Wrapping up the latest version of the annual spring baseball book review series, here’s how we decided it best shakes out:
Top exit velo:
Day 28:“The Last of His Kind:Clayton KershawAnd the Burden of Greatness” by Andy McCullough, along with an array of baseball player bios.
Day 9: “Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero” by Waite Hoyt and Tim Manners
Day 25: “Baseball: The Movie” by Noal Gittel and “Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol toStage and Screen” by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz
Day 10: “Frank Chance’s Diamond:The Baseball Journalism of Ring Lardner” by Ron Rapoport
Day 6: “The Dodger Collection: Richard Kee Photographs” by Richard Kee
Day 18: “Under Jackie’s Shadow:Voices of Black Minor Leaguers Baseball Left Behind” by Mitchell Nathanson
The contributors: Broadcasters — Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Jaime Jarrin, Joe Davis, Joe Buck, Jessica Mendoza, Ross Porter, Bob Miller, Ken Levine, Matt Vasgersian, Tom Leykis, Jim Hill, John Ireland, Ken Korach, Brian Wheeler, Mike Parker, Josh Suchon Baseball execs — Bud Selig, Peter O’Malley, Derrick Hall, Josh Rawitch, Tim Mead, Ned Colletti, Fred Claire Players in the media — Orel Hershiser, Steve Garvey, Eric Karros TV executives/media cohorts — Andy Rosenberg, Jeff Proctor, Tom Villante, Boyd Robertson, Doug Mann, Ben Platt, John Olguin, Brent Shyer, Jon Weisman Historians — David J. Halberstam, Paul Haddad Journalists — Will Leitch, Patt Morrison, Chris Erskine, Dennis McCarthy, Steve Dilbeck, Jill Painter Lopez, Sammy Roth, Brian Golden, Lisa Nehus Saxon, Bill Dwyre, T.J. Simers, JP Hoornstra, Paul Vercammen, Pablo Kay Academics — Joe Saltzman, Dan Durbin, Dale Marini, Michael Green Religious — Fr. Willy Raymond, Tim Klosterman, Kevin O’Malley Actors — Bryan Cranston and Harry Shearer More admirers — Gil Hodges Jr., Ann Meyers Drysdale, umpire Bruce Froemming, agent Dennis Gilbert, cartoonist Kevin Fagan, longtime fan Emma Amaya
The publishing info: University of Nebraska Press; 288 pages; $34.95 (Canada: $47; U.K: £29.99); Released May 1, 2024
A friend asks: So you’re going to review your book, right? Along with all the other new baseball books for 2024?
This had to be a setup. What kind of a perverse, self-indulgent, ego-stoking exercise would that turn out to be?
Or …
What an opportunity to interview myself, ask some complex questions, get to the heart of everything. Let’s take this to another level of enlightenment, entertainment and information.
Or, chalk it up to over eagerness. No review as such. We’ve got plenty of them already to note below. Instead here’s my exclusive interview (and because I’m a Gemini, I’m confident this can work):
Author Q&A
Q: What’s the deal with being called the book’s “editor?” Does that mean you didn’t write anything?
A: You’re coming in hot. No need to start getting cranky from the start.
College baseball’s two late, great forces of nature — USC’s Rod Dedeaux and Miami’s Ron Fraser — couldn’t do much behind the scenes this year to will either the Trojans or the Gators into the 2024 NCAA baseball playoffs.
The brackets announced today will be minus two of the most dominant programs in the sport’s history, and are the ones who united the two coasts of the United States to join in the middle.
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.
Once upon a time, this contract that Nolan Ryan signed to join the Angels, and also signed by GM Harry Dalton, was offered at auction.
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.
December 8, 1960: Fred Haney, left, named General Manager of the new American League Los Angeles Angels, checks the warm-up jacket worn by Angels’ Board Chairman Gene Autry as the club’s President Bob Reynolds (center) looks on. Autry and Reynolds returned from St. Louis the day before after they were granted the new franchise. Haney was named as General Manager at a press conference in the Sheraton-West hotel.(Not sure who the gentleman is on the far right, but he looks pleased).
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.
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