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“Baseball’s Union Association: The Short,
Strange Life of a 19th-Century Major League”

The author:
Justin McKinney

The publishing info:
McFarland
277 pages, $49.95
Released Nov. 11, 2022

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

“Baseball’s Wildest Season:
Three Leagues, Thirty-Four Teams
and the Chaos of 1884″

The author:
William J. Ryczek

The publishing info:
McFarland
273 pages, $45
Released March 10, 2023

The links:
The publishers website
At Bookshop.org
At Powells.com
At TheLastBookstoreLA.com
At Vromans.com
At SkylightBooks.com
At Barnes & Noble.com
At Amazon.com

The reviews in 90 feet or less

More to establish some justice than to insure any sort of domestic tranquility, the imperfect Union Association was formed — or throw together — as Option C for anyone aspiring to play what was considered major-league baseball in 1884, the 14th such season on record for such an enterprise.

It lasted all of one season. These things happen.

For context: Eighteen-hundred and eighty-four was less than 20 years removed from the official end of the Civil War. Chester A. Arthur was sheepishly trying to navigate his way around the White House in the wake of James Garfield’s assassination (and his assassin’s eventual hanging before a live audience as his punishment). The Depression/Recession of 1882-1885 was derailing some of the heralded progress going on during the Gilded Age.

It was a country 140 years ago that was still very short of developing its prefrontal cortex. something still somewhat evident in today’s world.

At baseball-refernece.com, the official existence of all 12 teams (in 13 cities) that came and went in the Union Association, along with details about its 94-19 champion St. Louis Maroons, is rightly placed amidst the data produced by the National League (started in 1876) and the American Association (started in 1882 but exhausting itself in 1891, a decade before the official American League came into being in 1901). This is where you’ll first see the existence of the Milwaukee Brewers, the Boston Reds (sans the Sox) and the Washington Nationals amidst the Wilmington Quicksteps, the Baltimore Monuments and the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds.

It’s where the Legend of Fred Dunlap exists.

St. Louis’ 25-year-old 5-foot-8 second baseman posted his Union-best .412 batting average, 13 homers, 185 hits, 160 runs, .621 slugging percentage and 1.069 OPS in 101 games, which looks practically Hall of Fame worthy. Dunlap, who defected to the Maroons for that 1884 season after playing four seasons for the National Association’s Cleveland Blues, would fade away with the 44-91-4 Washington Statesmen of the American Association in 1891 before dying at age 43, penniless, disabled from an ankle injury. Dunlap was better remembered for being on the 1887 Detroit Wolverines team that won the World Series against St. Louis’ Brown Stockings.

We’ve caught wind of the Players League of 1890. The Federal League of 1914-15. The National Association had also come and gone in the early 1870s. The Continental League, created by Branch Rickey in the late 1950s as a way to force MLB to expand. But anything short of what Bill James had covered in his Historical Baseball Abstract (and making a case the Union League not be recognized as a major league) is the reason why Justin McKinney, inspired by his Society of American Baseball Research brethren, decided to research and document even more about this one-and-done enterprise through newspaper clippings and the Baseball Hall of Fame excavation.

McKinney says his goal from the start is “to convince you that the Union Association is more than just Fred Dunlap, Henry Lucas (the Maroons’ diminutive, free-spending owner and league president), and a debate about league quality. It is about the spiteful magnates, disgruntled superstars, hungry youngsters, drunks, screw-ups, castoffs, anonymities, future stars, never-weres, hangers-on, and fanatics who did battle with the baseball establishment.”

Continue reading “Day 17 of 2023 baseball books: Look for the Union label, talking a walk on the wild side of 1884” →

“Field of Magic: Baseball’s Superstitions,
Curses and Taboos”

The author:
John Cairney

The publishing info:
McFarland
215 pages; $29.95
Released January 20, 2023

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

The review in 90 feet or less

In October, 1981, a column in the Boston Herald American by a Chicago writer named Ron Berler sold us a story that claimed “it is utterly impossible for a team with three or more ex-Cubs to win the World Series.” Call is ECF for short. There is no little blue pill solution for it.

Berler’s theory noted a pattern he observed since 1945, which had been the last time the Cubs were in the World Series. He found 13 teams with at least three ex-Cubs on their roster that made it to the Fall Classic over that 36-year period. And 12 of them lost. He was probably also painfully aware that Cubs’ history was all about having to shoulder such things as cursed billy goats and  inopportune black cats.

By Berler’s theory, at the time it came out, the Dodgers’ eventual winning the World Series in ‘81 was only logical – the Yankees actually had five ex-Cubs on their roster at the time. The Dodgers had only two – Burt Hooton and Rick Monday. Soon after, they would dispatch Davey Lopes, Ron Cey and Jay Johnstone to the Cubs – the essence of being sent out to pasture.

But it also explained how the Dodgers’ ’77 and ’78 World Series losses to the Yankees.

In ’77, their ex-Cubs contingent was just Hooton (who spent ’71 to ’75 with Chicago) until the Dodgers added Monday and relief pitcher Mike Garman (’76) in a deal for Bill Bucker and Ivan de Jesus.

In ’78, Berler noted that the Dodgers rid themselves of Garman but replaced him with outfielder Billy North, who came via Oakland in that odd Glenn Burke deal but had Cubs’ DNA in him from ’71 and ’72.

Actually, Garman was still with the Dodgers when North arrived and they overlapped three days before Garman was traded to Montreal in late May for a two young arms.

Berler can also explain how the ’66 Dodgers were humiliated by Baltimore a year after defeating Minnesota for the title. In ’65, they had just Jim Brewer and Lou Johnson as their ex-Cubs. In ’66, they added outfielder Wes Covington and made it three. Not a good move.

At last, the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, which included former Cubs star Mark Grace, won the World Series against the Yankees. It caused Grace, who had spent the previous 13 seasons in Chicago, to declare: “We beat the ex-Cub Factor.” Also on those D’backs were ex-Cubs outfielder Luis Gonzalez (who had the Game 7 game-winning hit off Mariano Riviera) and relief pitcher Miguel Batista.

When the Cubs won the 2016 World Series, they used 45 players during that season. Just seven years later, all of them are gone except pitcher Kyle Hendricks (who led the ’16 Cubs, and the NL, with a 2.13 ERA). One of those ex-Cubs is outfielder Jason Heyward, added to the 2023 Dodgers to go with ex-Cubs Shelby Miller (who pitched two innings for the Cubs in ’21) and Trace Thompson (35 at bats for the Cubs in ’21).

It behooves these Dodgers to release one of those three immediately. We kinda know which one. Leave no trace of why this decision is necessary.

Continue reading “Day 16 of 2023 baseball books: When you believe in things you don’t understand then you suffer … superstition ain’t the way” →

“Penguin Power: Dodger Blue, Hollywood Lights and
My One-in-a-Million Big League Journey”

The author:
Ron Cey
With Ken Gurnick

The publishing info:
Triumph Books
256 pages; $30
To be released June 13, 2023

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

The review in 90 feet or less

Penguins may not have been an endangered species at the time we were trying to figure out the world in the ‘60s and ‘70s. But you weren’t given much of a choice to figure out where you supposed to best nest.

It was all pretty black and white, actually.

Over there, the super-villainous, mastermind mobster character from the TV “Batman” series. Burgess Meredith in a fat suit as the “Gentleman of Crime” with the purple top hat (we had no idea with our black-and-white TV), sporting a monocle, smoking a cigarette from a long-stem holder, and wielding an umbrella that became a weapon of deception (or even a helicopter so he could escape harm). He did it while making this weird quacking noise — maybe from the emphysema he was developing putting away packs of Lucky Strikes. This version of “The Penguin” was not to be trusted while he ran the devious Iceberg Lounge nightclub.

Then there was Ron Cey. A polar opposite.

Cey did nothing villainous to unseat Steve Garvey as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ hot-corner hot shot. At a time when the franchise was creating its personality and a model of success in  the early 1970s, Cey and Garvey were on different sides of the baseball spectrum (and infield) but meant to be joyful teammates.

If Garvey stood for all that was good and pure about baseball and life, Cey wasn’t necessarily on the other end, but he just knew to keep his head down, do his job, and success would come. For everyone’s betterment, Garvey was taken off third and moved to first base (by Garvey’s act of deceit, it appears), Cey anchored third, Davey Lopes and Bill Russell moved from the outfield to play second base and shortstop respectively, Bill Buckner went to left field, Bobby Valentine was unceremoniously taken out of the picture, and a long-running unscripted L.A.-based dynasty began.

If there was any good-vs.-evil script, it came to a head in Game 5 of the 1981 World Series. The Hated Yankees, and their flame-throwing relief pitcher nicknamed “Goose,” plunked Penguin with a fastball in the eighth inning of that contest, perhaps taking him out of the decision-making process in a disturbing fashion. Cey went to the hospital, wasn’t feeling quite right, and two nights later, in Gotham City, he returned with two hits as the Dodgers clinched the World Series in Game 6.

(And if you’re not sure about Rich Gossage and his evil ways …)

Always liked Gossage
Even when he beaned Ron Cey https://t.co/nLiHLjGwvr

— Rod in Regina (@RinR1966) May 31, 2023

Throughout his career, and beyond, Cey has been accessible, honest, fair and thoughtful. He took ownership of things he could help fix and was a true team leader. All of that comes across in this book that allows him to be in the present and talk about all aspects of his playing and personal career, a narrative helped shape from longtime Dodgers’ beat-writer (now retired) Ken Gurnick.

However …

Continue reading “Day 15 of 2023 baseball books: Oh, Cey, can you see where this is all going?” →

“Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story
of the Savannah Bananas”

The author:
Jesse Cole
With Don Yaeger

The publishing info:
Dutton/Penguin/Random House
272 pages; $29
Released May 16, 2023

The links:
The publishers website
The authors website
At Bookshop.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

We didn’t go bananas when the email arrived May 17 informing us that we’d been aced out on getting in on any lottery tickets that would have provided access to the upcoming Savannah Bananas’ visit to the once-named Epicenter in Rancho Cucamonga for appearances on July 21 and 22.

It’s part of this year’s 33 cities in 22 states tour. The place holds about 6,500 and everything is sold.

Wait’ll next year, it advised.

There’s no appeal process. Pun intended.

In the meantime, we have read that if we try to go into the secondary market and secure a ticket from someone on the downlow who is considered to be a “booger eater,” which in banana slang must be something awful, then that makes us just as corrupt.

The Savannah Banana Republic is a real thing.

Continue reading “Day 14 of 2023 baseball books: Bananas foster frenzy” →

“Baseball at the Abyss:
The Scandals of 1926, Babe Ruth and
the Unlikely Savior Who Rescued a Tarnished Game”

The author:
Dan Taylor

The publishing info:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing
220 pages; $36
Released April 12, 2023

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

“The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever”

The author:
Jack Curry

The publishing info:
Twelve Publishing/Hachette
288 pages; $30
Released May 2, 2023

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

“Road to Nowhere: The Early 1990s Collapse and Rebuild of New York City Baseball”

The author:
Chris Donnelly

The publishing info:
University of Nebraska Press
376 pages; Price
Released May 1, 2023

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

“Thurm: Memoirs of a Forever Yankee”

The author:
Thurman Munson
with Marty Appel

The publishing info:
Diversion Books
240 pages; $18.99
Released March 7, 2023

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

The reviews in 90 feet or less

First, consider yourself warned:

The New York Yankees are in Southern California this weekend, June 2-4, a Friday, Saturday and Sunday sleepover at Dodger Stadium, the later two date locked in for 4 p.m. starts on Fox and ESPN. Somehow neither Apple nor Yahoo nor Peacock nor Amazon was able to wrestle away the opener. This is way overdue. Their last interleague meeting: August of 2019. The Yankees wore all black uniforms. The Dodgers wore all white (except for pitchers, who had black hats, apparently so hitters could see the ball coming to home plate). It was “Players Weekend.” It was a chance to see players also wear nicknames on their back. It was overwhelmingly dreadful. It hasn’t come back since.

If being present and accounted for at any of these Clash of the Logos contests coming up is a burning desire, just realize it all comes with a steep cost. Just remember, the Yankees return to Anaheim from July 17-19 and tickets there may not be as L.A.-tiered atrocious for mid-week encounters, unless the Shohei Ohtani pitching-to-Aaron Judge matchup is somehow aligned, and then it’s easier to offload seats to drooling Yankees fans who will likely fill any available piece of real estate.

Next, consider yourself cautioned: It’s never over with New York Yankees-related books, year after year, publisher after publisher, narrative after narrative documented for some sort of fear that it will all be forgotten. 

In line with that, but on somewhat of a tangent as we are warming up, heed one more Yankees media-related public service announcement: “It Ain’t Over,” the documentary in current theatrical circulation about the life and times of Yogi Berra.

It was created on the premise that Berra was “criminally overlooked his whole life, at every stage.”

That’s the quote attributed in the New York Times to the film’s director, Sean Mullin. Spoon-fed to him by the entire Berra family? If not, he has liked the taste of it, because he used it again in an interview posted by AwfulAnnouncing.com with the words “criminally overlooked his entire life” in the headline:

“I’ll be honest, when I first got that phone call about the documentary, I was like “Wait a second. He seems too perfect. Like, what’s the story? What’s the narrative gonna be? I don’t wanna do it just to do it.” You know so much work to make these films. But the deeper I drove into his back story, the more I started to find out that he was criminally overlooked his entire life from childhood to his deathbed essentially, and that’s a narrative we could build around, so I hopped on board.”

We’ll be honest (because, before we wrote that, we really were not): This is an hour-and-a-half heavily tilted argument rather than a loving biography hammering home the credentials of Berra’s 18-year MLB Hall of Fame career. For what purpose? The court of public opinion.

We’re not sure who in the world of baseball actually disputes Berra’s achievements on the field. Or his managerial successes. But the family now appears to believe a wrong needs to be corrected. So it’s time to change any narrative – one that the family refuses to acknowledge in the film that Yogi Berra himself helped create. Through books. Through his commercials (he once thought he was doing work for Amtrak, and it was actually Aflac). Through other media ventures that made him a nice retirement income.

The impetus of this project, which worked its way to Sony Pictures Classic, all seems to point to Lindsay Berra, Yogi’s oldest grandkid, who got her athletic supporter in a bunch while watching the opening to the 2015 MLB All-Star Game in Cincinnati on TV. As part of the pregame ceremony, there was an introduction of the “four greatest living players” in baseball history.

Out came Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax and Johnny Bench.

“Are you dead?” she says she asked her grandfather, sitting near by.

“Not yet,” he supposedly replied.

(Insert the famous Yogi quote here: “Always go to other people’s funerals otherwise they won’t come to yours.”)

Continue reading “Day 13 of 2023 baseball books: The blight of the latest Yankee brigade … but Berra with us, it’s not over until there is a movie review” →