Sports

Review: The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop." by Robert Coover

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., Robert Coover. New York Review of Books (ISBN: 9798896230182) 2026 (first published in 1968).

Summary: An accountant creates a fantasy baseball league that takes over his life.

Before modern fantasy baseball leagues. Before the invention of Sabremetrics to analyze every possible baseball statistic. In 1968, Robert Coover introduced us to J. Henry Waugh, sole proprietor of the Universal Baseball League. It is a league created in Waugh’s apartment. But no one else knows about it. He named the eight teams after early pro teams. He filled the rosters with players who he named, who took on lives of their own. Games were played by the role of three dice. Waugh had created an elaborate system for each possible dice combination.

As the book opens, the league is in its fifty-sixth (LVI) season of 84 games. But something is wrong, both with the league and with Henry. The league just doesn’t seem to have the same excitement. Yet it is taking over more and more of Henry’s life. His day job is as an accountant with a big accounting firm. Then he ran the league in the evening and weekends. His only social life is trips to the local dive bar, his friend Lou from work, and Hetty, his neighbor and “friend with benefits.” A local grocer delivers his food.

But it gets worse. Not only does he play the games, and keep records of all the statistics, promote rookies, and retire veterans. He also has allowed the players to occupy his mind with their lives–their off the field escapades and tragedies. There are long passages of imagined bar scenes with bawdy songs (including one with a rape). And as the league occupies more of his head space, his work suffers and his job is at risk. Sometimes, fantasy dialogue leaks out in real life conversation.

By Season LVI, star players have sons in the game. For example, Damon Rutherford is a rookie pitcher who looks like he will follow in the steps of his Hall of Fame Father Brock Rutherford. The book opens with him in the middle of pitching a perfect game. And Henry realizes that Damon hold the hope of a revitalized league. And then, in the next game it all changes with one roll of the dice that come up 1-1-1. That unlikely combination means a batter hit by a pitch that kills him. And who is at the plate when this unlucky role comes up? Damon Rutherford.

With that, it all spirals downward, for Henry and for the League. He even lets Lou help him with a game, letting him in on his secret obsession. It doesn’t go well. As his job hangs by a thread, he considers winding it all up and getting his life in order. But will he?

Robert Coover invents a character with an unusual fantasy obsession that holds up a mirror to our obsessions and addictions. With the advent of online sports betting, we hear more and more stories of those who have wrecked their lives and their families’ finances with their obsession. But Coover uncovers a more profound truth. What does Henry have to live for that is better than his personal fantasy league?

This is an adult book with adult language and sexual material, some of which may be triggering. But it also explores the adult obsessions and addictions with which we fill our lives when nothing greater and better does. It’s both fascinating and painful. But the life you save may be your own.

Review: The Cup of Coffee Club

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
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

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
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: Runs in the Family

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Runs in the Family" by Sarah Spain and Deland McCullough

Runs in the Family, Sarah Spain and Deland McCullough. Simon Element (ISBN: 9781668036280) 2025.

Summary: An adopted child in difficult circumstances rises to coach in the NFL before finding his biological parents.

The couple had just lost a child. The father was a popular DJ in the town’s rock and roll station, the first Black DJ. The mother, Adelle, was a strong woman with an accounting background. They were popular and their house was a favorite party location on the East side of Youngstown. In March of 1973, they found a Black child in an orphanage in Pittsburgh. The adoption was easily approved and he was named Deland Scott McCullough.

Sadly the marriage did not last long. Adelle, Deland and his older brother Damon were on their own. The next years were harrowing as Adelle sometimes resorted to drug dealing to keep the family afloat and got involved in a string of abusive relationships with men. Growing up in those circumstances with the high crime rates of early 1980’s Youngstown, it did not look promising for Deland. But Adelle was determined to raise them right. Eventually, she cleans up her life. Damon sticks close to him as does an uncle. And Deland discovers a talent for football, working harder than other teammates at Campbell Memorial. Never a good student, he works hard to pass college entrance exams.

He led his team to winning seasons. Then Sherman Smith came into his life. Smith was the running backs coach for Miami University. He formerly played in the NFL. And he got his start at Youngstown’s North High School. He saw past the family’s impoverished circumstances and McCullough’s potential to the kind of young man he was coming, someone he hoped to mentor. McCullough accepted the scholarship offer, going on to have an outstanding four years, setting rushing records. He was frequently at the Smiths, watching their family and soaking up life advice.

He went on to a brief professional career, ended by injuries, worked at a juvenile center where he met Darnell, who he would marry, and at a charter school. Then the opportunity to coach at his alma mater came along. He sought Sherman Smith’s advice. By then, Smith was an NFL coach. Eventually, he took a position at Indiana, and had the opportunity to do a coaching internship under Smith. Others remarked how alike they were in coaching philosophies, and even mannerisms and the way they walked. Clearly, Smith met a need for a father as well as a mentor for Deland. Ultimately, Deland made it to the NFL as a running backs coach.

But not knowing his parentage troubled him. The book explores the reasons why adoption records were sealed and the struggle many adoptees had with not knowing their birth parents. Furthermore, both Deland’s birth and adoptive father abandoned him. He struggled to understand things about himself, why he reacted as he did at times. But slowly things changed. Eventually, Pennsylvania opened up birth records for adoptees. The day came when he received his birth certificate. His mother was a sixteen year old girl, Carol Briggs. He had been born Jon Kenneth Briggs. But no father name was on the birth certificate.

I will not say more about how the story unfolded except that it was amazing and transformative not only for Deland but for his birth parents. It was also difficult for Adelle and it meant both redefining the relationship on adult terms and reassuring her that no one had more influence in Deland’s life. She was always his only “Ma.”

The book is powerful at several levels. One is Deland’s success in life, in sports and marriage. He became the father he didn’t have. A second is the powerful exploration in this book of the longing for belonging and identity of adoptees. Finally, the resolution was one of those “beyond your wildest dreams” endings. Finding one’s biological parents doesn’t always work like this. But it warms your heart when it does.

Review: The Last Manager

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
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

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
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.]