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“The Last of His Kind:
Clayton Kershaw
And the Burden of Greatness”

The author: Andy McCullough

The publishing info: Hachette Books; 368 pages; $32; released May 7, 2024

The links: The publishers website; at Bookshop.org; at Powells.com; at Vromans.com; at TheLastBookStoreLA; at {pages: a bookstore}; at BarnesAndNoble.com; at Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

Fifteen years after it came out, the documentary “Bluetopia: The L.A. Dodgers Movie” found its way to our BluRay machine for a trip down memory lane recently.

Released in 2009 as a way to celebrate the franchise’s 50th year in Southern California, chapters and vignettes are weaved together to convey explanations as to why so many are connected to the team’s existence — journalists and broadcasters, tattoo artists and attorneys, cancer patients and celebrities, former gang inmates involved in Homeboy Industries as well as the founding spiritual leader, Fr. Greg Boyle.

It also covers the 2008 season in full: Manager Joe Torre’s team running toward the NL West title, the acquisition of Manny Ramirez, the McCourts influence, Ned Colletti’s roster built around Russell Martin, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley and Jonathan Broxton.

And there’s also the debut of a 20-year-old rookie named Clayton Kershaw.

The segment on Kershaw’s first game on May 25 on a Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium against the St. Louis Cardinals leans heavily into Vin Scully’s description and how the moment was met.

“Fastball, got him swinging!” Scully says when Kershaw fans leadoff man Skip Shoemaker (a future Dodger teammate), “and down below (in the stands) we watch his mom applauding.”

Now, all things considered, so very sweet to see.

When the Cards’ No. 3 hitter (another future Dodger teammate) lines a double down the left field line, Scully admits: “Kershaw is baptized by Albert Pujols, and that figures.”

Kershaw ends the inning with a very slow curveball to record a strikeout, and after the game, the cameras capture Kershaw with his family members — his future wife Ellen leaps into his arms, his mother holds up a plastic bag with the first strike-out ball, and his friends laugh at the fact he’s carrying extra baggage onto the team readiest for the airport and a road trip. “A rookie thing,” Kershaw explains. “Gotta carry water onto the bus.”

The intro to the scene also shows Kershaw in full screen overwhelmed by the pre-game experience, sitting by his locker, mouth agape. A number 54 jersey hangs in his stall.

Continue reading “Day 28 of 2024 baseball books: Kershaw’s challenge is to tell his lasting ‘baseball life’ story in a kind way” →

“Leave While the Party’s Good:
The Life and Legacy of
Baseball Executive Harry Dalton”

The author:
Lee Kluck

The publishing info:
University of Nebraska Press
392 Pages; $39.95; released June 1, 2024

The links:
The publishers website
At Bookshop.org
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com; at Walmart; at BarnesAndNoble.com; at Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

Thirteen members make up the league of unfortunate gentlemen who agreed to serve as general manager for the historically cursed Los Angeles/California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, including prior to the franchise’s birth in 1961.

Which one generally managed to make the greatest impact?

Bill Stoneman, if only because of the fact he was in the chair during the Angels wild-winding wild-card run to the 2002 World Series title, is the quick-wit choice. He arrived three seasons before that improbable title scramble. He lasted five more afterward before he pooped out at age 63. Between his term of 1999 and 2007, the Angels also made the playoffs as the AL West champs in ’04, ’05 and ’07. It was Stoneman who hired Mike Scioscia as the team’s 20th manager in 2000, and the former Dodgers catcher lasted more than 3,000 games, and was the ’02 and ’09 AL Manager of the year. In creating the 2002 roster, Stoneman pulled the trigger on the trade of Jim Edmonds to St. Louis for Adam Kennedy and Ken Bottenfield, and it worked. Stoneman signed Scott Spiezio, David Eckstein and Brendan Donnelly. Two years after the championship, he landed future Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero. He drafted Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana, Howie Kendrick and Casey Kotchman. Stoneman, a former big-league pitcher himself, rarely messed around with in-season trades.

Even then, he wasn’t done. Stoneman made a comeback as the interim GM in the middle of the 2015 season after Jerry Dipoto’s rocky data-driven three-and-a-half-season time ended, following the heralded signings of Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton between 2011 and ’15.

Tony Reagins, Stoneman’s immediate successor after the 2007 season, was the franchise’s first and only Black GM. He may have only lasted four seasons, but included in that was drafting Mike Trout in 2009, at No. 25 overall, an outfielder from Millville High in New Jersey. (For what it’s worth, the pick came after Reagins took another outfielder, Randal Grichuk at No. 24 from Lamar High in Texas). Reagins also signed Torii Hunter and traded for Mark Teixeira and Dan Haren. He didn’t wear well the signings Vernon Wells and Scott Kazmir.

Fred Haney, the former Hollywood Stars and Los Angeles Angels broadcaster in the Pacific Coast League, and the GM for the 1957 World Series champion Milwaukee Braves, was the Angels’ first deal maker. He first had to navigate the dispersal draft logistics and then find a roster that could perform in the old Wrigley Field, then Dodger Stadium, then the new Angel Stadium. Somehow they had a 70-win season in ’61, still a record for expansion teams. Aside from shaping the first rosters, Haney’s success was relevant in finding Jim Fregosi, Dean Chance, Leon Wagner and Lee Thomas.

After those three, we’ve got, in no particularly effective order:

Buzzie Bavasi (1977 to 1984) and his son, Bill Bavasi (1994 to 1999), both something of a buzz kill. The elder Bavasi’s time with the team as it went to two post-season appearances under his watch. It wasn’t really because of him, but in spite …

Billy Eppler (’15 to ’20) may have overseen five losing seasons and had another year on his contract when he was let go, and he was in change when Scioscia left and decided Brad Ausmus could handle the spot as the manager. Yet, Eppler did a lot of groundwork recruiting of Shohei Ohtani, and was in the team’s toll booth when the Japanese star arrived, helping keep Trout at bay.

No-Frills Mike Port (1984 to 1991) was really just an extension of the first Bavasi regime and relied on a farm stocked with Mike Witt, Chuck Finley, Wally Joyner, Devon White and Gary Pettis, and then drafted Edmonds, Tim Salmon, Garret Anderson, Troy Percival and Jim Abbott.

Whitey Herzog (1993 to ’94) was thought to bring some name value but was otherwise a white-hot mess, loading up the team with former Cardinals has-beens. Lump him in with Dick Walsh (’68 to ’71), Dan O’Brien (’91 to ’93) and the current Perry Minasian (since 2020), who may be on borrowed time as well.

Then there was Harry Inglis Dalton.

Continue reading “Day 27 of 2024 baseball book reviews: If things in Anaheim were harry, Dalton’s due diligence was dutiful and Angelic” →

“Shadows of Glory: Memorable and
Offbeat World Series Stories”

The authors:
Dave Brown
Jeff Rodimer

The publishing info:
Lyons Press
314 pages, $26.95
Released April 2, 2024

The links:
The publishers website
The authors website
At Bookshop.org
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com; at {pages a bookstore}
At BarnesAndNoble.com; at Amazon.com

The review in 90 feet or less

George Steinbrenner got into a scuffle with the two Dodgers fans in an elevator at the Hyatt Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles during the 1981 World Series.

Broke his land. Left the two lads cowering and running away. The fans were razzing him because his Yankees, after winning the first two games of the series in New York, were just swept in three games at Dodger Stadium and heading back to the Bronx wounded.

At least that’s the story the late Yankees owner took to his grave.

So …….. Did it happen?

United Press International, a major wire service at the time, wrote it up, crediting a source for its information. (The source: Steinbrenner). The New York Times seemed a bit more skeptical when it reported that “cheerful” Steinbrenner “summoned a group of reporters to his hotel suite at 11:30 last night to explain what had happened and display his wounds — a bump on the head, a swollen lip, a right hand with a bandage over his cuts and an apparently broken left hand with a bandage over the cast.”

David Kindred in the Washington Post put it this way:

The news George Steinbrenner makes is only part of the fun. We get more laughs trying to figure out what really happened.

Hotel security and L.A. police said Steinbrenner made no report of the incident.

Maybe it happened exactly the way Steinbrenner told it.

Reporters went to other Yankee pugilists for comment yesterday. At the L.A. airport, Reggie Jackson said, “I don’t know anything about it. Don’t ask me.” Relief pitcher Rich Gossage, who sprained his thumb in a clubhouse scuffle two seasons ago, laughed and said of Steinbrenner’s broken hand in its cast, “George wouldn’t punch anyone . . . He must have caught it in an elevator.”

In 2004, the New York Times’ Murray Chass revisited it. Again with a lack of conviction, since there were no convictions:

Joe Louis? Rocky Marciano? Sugar Ray Robinson? They apparently had nothing on Steinbrenner.

Steinbrenner, 51 years old at the time, said that in rapid succession he threw three punches — two rights and a left. Down went the first miscreant; down went the second.

Muhammad Ali? He might have stung like a bee, but Steinbrenner said he swung a sledgehammer.

”I clocked them,” Steinbrenner told reporters just before midnight in a news conference he called in his hotel suite. ”There are two guys in this town looking for their teeth and two guys who will probably sue me.”

Bizarre as it might have been, the story of the fight remains part of the lore of the Steinbrenner years. What other owner could have engaged in such an episode? Peter O’Malley? Carl Pohlad? Bud Selig? Marge Schott?

No, this is one of those things that makes Steinbrenner special. He won’t be around forever, but this tale will be.

Steinbrenner died in 2010 at age 80. Still the undisputed champion of owner brawls during a World Series.

Crack open this collection of 18 stories that happened during baseball’s “glory” time of October, this would have been the time for a new revelation: The guys who did it have fessed up. The hotel security camera footage has been revealed. Hal Steinbrenner unsealed his father’s confessions that it was all a ruse — there was an elevator malfunction and he tried to punch himself out of the roof because he was claustrophobic but it just caused more damage.

Alas, this story isn’t included. A swing-and-a-missed opportunity.

Continue reading “Day 24 of 2024 baseball book reviews: Shadowball in the fall, lost in the muck” →