Baseball

Review: The Cup of Coffee Club

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Cover image of "The Cup of Coffee Club" by Jacob Kornhauser

The Cup of Coffee Club

The Cup of Coffee Club, Jacob Kornhauser. Rowman & Littlefield (ISBN: 9781538175453) 2023.

Summary: The stories of eleven baseball players who played just one game in the Major Leagues.

Most of the baseball books I’ve read recount the stories of championship teams or Hall of Fame players. This book is very different. It chronicles eleven members of the “Cup of Coffee” club, those who played just one game in the Major Leagues, just long enough to have a cup of coffee. One the one hand, it seems to be a dubious honor to be part of this club. Yet from another perspective, it is still quite a honor to be among less than 19,000 players who ever played in the Major Leagues.

One of the eleven, Charlie Lindstrom, was the son of Hall of Famer, Freddie Lindstrom. Two others had brothers who made the Hall of Fame, Larry Yount, brother of Robin Yount, and Stephen Larkin, brother of Barry Larkin. Most came from families where sports was a big deal. All of them had Major League dreams from early on. Many signed on out of high school, others after college.

And then came the long ordeal of working their way through the minors, often more than five years. Time spent honing skills, sometimes helped by coaches, sometimes in spite. One thing most had in common was to play at a position occupied by a star or strong player at the Major League level. In another farm system, they might have made it sooner, and perhaps stayed longer. Kornhauser chronicles the “grit,” the mental mindset that separates those who make it from those who don’t. Often, the biggest challenges is overcoming one’s own self-doubt.

After describing each player’s background and minor league journey, Kornhauser narrates in detail that one game. It was surprising how many hitters had just one at bat and finished with a 1.000 Major League batting average. Likewise, there were several pitchers who pitched scoreless or even hitless outings, ending with a 0.000 ERA (including one credited with an appearance who never threw a pitch). One wonders, why didn’t they stay. Usually, it was because the player they replaced returned. One player, Sam Marsonek, had a boating accident during the All-Star break and was never the same. Playing injuries hampered several others, who were never able to return to top form.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the stories is how they dealt with life afterwards. Some thought they’d be back only to return to the minors. For some, it was devastating, reflected in their performance. Marsonek was in a deteriorating spiral of alcohol abuse until a mission trip led to faith and eventually, leadership of a sports ministry. For most, they eventually came to a place of being at peace with or even proud of what they achieved. Larry Yount achieved success in business. Others stayed in the game, coaching at various levels, mentoring younger players. Jeff Banister managed the Texas Rangers, being named AL Manager of the Year in his rookie year in 2015. Ron Wright went on to earn a pharmacy degree and works as a pharmacist.

Kornhauser concludes with other “cup of coffee” stories including that of Bert Shepard, who lost a leg in World War Two but pitched a game with the Senators. The stories he tells give us just as much sense of the “inside” life of baseball as the accounts of the star players. He helps us appreciate how hard players work just to make it to the Majors. He also helps us understand the challenge every player who plays the game and loves it faces when it’s time to hang it up. Yet each of the men here did navigate that transition, though not without struggles. Kornhauser combines good research and storytelling to celebrate those who made it, even for one game. A great book for anyone who loves the game.

Review: The Old Ball Game

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Cover image of "The Old Ball Game" by Frank Deford

The Old Ball Game

The Old Ball Game, Frank Deford. Grove Press (ISBN: 9780802142474) 2006.

Summary: A dual biography of John McGraw and Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants and their partnership in elevating the game.

Muggsy and Mattie. Those are the nicknames of the subjects of this dual biography of John McGraw and Christy Mathewson. Two men could not be more different. McGraw grew up in a hardscrabble Irish community and was a scrapper as ballplayer and manager. He fought with umpires, often getting ejected from games. Mathewson was the good looking, college-educated pitcher, the poster child for “muscular Christianity.” Surprisingly, they got along so well that they and their wives shared lodgings for many years. The secret, Frank Deford reveals, is that they loved the art and strategy of the game, and not just the physical athleticism.

In this work, veteran sportswriter Frank Deford combines a dual biography of the two men with a study of their unique partnership. Together, they elevated the New York Giants, and professional baseball, from mediocrity to greatness. They were a part of the transformation of baseball from poorly run teams of “ne’er do wells” to increasingly well-managed and more highly disciplined teams. This was accompanied by a move from ramshackle, small stadiums to modern concrete and steel ballparks able to accommodate the larger crowds the game attracted.

But it almost didn’t happen. Specifically, Mathewson signed for a mediocre Giants team under poor ownership. And McGraw loved his wife’s home of Baltimore, coming to manage the new Baltimore franchise in the American League. From 1900 to 1902, Matty showed only glimpses of future greatness, including a no-hitter in 1901. But McGraw was finding out he didn’t fit the manager mold of Ban Johnson, the organizer of the American League. So he was forced out in 1902. Then New York hired him, along with a pitching ace from Baltimore, “Iron Man” McGinnity.

By 1905, they won the pennant and agreed to play in the nascent World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics. While there had been a couple previous “inter-league series” this was the first to garner national attention. Deford takes us through game by game, chronicling the utter mastery of Mathewson over the A’s. He won three shutout games, with Iron Man winning the other in a five game series. McGraw’s Giants dominated.

However, they never repeated this success during Mathewson’s years despite a number of 30 game seasons for Mathewson and pennant wins. They missed out on one pennant due to a baserunning error at the end of a game that would have put the Giants in the Series. Although the winning run scored, the baserunner on first never tagged second base. The error was spotted, the ball thrown to second and the run nullified. While everyone on the Giants insisted he had tagged second, Mathewson stood out by saying he didn’t. Then in 1912, a dropped fly ball cost Matty a victory and the Giants a the Series.

McGraw was know as “The Little Napolean,” not only for his size but his tight control of how his team played. A mark of the confidence he had in Matty is that he was the only one permitted to call his own game, including positioning his fielders. He tried to keep his players sober by tight discipline, including some with drinking problems. Sadly, alcohol would contribute to his own ill health in later years. Players stopped listening to him. He finally hung it up in 1932, dying two years later.

However, tragedy came for Mathewson young. One brother died of tuberculosis, another took his own life. But Mattie kept winning over twenty games a year until 1914, after which his arm gave out. He won only a handful more, finishing with 373 wins. In 1916, McGraw helped Matty get a managing job in Cincinnati. But he wasn’t there long before going to war. He was never the same after, debilitated by gas exposure. His lungs weakened, he contracted tuberculosis. He returned to the Giants as a coach, recovered briefly in 1922, but worsened in 1924, dying the next year on October 7, at the end of the first game of the 1925 World Series.

Deford’s account focuses less on statistics than on the character and achievements of the two men. Together, they helped lift the Giants from mediocrity in 1902 to become a powerhouse team through the rest of the decade. They attracted record crowds to the re-built Polo Grounds. Mathewson defined the art of pitching with his consummate control. McGraw became the model of the tough guy manager, later exemplified by Earl Weaver, and Woody Hayes and Bobby Knight. All in all, it is a fascinating account–a good way to begin another season of baseball.

Review: The Last Manager

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Cover image of "The Last Manager" by John W. Miller

The Last Manager, John W. Miller. Avid Reader Press (ISBN: 9781668030929) 2025.

Summary: A biography of manager Earl Weaver, his baseball career, his strategic innovations, and his feisty character.

I try to review a baseball book or two every summer. But I don’t recall that I’ve ever reviewed a biography of a manager. Earl Weaver is a fitting subject, having managed four pennant-winning teams between 1968 and 1982, each time winning over 100 games. One of those won the World Series. He brought strategic innovations to managing that changed the game. Of course, he is remembered for his feisty run-ins with umpires, tirades that mixed vulgarities and Shakespeare and lots of dirt kicking. John W. Miller’s new biography, The Last Manager, paints a full-color picture of a most colorful figure in baseball history.

But Earl Weaver never set out to be a manager. Growing up in St. Louis, which had two baseball teams (the Browns and the Orioles), he was a star high school player and made it to the minor leagues, despite his small size. He even made it to spring training on the Cardinals in 1951, only to be sent back to the minors because the manager, Eddie Stankey was still playing, and his position was second base. That was the zenith of his playing career. Miller traces his decline over the next years as a player.

But Earl always was an analyst of the game. Watching games with his uncle, who engaged in sports betting, he developed the instincts of an analyst, figuring out statistics, like on base percentage, that mattered. He analyzed managers decisions, the good and bad. At Knoxville, in the mid-1950’s, he got his chance when the team manager did abysmally and everyone recognized Weaver might be better, including the owners. About then, Paul Richards was building the Orioles farm system, and recognized in Weaver the kind of baseball man he was looking for.

Miller traces his rise from 1957 to 1968 in the Orioles farm system, working his way up the ladder and helping develop the Oriole Way, eventually managing their Rochester team. Then mid-season in 1968, the call came to replace poorly performing Hank Bauer. The team played 48-34 after Weaver took over. He insisted on the Oriole Way, which detailed excellence, both on and off the field. Weaver didn’t allow his pitchers to waste pitches but put a priority on throwing strikes. He didn’t waste outs either. He was opposed generally to the hit and run and bunting. And he was the one to introduce the radar gun and figure out the optimum difference between the speed of fastballs and off-speed pitches (about 20 mph).

Weaver not only fought with umpires but also with players. His fights with Jim Palmer were legendary, but Palmer kept turning in 20-game seasons. It was never personal and part of Weaver’s genius was to push players to their best, sometimes by uniting the team against him. In the midst of his time with the Orioles, he figured out the transition to free agency. He recognized in Cal Ripken, Jr. the potential for the big shortstop.

He coached through 1982, and then a brief return in 1985-86. It didn’t seem his heart was in it when he came back. Sports broadcasting didn’t fit. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1996, only the thirteenth manager admitted..

Miller shows how the analytics Weaver developed have expanded in today’s much more highly computerized world. While managers are much more player-oriented as a rule, Weaver’s qualities of “leadership, passion, and motivation” are still key. Weaver’s approach to spring training and practice also continues to influence the game.

We also catch glimpses of Weaver off the field. He loved to garden and had a rivalry with his groundskeeper over who grew the best tomatoes. In retirement, he was a pioneer in developing sports videogaming.

I loved this biography for both bringing out Weaver’s character and its glimpse of “inside baseball.” Miller helps us appreciate how Weaver’s on-the-field antics revealed his fierce passion for his players. And for the baseball buff, it recalls those great Oriole baseball teams of the seventies, not built with big money but a good farm system and attention to the fundamentals. This has all the elements of a great baseball book!

Review: The Glory of Their Times

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Cover image of "The Glory of Their Times" by Lawrence S. Ritter

The Glory of Their Times, Lawrence S. Ritter. Harper Perennial (ISBN: 9780061994715) 2010 (first published in 1966).

Summary: Oral histories by twenty-six former players from the early days of baseball, playing from the 1900’s to the 1940’s.

I’m old enough to remember great baseball players of the 1960’s–Mays, Mantle, Koufax, Mazeroski, Bob Gibson, Hank Aaron. This book reaches back another twenty to sixty years, going back to the early years of major league baseball. Some of the things I learned were that the gloves were smaller, the bats tended to be heavier, the balls deader, and the outfield fences further away. The game was one of strategy and speed and defense rather than power. There were years when a person with ten home runs stood a good chance of being homerun champ. Getting “discovered” wasn’t the result of an intensive scouting system. Often, the tip came from a friend, or someone just happened to stop by a semi-pro game and find you.

Lawrence S. Ritter, back in the 1960’s, set out to capture the stories of this time before the players of that generation had passed. Many, like Ruth, Gehrig, and Cobb already had. In this book, he has published oral histories of twenty-six players whose playing years stretch between 1898 to 1947. Many are in the Hall of Fame, some being inducted as a result of their stories appearing in this book.

The narratives cover their growing up years, how they fell in love with the game and made it to the majors, major career events and their afterlife when their playing days were done. One of the things that struck me was how many talked about other great players and managers. For example, Sam Crawford raved about what a great pitcher and fun person was Rube Waddell, about the hitting skills of Wee Willie Keeler, and the greatness of Walter Johnson as a pitcher.

But most noteworthy was the fact that Crawford played beside Ty Cobb in the outfield for thirteen years. He didn’t think he was the greatest overall, arguing instead for Honus Wagner as the best all round player. Cobb was a great hitter, a terror on the base paths, but just an average fielder who could only play outfield. An he was not a nice human being, a fact that several others in the book confirm.

John McGraw (“Mr. McGraw”) comes up in the accounts of many players. He was the manager for the Giants. Rube Marquard, a pitcher who once won 19 straight games (it would be 20 under current rules) loved playing for him. He loved his players, they loved him, but he was a strict disciplinarian.

I remember as a kid and a Cleveland fan hearing from my grandfather about Stanley Coveleski. In 1920, he won three games against the Giants to lead Cleveland to a World Championship. In all, he won 214 games. I also learned he pitched in the days when the spitter was legal, and it was his main pitch!

The book closes out with my other favorite team from my youth, the Pirates and Paul Waner. The most fascinating part of the story is that he and his brother Lloyd played together for many years. Together they had 5600 hits in their careers, more than the three Dimaggio brothers or all five Delahanty brothers.

Ritter did a great job with the interviews. The players were great storytellers. One senses something of what the game was like back then. There’s a lot of “inside baseball” in the book. We see how players translated the mental game into the difference between wins and losses. And not unlike today, the stories capture the ‘brief, shining moment” that is a baseball career. Hank Greenberg’s story makes us wonder, as we did later with Ted Williams, “what if” military service hadn’t interrupted a career in its prime.

There is a debate that runs through the book of how today’s players compare. Players come down on both sides. So much has changed. At the same time, the stories hint at those who would have been great in any era–Mathewson and Johnson as pitchers, Cobb, and Speaker, and Wagner as hitters and fielders, and many more with them. We’ll never know but Ritter certainly captures “the glory of their times,” in these twenty-six histories. Any lover of the game should read this book!

Finally, thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Our Team

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Cover image of "Our Team" by Luke Epplin

Our Team, Luke Epplin. Flatiron Books (ISBN: 9781250313799) 2021.

Summary: The story of four men who propelled the 1948 Cleveland Indians to a World Series Championship and how they changed baseball.

I read this book while the Cleveland Guardians were in the playoffs for the American League Championship. I fantasized about some of the glory of the 1948 World Series Champion Indians rubbing off on this team. Alas, the Yankees (Cleveland nemesis #1) put an end to those hopes in a five-game series. As a lifelong Cleveland fan, once again I find myself saying, “There is always next year….”

Our Team tells the story of the last championship baseball team in Cleveland by focusing on four key men who helped propel them to a championship. Bill Veeck. Bob Feller. Larry Doby. Satchel Paige. Two Whites. Two Blacks. They not only brought a championship to Cleveland. They helped change baseball.

Bill Veeck. The baseball entrepreneur who lost his lower leg to a war wound that he did not give a chance to heal. Instead, he relentlessly worked to fill Cleveland’s lakefront stadium through crazy promotions and fireworks, while cobbling together a team that included the second Black player as well as a veteran pitcher in the Negro Leagues.

Bob Feller. The aging Cleveland pitching ace from the Iowa cornfields, determined to make up for four lost seasons while in the military. In post-season exhibitions, he found another way to make money. Often, he matched up with Satchel Paige and other Black teams, but offered tepid reviews of Black players. In 1948, he struggles through the first part of the season, recovering something of his form late in the season, only for it to desert him in the tie-breaking playoff and World Series.

Larry Doby. The young war veteran playing for Newark in the Negro Leagues, spotted by Veeck and recruited for his power and speed. He was the second Black player in the majors after Jackie Robinson. Enduring separation because of race and riding the bench in 1947, he transitions to center field, propelling the Indians into contention with his bat, speed, and arm in 1948.

Satchel Paige. As much an entrepreneur as Feller or Veeck, he’d made a comfortable living pitching for over two decades in the Negro Leagues, wondering if he’d ever get a shot. In mid-season in 1948, Veeck finally recruits him to lift the struggling Cleveland pitching. His six wins and seven saves make a crucial difference in their pennant run

Luke Epplin skillfully interweaves their four stories into an account of the incredible season of 1948. As he does so, he shows how Veeck changed the character of the fan experience. Through supporting Doby and Paige, he made the Indians “our team” for the whole city, Black and White. In Bob Feller, we see a player trying to establish his own agency when there was no free agency. Then, with Larry Doby, we see the loneliness of separate lodgings and meals, the isolation from other teammates, and the efforts of Veeck to support him. Finally, with Paige, we witness a form of vindication of his greatness, as well as his incredible durability.

Of course it took more than the efforts of these four to win a championship. Epplin also chronicles the performances of Bob Lemon and Gene Bearden, bolstering the pitching when Feller faltered. And he describes the incredible season of player manager Lou Boudreau.

Epplin also gives us a sense of the evanescence of these moments of greatness. Veeck sacrificed his marriage and family for his baseball dreams. And sadly, aside from a pennant in 1954, the Indians would spend decades in mediocrity. Only with a new ballpark and contending teams would they again exceed the attendance figures of the Veeck era.

Personally, I especially appreciate the treatment of Larry Doby, whose great accomplishments have often been overlooked. And it was a gift to remember that great team and incredible season…and hope we will not have to wait too long for another one.

Review: Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend

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Cover image for "Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend" by James S. Hirsch.

Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, James S. Hirsch. Scribners (ISBN: 9781416547914), 2011.

Summary: Willie Mays’ authorized biography, his passion for every aspect of the game, and his greatness on and off the field.

When Willie Mays died earlier this year, my friend Matt recommended this as a great book about his life. Matt was right. I read a baseball book every summer and this became my book for 2024. Mays was my childhood hero. I tried (and failed) to master the basket catch. We all took to wearing our gloves with the index finger out.

James S. Hirsch persisted over several years to secure Mays’ permission to write this story and won his trust and help with interviews, documents and images, and connections with others who could help the story. And Hirsch turned all of that into a meticulously researched biography that ranks, along with Mays himself, among the greats in baseball history.

Beginning with Mays’ family, he traces the rise of Mays, learning from his father “Cat,” playing in the Negro Leagues for the Birmingham Barons, and his quick journey from Minneapolis to the New York Giants. He describes the support of owner Horace Stoneham, the mentoring of Leo Durocher, and the protection of Frank Forbes, who kept him out of trouble. And of course, there was the talent: speed, fielding, throwing, hitting and power. Throughout, Hirsch recounts the big moments, including “the catch” against Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series. We’re reminded of the clutch hits and homers, but also of his savvy on the bases, helping others advance. In addition, Hirsch portrays Mays’ passion for the game including his exacting study of every hitter, every pitcher.

But being Willie Mays was about far more than skill and competitiveness. For example, his quick presence of mind may have saved the career of hot-tempered Orlando Cepeda, who went after a pitcher with his bat. Mays tackled him. When opposing catcher John Roseboro was in a fight with Juan Marichal, Mays got a bleeding Roseboro off the field.. He mentored younger players. One of his great loves was kids, and it was not uncommon to find him playing stickball in the Harlem streets.

Hirsch explores how Mays dealt with race. He was criticized by Jackie Robinson and others for not being more vocal. Yet Mays persisted in buying a home in an exclusive San Francisco neighborhood when residents opposed it and made threats. He let his excellence and physical toughness speak. Rather than confront, he invested in youth programs, and opened doors for others.

At the same time, Hirsch is forthright about Mays’ flaws. He chose badly in his first marriage and Marghuerite’s expensive tastes as well as Willie’s carefree generosity put him in financial straits for many years. Only late in his career did several people helped him pay off debts and manage and invest more wisely. Only later in his life in Mae did he find a partner who understood his love of the game. And then there is the intensity at which Mays played, landing him in the hospital with exhaustion several times.

Hirsch’s account leaves us wondering about some might-have-beens. What if Mays did not serve for nearly two seasons in the military and play half his career in Candlestick Park, robbing him of home runs? Might he have surpassed Ruth and rivaled Aaron? And what could he have earned were it not for baseball’s reserve clause?

Mays played before performance enhancing drugs. He was able to play hard because he didn’t live hard. In this biography, Hirsch portrays Mays’ love for the game that gave him the platform to care for kids, mentor others, and bring joy to fans. The “Say Hey” kid was one of a kind.

Review: K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

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K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner. New York: Anchor Books, 2020.

Summary: A New York Times sportswriter writes about ten different pitches in the repertoire of pitchers, how they are thrown, what they do, the pitchers who threw them, and how they worked or didn’t in famous games.

When I first saw the title of this book, I thought the book would recount ten pitches thrown in pressure situations in important games that made the difference between a win and a loss. I wondered how one would do that. Instead, the book tells the story of baseball in terms of ten different kinds of pitches various pitchers have used with greater or lesser success.

In truth, this is at the heart of baseball, the duel between a hitter, often quite skilled at “reading” a pitch and a pitcher whose success rides on fooling the batter enough that the ball either makes it into the catchers mitt or is hit as a playable ball for an out. So much depends on what the ball does in the last 15 feet of its 60 foot 6 inch journey. Over the history of baseball, pitchers have developed different ways of throwing the ball to make it do different things, and if they are good at it, not giving it away in their motion or the way the ball comes out of the pitcher’s hand.

The ten pitches Tyler Kepner discusses are: slider, fastball, curve ball, knuckleball, splitter, screwball, sinker, changeup, spitball, and the cutter. It all comes down (except for the spitter) to the placement of fingers in relation to the seams of the baseball, and the action of fingers and wrist in the release of the ball. Kepner walks us through how each pitch was thrown and famous pitchers who used it. One of the stories that comes up over and over is how mastery of a particular pitch either elevated an average pitcher to greatness or prolonged the career of a pitcher who had lost his blazing fastball.

The slider was what turned Ron Guidry into a Cy Young winner. For Don Sutton and Bert Blyleven, it was the curveball. The knuckleball kept Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Nierkro in baseball forever. Bruce Sutter couldn’t throw a slider without hurting his arm. The splitter, which looked like a fastball until the bottom dropped out, turned him into a dominant pitcher and saved his arm. Warren Spahn, who won 363 games, the most for a lefty, pitched into his forties using the screwball. The sinker saved the career of Dan Quisenberry. A coach’s advice to not give up on the changeup turned Frank Viola into a winner. For Mariano Rivera, the cutter was the out pitch that was key to his record 652 career saves.

Kepner combines stats and stories with enough of each to lure in any baseball afficionado from the stats geek to the one who loves remembering Bill Mazeroski’s home run in game seven of the 1960 World Series making the Pirates World Champions. [Ralph Terry recalls the pitch as a high cutter]. We learn that the record fastball is 105 mph and in years to come, pitchers will need to throw 97-98 and touch 101-102. Yet hitters adapt to the fastball, no matter how fast. That’s why movement, and other pitches are crucial.

We’re also reminded of the brutal toll pitching takes on many arms (unless you are Steve Carlton, who learned to pitch without hurting his arm). That’s why figuring out how to deceive batters without burning out one’s arm is so crucial to success and longevity. Of course there is the spitter or the scuffed ball, making the ball’s trajectory unpredictable–as long as the pitcher doesn’t get caught. We learn that most pitchers stay mum about how they did it because one shared his secrets lost a chance at the Hall of Fame.

All of this is great fun, and it is great to understand how a particular pitch works when a sports announcer talks about it. Kepner’s book takes us into the incredible combination of athleticism, mental discipline, and training that makes a major league pitcher. We even learn how pitchers use strings to learn how to throw a particular pitch to a particular location. Tyler Kepner has done what the great baseball writers do–to deepen our love for the game. I wondered who would take up the mantle of Roger Angell. It just might be Tyler Kepner. I was delighted to learn that this was not his most recent book, which was The Grandest Stage published in 2022. That just might be my baseball book for next summer!

Review: Season Ticket

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Season Ticket, Roger Angell. New York: Open Road Media, 2013 (originally published in 1988).

Summary: A collection of essays covering the 1982 to 1987 seasons, from spring training to the drama of the championships, and all the skills of players and managers and owners required to compete at the major league level.

“Don’t you know how hard this all is?”

Ted Williams, on batting in particular and baseball in general

If there is a theme to this installment of Roger Angell’s articles on baseball, it is the conversations Angell has with different players and even an owner, all that illustrate what a challenge it is to do every aspect of Major League Baseball well. A number of the essays recount the answers of players and coaches to the question of “How do you do what you do?” What does it take to catch well for example. The biggest part is working with pitchers, yet the all stars are always the ones who hit. They may not be the best at their work with pitchers. We learn how a catcher must in a single motion catch, stand, and throw to have any hope of catching a base-stealing runner.

He takes us through the infield and the particular demands of each position. We learn what a mental game playing first base is. So much at every position is positioning for each batter, knowing your pitcher. He spends a good deal of his time with Dave Concepcion, a short stop star of the ’80s, learning about how he learned to make the long throw on a hop to first base on artificial turf because it was actually faster.

Included is an article on Dan Quisenberrry, a submarine ball relief pitcher for the Royals. We catch him at his peak in 1985 when he was nearly unhittable. We learn about everything from how he learned the motion, which is actually far easier on the pitching arm than throwing overhand to the aggressive mindset of relief pitchers. We learn about his repertoire of pitches and the attitude of flexibility of being prepared to pitch in any game that comes with relief pitching. In later articles, we also see Quisenberry’s decline, particularly after Dick Howser stepped down. The chemistry was never the same.

And then, of course, there is hitting and all the little things that go into hitting well, and as one of the best, Ted Williams says, how hard it is. We learn that basically batters want to hit a fastball. We get all the little nuances of bat weight, stance, grip on the bat, and swing, and how easy it is to get out of the groove.

Then there are the players. In this period he covers the last game of Carl Yastrzemski, the great Boston player, Jim Kaat, after a twenty year career as a pitcher, and Johnny Bench, all who played their last in 1983. We have the account of Pete Rose’s 4192nd hit, surpassing Ty Cobb, and the comparison showing how superior Cobb’s accomplishment was in far less games at a higher batting average. Rose just kept playing. Then there are the young pitchers of the era, Dwight Gooden and Bret Saberhagen in particularly.

As always, Angell seems at his best in recounting championships, in this case in particular, the 1986 Red Sox-Mets World Series and particularly the disappointing Red Sox loss that turned the tide in the fifth game. Then there is the amazing 1984 Tigers team with all their hitting, power, and speed, which finally buried the Padres.

Angell covers the rise of drug use among players, the advent of drug testing, and some of the great players who got ensnared in cocaine use. The sad thing was that apart from a few teams, the emphasis seemed less on rehabilitation and more on “gotcha.” He writes about all the pressures and temptations that came with the big money of this era.

The book ends at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown during a Hall of Fame induction. By the time Angell was done, I found myself mentally adding Cooperstown to my bucket list. He writes, “The artifacts and exhibits in the Hall remind us, vividly and with feeling, of our hopes for bygone seasons and players. Memories are jogged, even jolted; colors become brighter, and we laugh or sigh, remembering the good times gone by.”

Angell captures the fleeting wonder of the game and how amazing the players who perform at a high level for ten years or more. It is indeed hard to do so well, and hard on bodies, especially as they age. The arc from spring to autumn, both of seasons and careers in some way is a parable of the fleeting nature of our lives, as well as the glory of our existence.

Review: Strength for the Fight

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Strength for the Fight (Library of Religious Biography), Gary Scott Smith. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2022.

Summary: A biography on this pioneer Hall of Famer who desegregated Major League Baseball, devoted his post-playing years to civil rights activism, all sustained by his active faith.

As a lifelong baseball fan, this is not the first Jackie Robinson biography I’ve read. The one I read when I was a young fan focused on his exploits on the field, his courage and restraint in breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, and how his play contributed to several pennants and a World Series victory. As this book makes clear, Robinson not only needed to be both courageous and self-controlled to face racist treatment, he needed to be good–and he was. He was fast and daring on the base paths, a great fielder, and could deliver hits and bunts in clutch situations. He was a great all-round ballplayer deserving of Hall of Fame status simply on those merits.

This book added to the portrait of Robinson in several ways. Most importantly, it reveals him as a man of deep faith, who like Augustine had a godly mother and his own Ambrose in the form of a Methodist pastor, Karl Downs, who rescued him from gang life in Pasadena. Later, as he faces intense pressure and vitriol, he testifies, “Many nights I get down on my knees and pray for the strength not to fight back.” This and the support of his wife Rachel made all the difference for a proud man whose natural instinct was to fight back. Yet Smith also shows how Rachel went beyond standing by Robinson to pursue her own career as a nurse-therapist and professor.

Gary Scott Smith also fleshes out the vital role Branch Rickey played in Robinson’s life. Smith goes into the Methodist faith the two men shared, a critical factor in Rickey deciding to sign Robinson. Rickey was both a deeply religious man in Smith’s account and a sharp (and parsimonious) baseball entrepreneur. It was Rickey’s counsel he followed in not fighting back against spiking, knockdown pitches, and crude racial insults. When Rickey died in 1965 he said of Rickey: “He talked with me and treated me like a son.” The treatment of Rickey is so interesting that I would love to see Smith follow up this book with a full length biography on Rickey, perhaps as part of this Library of Religious Biography series.

What also distinguishes this book is the account it gives of Robinson’s post-baseball career as a tireless activist for civil rights through newspaper columns that did not hesitate to criticize presidents of either party, through public addresses including messages in hundreds of churches, marching on the front lines in places like Selma. At the same time, Robinson was not a “movement activist.” While honored by the NAACP with its Spingarn award, he did not hesitate to differ with others like Paul Robeson over communism or Dr. King over Vietnam. Some accused him of being an “Uncle Tom” for his relationship with Nelson Rockefeller, motivated by both political and business considerations, and his support in 1960 for Richard Nixon.

Vietnam would contribute to tragedy in Robinson’s life. His son Jackie, Jr. returned with addiction problems but the book makes clear the strains on the father-son relationship between the two. Sadly, just as Jackie, Jr. started to get his life on track as well as his relationship with his father, he died in an auto accident, just a year before Jackson himself passed.

That leads to my one question about this book, that the author doesn’t discuss how such a fine athlete as Robinson died at age 53, just sixteen years after retirement, suffering from diabetes, heart disease, and nearly blind. Others have discussed the disparate impacts of racism on health and the effects of his repressed anger and racial traumas on his health. Pictures of Robinson show him with hair turning white in his last playing years. Robinson bore on his body in many ways, externally and internally, the trauma of racism, and perhaps this might have been further developed in this work.

Smith portrays Robinson’s faith as “muscular,” and apart from those bedside prayers concerned more about moral and social uplift of his people, expressed in his tireless work. Even in his last years, with failing health, he was grateful for God’s blessings. Yet, he was infrequent in church attendance, and Smith notes the evidence of extra-marital affairs. After his first two years, he was more aggressive in defending himself on the field, having fulfilled his agreement with Rickey. Yet there is a thread running through the course of his life, shown by Smith of a faith that sustained and strengthened Robinson. What resulted was some of the most significant civil rights leadership in the twentieth century delivered in the form of a stellar athlete (no one since has stolen home more than the 19 times he did this) and a courageous champion. His faith, courage, and perseverance are worth emulation.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Five Seasons

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion, Roger Angell. New York: Open Road, 2013 (First published in 1977).

Summary: Roger Angell essays covering the seasons of 1972 to 1976 that arguably transformed baseball into the sport it is today.

I’ve been discovering the marvelous baseball writing of the recently deceased Roger Angell, one of the great baseball writers. This book includes essays from the seasons of 1972 to 1976, my college years. One of the marvels of this collection was simply to relive in the reading the historic seven-game series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox in 1975. It was the era of the Big Red Machine, Yaz, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, and Luis Tiant with the Red Sox (the latter yet another great player traded away by the Indians!).

Along the way, he reminded me of the Oakland A’s championship teams united by their love of winning and their shared resentments of Charlie Finley, the brilliant and flawed club owner. By contrast, Angell recounts an afternoon watching the Giants in the twilight years of Horace Stoneham’s ownership, a gracious host.

We read of the final games of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, as well as the years of Nolan Ryan’s greatness. He also writes of Steve Blass, who threw an amazing World Series game with the Pirates, and in subsequent years lost his control. He could pitch well in practice, his arm was sound, but he could not get his head sorted out. And finally he hung it up.

He takes us behind the scenes, at spring training games, the rebuilding of both Yankee Stadium and the Yankee team and Walter Alston’s brief playing career and the end of his managerial leadership of the Dodgers. We learn about the reserve clause that bound players to their teams, the fight to gain free agency, the owners lockout, and subsequent agreement that changed baseball as players won larger salaries and became more mobile. Angell tells the other side, about how many players want to remain in a community and hated trades.

One of the “behind-the-scenes” accounts in the book was Angell’s trip with Ray Scarborough, an Angel’s scout as he evaluated players. We learn what scouts looked for in pitchers (body, mechanics, and a good fastball with control) and hitters (good contact, whether they got hits or not) and the fraternity among them even though they scouted for rival clubs. It all came down to the draft and who chose who.

It was a time of change with the corporatization of the game, artificial turf, a changing of the guard of stars, and the power struggle between the Players Association and owners. But so much of this book just revels in the game, the ups and downs of each season, rain delays, and the quirks of each ball park, the contenders, the playoffs and the World Series. Angell reminded me of games I’d seen and players I remembered: Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente, Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson and Johnny Bench and Pete Rose (alias Charley Hustle).

For the young fan, the book tells us something of how we got to the present. For older fans, it is a time to remember. For all of us, Angell’s descriptions invite us to a special kind of fantasy baseball, reliving in our minds real games and personalities of the past.