said, “Gaylord, it’s time to try it out.”

Perry then pitched until the 23^rd, giving up seven hits and walking one, but striking out nine of the 36 batters he faced. When the Giants scored twice in the top of the 23^rd, Dark brought in Hendley to get the save – he fanned two of the three he faced. The game lasted nearly seven and a half hours and Willie Mays (who went 1-for-10) actually played shortstop during some defensive finagling between the 10^th and 13^th inning, but then went back to center field when Perry came in. Duke Snider even entered the game as a pinch hitter for the Giants in the top of the ninth and grounded out.

Perry ended up getting three at bats during the game. He was actually the go-ahead run in the top of the 22^nd when he reached on an error, went to second as Orlando Cepeda was hit by a pitch, but both were stranded. Perry could have a fourth at bat – he came out for a pinch hitter in the top of the 23^rd with runners on first and third. Del Crandel, who hit for him, doubled to right to push across the tie-breaking run.

(All this happened after Juan Marichal threw a complete-game 5-3 win in the doubleheader opener that lasted just two hours and 29 minutes).

Thanks for the excuse to go back and find out about that day in baseball history. It’s an example of the kind of things the Internet will happily spit out if the right keystrokes are hit.

Perry also wrote in that book that he chewed slippery elm bark to build up his saliva, and eventually stopped throwing the pitch in 1968 after MLB ruled pitchers could no longer touch their fingers to their mouths before touching the baseball.

So he looked for other substances, like petroleum jelly, to doctor the baseball. He used various motions and routines to touch different parts of his jersey and body to get hitters thinking he was applying a foreign substance.

Fortunately, more complete obits came from the New York Times and Washington Post. And the Baseball Hall of Fame, for which Perry was a treasured member (and his plaque has more lines dedicated to the teams he played for versus the description of his career below).

“The Fireballer: A Novel”

The author:
Mark Stevens

The publishing info:
Lake Union Publishing/Amazon
415 pages, $16.99
Released January 1, 2023

The links:
The publishers website
The authors website
At Bookshop.org
At Indiebound.org
At Powells.com
At PagesABookstore.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

Vulture.com once pushed out a mind-blowing list called “All 340 Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked from Worst to Best.” It was updated in 2020 and, for our purposes, is still quite up to date.

Because coming in at No. 43, we’ve found “Glory Days,” from the 1984 “Born In the USA” album. Writer Caryn Rose’s assessment:

So there’s that nagging question: Why would Springsteen, who seems to know his baseball terminology, use the term “speedball” instead of “fastball”? It’s not a syllable thing that fits better in the lyrics, like Paul Simon admits he did with using “Joe DiMaggio” versus “Mickey Mantle” in his classic song “Mrs. Robinson,” right?

Baseball writer Joe Posnanski dove into this in a 2012 column, taking issue with “speedball” reference, and then throwing out: “I will say I have had numerous Springsteen experts explain why ‘speedball’ works better than ‘fastball’ in that particular case. I don’t really remember the reasons, which probably gets at the heart of how I feel about that argument, but I do remember they were adamant.”

Update: Posnanski wrote a piece on May 9 for his Substack home, “Shaking off the Speedball,” which is pleased to hear “speedball” has been updated to “spitball” in live 2023 concerts. We can all rejoice as much as we can while our dresses sway.

Posnanski circled back to that in 2021 during a discussion about another Springsteen lyric debate and added:

“I know there are extreme Boss fans who will try to defend the indefensible ‘He could throw that speedball by ya,’ by citing historical references of fastballs being called speedballs or by pointing out the musical superiority of the word ‘speedball’ to ‘fastball.’ But I cannot and will not go out on that creaky ledge with them. Speedball is wrong. Speedball is bad. Speedball is a lyrical catastrophe.”

To that point, Craig Calcaterra did a piece once for NBC Sports that defended Springsteen’s “speedball” because there’s a listing (or two) about it in Paul Dickson’s incredible “Baseball Dictionary,” spotting a reference to it used in 1918.

Some can do a deeper dive in newspaper websites and find things that back it up – this one about Bob Feller re-signing with the Cleveland Indians after he was discharged from the Navy. The headline above the story reads: “The Indians’ Speed-Ball Artist Returns.”

And for what it’s worth, the song, and its lyrics, are known well enough in baseball circles to have its own Baseball-Almanac.com post on the site’s poetry section.

If you’re wondering not, what, but who, the speedball pitcher was being referenced, we read how Springsteen was inspired to base the song on a friend of his who pitched during his time at  St. Rose of Lima High baseball team. Springsteen ran into him in a Jersey shore bar. They talked. A song emerged.

Maybe to that point, Seattle songwriter Mike Votava once presented a very sweet explanation to all this: Springsteen was annoyed with his friend talking baseball and wanted to mock him. That seems reasonable.

In the first four chapters of his new novel, Colorado-based mystery/non-fiction writer Mark Stevens tries a few different ways to emphasize why his book is called “The Fireballer,” trying to frame the abilities of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Frank Ryder and his own 110-miles-per-hour fastball/speedball/fireball:

“With each Ryder pitch, there is almost a need to laugh, partly at the spectacle of it all and partly at his own weird luck. On TV it’s like you’re watching a joke. It’s like every single pitch is a coked-up hologram video, the ball a subatomic particle, an unhittable blink of white nothing … If Frank Ryder’s pitching motion is double speed, the ball is triple speed and everything else moves to the beat of a regular world.”

“A Damn Near Perfect Game:
Reclaiming America’s Pastime”

The author:
Joe Kelly
With Rob Bradford

The publishing info:
Diversion Books
288 pages; $28.99
Released Feb. 28, 2023

The links:
The publishers website
At Bookshop.org
At Indiebound.org
At Powells.com
At TheLastBookStoreLA
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

Back in the summer of 2019, when we seized space in the L.A. Times as part of a give-and-take of ideas and freelance paychecks, we thought we were doing a public service to Dodgers fans by helping them rid the nasty aftertaste of Joe Kelly.

It was mid-June, and the Dodgers had an upcoming Joe Kelly Bobblehead Night giveaway.

Say it ain’t so, everyone.

Kelly had not only posted some awful numbers in his first year in L.A., but it was even more anguishing since he was fresh off helping the Red Sox beat the Dodgers in the ’18 World Series, and somehow earning a three-year, $25 million contract for his past performance. His 7.59 ERA, a 1-3 record and three blown saves in 22 appearances didn’t endear the 31-year-old from Corona High and UC Riverside.

There were many on social media advocating for fans, upon receiving the give-away trinket, to toss it in the trash. Or even worse. Even without considering that the face value of the ticket was increased as to make this “special” day have added value.

We recruited the opinion of Phil Sklar, CEO and co-founder of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame in Milwaukee, to chime in.

“If Kelly turns things around and ends up helping the Dodgers win the World Series, I would expect this one to rise in value,” said Sklar. “If he doesn’t turn things around, I would expect to see a lot of them at garage sales or thrift stores in the L.A. area for very low prices. Hopefully, Dodgers fans won’t litter the field with bobbleheads, especially if he has a bad outing.”

By the end of the season, Kelly was 5-4, his ERA a bit more stable at 4.56 in 55 appearances (with 13 games finished) and one save and a career-best 10.9 strike outs per nine innings.

In 2020, Kelly and the Dodgers did claim the truncated World Series title. During the COVID downtime, he even threw a baseball through his house window and became an internet legend.

By 2021, Kelly endeared himself to Dodgers fans still upset about the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal by taunting the start shortstop Carlos Correa in a inning-ending staredown. Complete with pouty face.

It drew an eight-game suspension and a fine. And a fine-looking meme.

As well as a famous mural on the side of a building in Silverlake. Where fans can stop and check it out on the way to Dodger Stadium.

“Right now, he’s like the most popular guy in town,” said local radio sports-talk host Steve Mason, quoted in USA Today.

As in: How do you like my bobblehead now?

After Kelly’s performance, the pitcher’s Wikipedia page included this addition: “He is also the father of Carlos Correa.’’

Yet by the start of 2022, Kelly was free to leave. He did so, gravitating to the Chicago White Sox, where went 1-3 with 6.08 ERA in 43 games last season – with one start, and one save. He still holds a roster spot and, after the first few games of 2023, No. 17 took the loss on April Fool’s Day by giving up the go-ahead run to the Astros in the bottom of the seventh, and sports that 0-1 mark with a 9.00 ERA, unused since then.

But it was all during the delay in the 2022 season — another labor skirmish pushed back spring training and the start of the season — where Kelly was having angst as well.

He wrote up an essay that the Los Angeles Times published (was this some kind of payback?):

“Cooperstown at the Crossroads:
The Checkered History (and Uncertain Future) of Baseball’s Hall of Fame”

The author:
G. Scott Thomas

The publishing info:
Niawanda Books
416 pages
$22.99
Released in October, 2022

The links:
The publishers website
At Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

Came across my dog-eared tobacco card of “Tungston Arm” O’Doyle, the great three-way player for the 1921 Akron Groomsmen. He could hit, pitch and … something else impossible at that point in time, but we forget. Maybe drive a car?

He was the Shohei Ohtani of his hey-day.

His name comes up once and awhile in situations like this:

And if you saw what happened in the Angels’ 2023 season opener, it just keeps perpetuating: Ohtani calls his own pitches, strikes out 10 in six shutout innings, leaves with a 1-0 lead, goes back to DHing, and the Angels lose, 2-1, in Oakland.

With all the comparisons, you’d think by O’Doyle would be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. But somehow he isn’t.

Crap, if Scott Rolen and Fred McGriff can get in, who else can’t?

(Pause for a nasty aftertaste on the pallet. Rinse. Repeat).

Even Harold Baines has to wonder: Are these two latest additions to the National Baseball Hall of Fame ultimately be the bane of our hardball-enjoyable existence?

When it was announced last Jan. 24 that Rolen rocked five extra votes to clear the 75 percent agreement barrier of the Baseball Writers Association of America and lay claim to someone having to do a search of the files to remember what he looked like so someone else could make him a plaque in Cooperstown — and now he’ll be able to join an induction ceremony this summer with special committee-elected McGriff as the only two who made it to the Class of 2023 — we wanted to turn off coverage on the MLB Channel and channel the thoughts of G. Scott Thomas.

There’s never been a better time, with better examples, to topple over the tables and just ask: What defines “fame” in baseball? And if Cooperstown real estate continues to come down in price, how did we not see the signs this housing of immortality market crash?

The place, while also acting as a cool museum, could be completely irrelevant as a functioning place to celebrate all that’s to gained by creating a home to honor the sport’s best of the best.

Not Rolen, McGriff, Baines, or a list we could compile right now but don’t want to waste the energy.

(OK, we give up: Add in there — Tony Perez, Bill Mazerowski, Jack Morris, Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Rizzuto, Bert Blyleven, Herb Pennock, Tony Lazzeri, Bobby Wallace, Burleigh Grimes, Red Faber, Rick Ferrell, Joe Gordon, Red Ruffing, Rabbit Maranville, Roger Bresnahan, Freddie Lindstrom, Harry Hooper, Travis Jackson, Ray Schalk, Lloyd Waner, Rube Marquard, Jessie Haines, Chick Hafey, Ross Youngs, Jim Bottomley, Tommy McCarthy, Jesse Haines, George “High Pockets” Kelly, Nellie Fox, Travis Jackson, Dave Bancroft, and, more than likely, neither Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers nor Frank Chance. And especially Alexander Cartwright.)

But they’re there, and we aren’t endorsing prying them loose.

Face it: The Baseball Hall of Fame voting is broken if a player who got on just 10.2 percent of the ballots when he was first eligible in 2018 now all of the sudden achieve … fame? For not doing anything in the time being except being quiet? Because people who crunch numbers suddenly value his base running and defense? And there’s the embarrassment that another year goes by when, passing on the steroid-tainted talent, no one of real statue is available, go we compromise?

Thomas already has a plan in place. Read all about it.