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“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” →

“Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the
Resurrection of the Oakland A’s”

The author:
Dale Tafoya

The publishing info:
Lyons Press
$24.95
264 pages
Released April 1

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

Two events early during the 1981 Major League Baseball season knocked me off my hardball moorings.

(Actually, there were far more than only two, considering the mid-season strike and all the other drama that went along with it.)

As the cultural phenomenon known as “Fernandomania” was in an  upsurge in Los Angeles early in the season, an April 27 issue of Sports Illustrated landed with a cover proclaiming: “The Amazing A’s and their Five Aces.”

On this day in 1981 — April 19 — the Athletics broke the MLB record by starting the season 11-0 after the first game of a doubleheader – they had actually jumped out to an 8-0 mark after a four-game sweep of the defending AL West champion Angels in Anaheim when Mike Norris, Mike Langford and Matt Keough had back-to-back-to-back complete-game wins (against Geoff Zahn, Andy Hassler and rookie Mike Witt). So now we see those three A’s aces, plus Steve McCatty and Brian Kingman,  in their yellow road jerseys — taken in the Anaheim Stadium clubhouse. Those five starters had nine complete-games in the first 10 wins.

The Ron Fimrite story had the headline: “Winning Is Such A Bore.”

(To be fair, Valenzuela was only 5-0 with five complete games and a 0.20 ERA with four shutouts at that point in the season. The SI Fernando “Unreal!” cover came on May 11 when he was 7-0 with a 0.29 ERA and five shutouts and seven straight complete games. He would soon lose his first game. SI jinx for what it’s worth).

But then in May, Time magazine decided to Billy Martin on its cover – an artistic rendition, with the headline “Baseball ’81: It’s Incredible!” and a B.J. Phillips-authored piece that included: “Oakland’s record would be impressive if it belonged to the 1927 Yankees. The astonishing truth is that it is held by virtually the same team that, two seasons ago, was the worst in baseball. But there is one huge difference, a stormy, unpredictable figure with fire in his eyes and victory on his mind, Alfred Manuel (“Billy”) Martin.”

Also that month: The cover of Sport Magazine, with “Billy Martin’s Pitching Machine.”

“That exploded the whole ‘Billy Ball’ story,” says Matt Levin on page 171 of this new Dale Tafoya book.

Levin is identified more than 100 pages earlier as a consultant contracted by the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum board to file a lawsuit against A’s owner Charles O. Finley in 1979, asked to document “what the standards of marketing were in Major League Baseball and contrasting them to the A’s practices.” They Coliseum felt Finley breached a contract to not market this franchise – which four seasons earlier completed its third straight World Series title, defeating the Dodgers, but was now decimated by the new free-agent movement – and as a result, the attendance was the most abysmal in all of the sport, and visiting teams were not getting much of a share of gate receipts, and not happy about it.

The Coliseum was also watching Al Davis’ NFL Raiders tank as well – they would move to L.A. in 1982 after years of litigation. Having the A’s tank in the same way wasn’t going to help the sterile stadium experience any more than if the Golden State Warriors – also underachieving at the time – played its games on an outdoor court at second base for the sheer gimmick of it all.

If Martin had not somehow landed in his hometown of Oakland after his latest firing by the New York Yankees following the 1979 season, none of this would have been even thought possible.

It was enough to persuade Tafoya, who watched the A’s growing up and then contributed to the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and Modesto Bee, to jump on this untapped story, the residue of once doing research on a story about how the A’s in early April, 1979 once crew 653 fans to a game.

Martin arrived 10 months later. Continue reading “Day 20 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: When Billy Martin came out swingin’ for the A’s in Oakland, it was an ’80s celebration” →

“Future Value: The Battle for Baseball’s Soul
and How Teams Will Find the Next Superstar”

The authors:
Eric Longenhagen
and
Kiley McDaniel

The publishing info:
Triumph Books
$28
384 pages
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

Look closer at the cover: Unless this is two photos superimposed into one, it’s Clayton Kershaw trying to react to a ball coming back at him, one he just hurled at Mookie Betts.

The future value of that photo could be ironic if the 2020 season, with them as Dodgers teammates, doesn’t happen. It does seem to do well to frame the main title of the book and keep the ball in play.

Talent evaluation in the age of analytics pushes information into all sorts of directions, and can make things even more absurd when you’re trying to create an accurate assessment of an 18-year-old high school kid who may not have even had time to take a drivers’ training class or wash his own laundry. We’ve talked to enough scouts to know how this works, what they believe their strengths are and how much/little they feel their voices heard these days.

The complicated process surrounding the evaluation of talent is full of further analysis, and that’s where this 13-chapter book begins as a collection portal.

Longenhagen, the lead prospect analyst at FanGraphs and a former contributor to ESPN’s MLB prospect coverage five years ago, marries up with McDaniel, who very recently was at FanGraphs but is now an ESPN Atlanta-based writer. McDaniel has done work in the front office for the Yankees (2005-’07), Orioles (2009-’10), Pirates (2010-’11) and Braves (2015-’17), as well time at Fox Sports’ Scout.com (2013-’14) and the Baseball Prospectus (2009).

But then having Keith Law hit leadoff with the forward also certifies this is coming from a “smart” perspective (coming soon: a review of Law’s new book, “The Inside Game,” that launches Tuesday, April 21).

Writes Law: “Eric and Kiley give you the grand tour of scouting without asking you to leave your couch. They’ll walk you through the draft, the most important three days in the entire year for amateur scouting; the Wild West of international free agency (where players can sign at age 16, and often strike verbal deals with teams before they’re teenagers); and professional scouting, where scouts evaluate players already in the minor leagues…. You couldn’t ask for a better pair of tour guides.” Continue reading “Day 19 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: Everything you might want to know about current talent evaluation but were afraid to ask” →

“The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson:
The Baseball Legend’s Battle for Civil Rights
during World War II”

The author:
Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning

The publishing info:
Stackpole Books
$29.95
296 pages
Released Feb. 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

On what would have been the 73rd anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first MLB game with the Dodgers, and the 16th revival of the MLB-wide wearing of No. 42 on the official “Jackie Robinson Day” — the Dodgers had a 7:10 p.m. game scheduled at home against the Cardinals — we keep alive our tradition of finding a Robinson-related book to review on this day, amidst this series.

This one may be among the most important, a unique in-depth look at a single incident three years earlier, in July 1944,  that would establish a defining moment in his life’s journey.

Then, he was 2nd Lt. Jack R. Robinson — pre “Jackie” — age 25, a couple years removed from leaving UCLA early so he could pursue work to help his family. Navigating the Jim Crow laws of Texas while stationed in the Army as a cavalry-trained officer reassigned to Camp Hood,  about 40 miles southwest of Waco. He was attached to the 761st Tank Battalion, a tank unit later in the European theater’s Battle of the Bulge.

Eleven years before Rosa Parks became a person of historical importance for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, Robinson effectively did the same thing, on a public street, in a public bus, his fame already known in the region based on his athletic career at UCLA.

We won’t retell a lot of what happened, but focus here more on who is telling the story this time, and why that matters.

First, the author: Michael Lee Lanning, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, served more than 20 years, as an infantry platoon leader, reconnaissance platoon leader, and rifle company commander in the 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam and was one of the one of the youngest company commanders in the Vietnam War.

Upon his return, he wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen non-fiction books about military history starting in 1987 with “The Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader’s Journal of Vietnam” for Ballantine Books/Random House: “In my year in Vietnam, I walked the booby-trapped rice paddies of the Delta, searching for the elusive Viet Cong, and later macheted my way through the triple-canopy jungle, fighting the North Vietnamese Regulars. . . . I sweated, thirsted, hunted, killed. Somewhere in all my experiences, I overlapped the situations of nearly every infantryman and many others who served.”

His only previous sports title: “Double T – Double Cross – Double Take: The Firing of Coach Mike Leach by Texas Tech University,” in 2011 by Scottsdale Books (updated in 2017 by self publishing).

But if you were to pick an author with the best background to look into this … Continue reading “Day 18 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews for spring/summer 2020: On JRDay, the jury shouldn’t be out on how a court-martial experience shaped his path to MLB history” →