Author: fartheroffthewall

“Wits, Flakes, and Clowns:
The Colorful Characters of Baseball”

The author:
Wayne Stewart

The publishing info:
Rowman & Littlefield
$36
272 pages
Released March 11

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org
At the author’s website

The review in 90 feet or less

The funniest thing we tried during this pandemic lock down was give ourselves a haircut. Even with adjustable beard trimmer, it looked like a kindergartner given his first pair of left-handed scissors and then trying to fix it with wheat paste as a styling gel.

Friends suggested we watch a YouTube video first, and “have the right tools.” My wife grabbed rose pruners and a slightly-used cat de-wormer to see if she could rescue it.

We expected to emerge with something between Howie Long and Howie Mandel, and a contract with Fox to air it.

One can cringe. Or find the humor in it.

“Humor is a side of baseball that I think is important,” Carl Erskine, the Dodgers pitching great, says in a back-cover blurb for this new book. “Stories in baseball are rampant. I don’t hear so much in football and basketball, but you get a baseball guy started and you’ll hear a lot of stories. There’s something magic about baseball. I think one thing about baseball that gets overlooked is the human side of players—and that’s what this book is all about.”

Even though we never thought of “Oisk” as a well-known good humor man — a nice fellow, expert on the harmonica,  for sure — it’s nice to see him alive and quoted.

As for some of the lunatics we used to see in the Dodgers’ and Angels’ locker rooms. …

Our own haircut-in-the-bathroom incident gave us a flash back to a time going into the Dodgers clubhouse and watching Mickey Hatcher with a towel around the shoulders of a teammate, giving him a buzz haircut. Maybe it  was some kind of charity thing. That’s being charitable. Anyone who knew Hatcher realized this couldn’t turn out well. While we can’t recall who was on the wrong end of this, he would likely want to remain anonymous.

In the 130-plus stories about those whose natural personality brought humor to the game — “a Whitman’s Sampler” of bios, as Stewart says — it’s not a surprise that few are Cooperstown Hall of Famers. Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, Tommy Lasorda and Bert Blyleven fit that, which may explain why all were efficient communicators after their playing days.

Hatcher deserves to be in a Hall all his own.

As well as teammates like Jay Johnstone. And Fernando Valenzuela, perhaps one of the most mischievous troublemakers in the Dodgers’ 1980s decade. He’s not mentioned in this book.

For this project, the players have been divided into four categories: Pitchers, position players, “princes of Pranks and Zaniness” and honorary mentions. It has an introduction, a conclusion, notes, a bibliography, index and author bio.

With that, we now say with a straight face were are finished with this portion of the review. Continue reading “Day 25 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: Oh, the under-delivered insanity … we’re at our wit’s end” →

“24: Life Stories and Lessons from The Say Hey Kid”

The authors:
Willie Mays
and John Shea

The publishing info:
St. Martin’s Press/MacMillan
$28.99
384 pages
To be released May 12

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
(The Barnes and Noble edition promises to have an exclusive issue of the book with additional materials)
At Powells.com
At IndieBound.org
At Shea’s website
At Mays’ website

The review in 90 feet or less

When Vin Scully is selling you on why he believes Willie Howard Mays was the best player he ever saw, you buy it.

Just as when a list is created to celebrate the 100 greatest MLB players in history, compiled by a very well-regarded scribe, and Mays comes up at No. 1, you pay attention.

If any Giant can become the center of attention at a Dodgers’ home game, it’s also Mays.

There’s a memory we have of going to Dodger Stadium in 1971 for a Giants-Dodger game on my dad’s birthday, May 25. Surely, I was far more insistent on him taking me than with this being his birthday wish, but it remains a father-son moment. And we couldn’t understand why the Dodgers – of all teams – would wheel a bunch of cakes out to home plate for Mays, who had just turned 40 a few weeks earlier on May 6.

This was to actually a way to acknowledge Mays’ 20th year in major league baseball.

(We asked Dodgers team historian Mark Langill if he had any evidence of this occurrence, and he, of course, quickly produced a program from that year that included the photo of Mays and explained more about the cake. I was too busy trying to piece together how the Dodgers lost that game — I have a vision seared in my head of Juan Marichal hitting a three-run home run off Bill Singer in the sixth inning that landed in the Dodgers’ bullpen and secured the win. Mays started that game. I remember that as well. …. Hey, is that “Dodger Way to Play Baseball” still available for a buck-fifty? And they consider it worthy  of selling at “any of the novelty stands”?)

So who are we kidding? Mays may no longer be a kid, but we can keep him that way as long as we wish, knowing that it’s been more than 40 years after his Hall of Fame induction.

Yet when a book that brings so much joy and positive energy in a time like this,  constructed in a way to rightfully discuss the merits of two dozen ways to improve your outlook on life as you know it, it’s more than just a giant achievement.

Sharing all this with Shea, a longtime San Francisco sportswriter and author, gives is structure and a path to success.

It’s the right book, at the right time, in this moment, that again puts a smile on the face of any baseball fan, or a fan of human beings. Continue reading “Day 24 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: We’ve got more than 24 reasons to slot “24” here in our annual list …” →

“The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated:
An Irreverent Look at the Rules of Baseball and how they Came to be What They Are Today”

The author:
David Nemec

The publishing info:
Sports Publishing/Skyhorse Publishing
360 pages
$16.99
Released April 14

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org

The review in 90 feet or less

David Nemec rules. Let’s call that a catch without any further review.

The Henry Chadwick Award winner by the Society of American Baseball Research is one of the most prolific baseball historians, often caught up in what can appear to be trivial matters but often they are launching points, connecting to stories that explain why we’ve gotten to this place.

As a Laguna Woods/Leisure World of Orange County 80-something resident who started publishing in the 1970s, Nemec has nailed us to the late-night reading lamp in previous years with “The Beer and Whisky League” from 1995, focused on the creation of the rebel American Association, as well as “The Rank and File of 19^th Century Major League Baseball: Biographies of 1,084 Players, Owners, Managers and Umpires” in 2012.

We also use both volumes of his “Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900” as light reading on a rainy day.

A playwright, novelist and former Ohio State University baseball player has so much of his own resource material handy that it’s no coincidence in this revised edition of the Illustrated Rules – it first came out in 1999 but hasn’t been touched since a 2006 version — he has himself mentioned in the index four times. Even that seems a bit too modest.

(A Dwight Chapin story for the San Francisco Chronicle back in 1997 shows the value of Nemec’s work way back yonder. Anytime we can bring Chapin into a conversation, we’re proud of ourselves.)

We should also note: We are not a rule follower, in the sense we tend to first question why that rule would be needed in a society, try to understand the logic, then accept it and, most likely, defend it to others who may doubt its usefulness.

With that, the general rule we have about baseball books is … none really, which makes a book about the rulebook even more profoundly entertaining beyond what we’d normally find when just trying to figure out the precise language of the infield fly rule. Continue reading “Day 23 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: Why David Nemec still rules” →

“Ballparks Then And Now”

The author:
Eric Enders

The publishing info:
Pavilion Books/Rizzoli
160 pages
$22.50
Published in July, 2019

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At IndieBound.org

“Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration
of all Major League & Negro League Ballparks”

The author:
Philip J. Lowery

Fifth edition editors:
Ron Selter, Kevin Johnson, Paul Healey

The publishing info:
Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
29.95
330 pages
Released March 12

The links:
At the publishers website
At Amazon.com
At Barnes&Noble.com

The reviews in 90 feet or less

Where on Earth might you rather be, on this 50th Earth Day, than outside enjoying the sensory overload of a ballpark experience this afternoon?

The Dodgers would have been in our nation’s capital in the middle of a six-game road trip. The Angels would have been playing host to the Orioles, ending a six-game homestand.

The ballpark has always been one of the great American public spaces, as Paul Goldberger figured out when he did his magnificent book last year, “Ballpark: Baseball in the American City,” which allowed the New York Times architect writer to explain how and why the ballpark is the perfect example of a Hamiltonian/Jeffersonian compromise in urban and rural values embedded in the American experience. Alexander Hamilton could see a commerce-driven city within the city. Thomas Jefferson could enjoy a lush, Technicolor-green field, even if there’s a wall bordering it.

“In the baseball park, the two need each other,” Goldberger writes. “The structure of the grandstand exists to allow people to watch what is happening on the field, while the field exists to give the grandstand its purpose.” Our extended Q&A with Goldberger last year also brings out how he felt Dodger Stadium was a metaphor for the city that wants movement and privacy. It’s difficult to often move into the stadium but once you’re there it does feel very secluded.

“In spite of the fact it’s too big, or entirely automobile dependent – which is the worst possible model – Dodger Stadium is nevertheless one of the nicest places in America to watch a ballgame. It’s just horrible to get to and horrible to get out of. But it’s just nice when you’re there.”

As for the current Angel Stadium, Goldberger says: “I’m a great believer in the idea that ballparks should all be different and do things that identify their places. I really thought the Big A scoreboard (a 230-foot tall, 210-ton red metal structure with a halo on the top created in 1966 behind the left-field fence but is relegated to the parking lot off first base) was a sort of funnier and cooler and nicer and more endearing weight than the whole center field water thing they have now.”

(Thanks for the excuse to revisit this exquisite book about the how and why of ballparks as we can weld it into today’s reviews).

On a day that also marks the 144th anniversary of the first Major League Baseball game, featuring the Boston Red Caps and Philadelphia Athletics played at Athletic Grounds in Philadelphia long before naming rights were wrong, let’s get a ballpark figure on some numbers we have going around in our heads now: Continue reading “Day 22 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: What’s the ballpark figure on how many connect Earth Day with a fond baseball green cathedral memory? Let’s read (at least) two” →

“The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves”

The author:
Keith Law

The publishing info:
William Morrow/Harper Collins
$28.99
304 pages
Released April 21

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org
At the author’s website

The review in 90 feet or less

The stories look as if they have some  news value, but then you realize you’ve  been blindsided by another hit-and-run post with an alluring headline. A debate starter. An incentive to click and be challenged, pretending most times there’s even some kind of analytical dissertation that allows for some critical thinking.

Emphasis on critical. Such as this recent post on DodgersNation.com:

There was also this recent SI.com post on the history of Dodger trades by Andrew Friedman, which dovetailed into this from DodgersWay.com:

Fred Claire must feel relieved. The one thing that people would never let go from his time as the Dodgers GM was the Nov., 1993 trauma of trading 22-year-old pitcher coming off his rookie season Pedro Martinez to Montreal for 23-year-old and 16th in NL MVP voting second baseman Delino DeShields, straight up. Claire still admits it’s the one he would “regret the most… my focus was on a single position (filling in a starting second baseman) and not the potential of Pedro. It was a major mistake.” DeShields lasted three seasons in L.A. and was out of the game by age 33 in 2002. Martinez, at 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, threw 2,872 innings, was a seven-time All Star, three-time Cy Young Award winner, five-time ERA leader, with a 219-100 record in retiring at age 37 in 2009, then going into the Hall of Fame in 2015.

Was it the worst deal in Dodgers’ history? History says it’s likely so, even if Tommy Lasorda’s temp-GM move sent 22-year-old rising star Paul Konerko to Cincinnati for relief pitcher Jeff Shaw at the 1998 All-Star break. It’s almost as silly as the Mike Piazza-to-Florida deal that happened on Claire’s watch, but he had nothing to do with it and quit after that).

Looking back at how it turns out is far less entertaining that trying to guess at the thinking behind moves like this, at the time they happen. When you get someone like Claire to reveal his thought process, and realize there’s some logic to it, it can be easier to accept. Then, the Dodgers needed a second baseman. With Konerko, they were desperate for a closer and he was deemed expendable (and then the Reds traded him to the White Sox for Mike Cameron, which may be even more tragic. As for Piazza, it was new Dodgers ownership trying to secure a sports regional network deal with the Florida Marlins. For real.

Any animated examination of the decision-making process of the modern game has become a whole industry on its own, here’s a Keith Law approach that really does draw on his media abilities (now a senior baseball writer for The Athletic, plus ESPN and The Baseball Prospectus) and his time in the Toronto Blue Jays front office to focus more on behavioral science.

From issuing a take sign to taking a risk on a pitcher who just had Tommy John surgery, there has to be an onion-peeling exercise of what the thinking is behind it, and if learning anything from history is even a factor any longer. What motivates some may discourage others, and both may make perfect sense. Don’t overthink it – this can also help in other walks of life and business. Continue reading “Day 21 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: Stay Inside. It’s the new Law” →