Sports

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

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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

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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: Runs in the Family

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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

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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: 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: 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: When Women Played Hardball

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

When Women Played Hardball, Susan E. Johnson. Seattle: Seal Press, 1994.

Summary: The story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a professional league of women playing hardball from 1943 to 1954 told through a game-by-game summary of the 1950 championship, stories about the league, and player narratives.

Women playing hardball at a professional level? Unheard of today, but a reality during the post-war years of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. You may remember hearing about this when the movie A League of Their Own came out back in 1992. The movie was a fictionalized account based on the league.

The league was the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which operated for twelve seasons from 1943 to 1954. The league began as a fast pitch softball league for the first few years, then transitioned to a hardball game, pitched overhand and with field dimensions closer to the men’s game. The league was the brainchild of Philip K. Wrigley, of the Chicago Cubs to fill the gap that World War 2 created as men entered the service. At its peak, the league consisted of eight teams in medium sized Midwestern cities. Originally, players were recruited in pools, then assigned to teams to create parity, making for a more competitive league. After 1950, management shifted from league management to team management, a move that contributed to the decline of the league. Altogether, roughly 600 women played on these teams.

One of the teams was the Rockford Peaches, who won a number of championships in the league’s early years under Manager Bill Allington. The author, Susan E. Johnson was ten years old in 1950 and idolized the players, avidly following that year’s championship series. In 1994 she turned those memories, accounts of that series, interviews of the players in later life, and discussion of various aspects of the experience of the women who played in this league.

The book is structured around the seven games of the series against the Fort Wayne Daisies. The Peaches had home field advantage. Each chapter has a game account, a player narrative, and discussion of some aspect of league life.

I would say that the game descriptions actually were the least interesting part of the book, although the series went to seven games. The stories of the players and discussions of league life elaborated a theme of a league where the players “looked like girls and played like men.” In the early years, new players went through charm school, wore skirts in public, could not cut their hair short, and sported uniforms that were one-piece tunic dresses with a skirt above the knees and shorts underneath, which could result in painful “strawberries” on the thighs from sliding into bases. Many of the women grew up as tomboys, playing with brothers and other boys, and in some places, in organized fast-pitch softball leagues. Woman after woman talked about plays they’d pulled off offensively or defensively, plays that reflect a high level of play. Not all were so fortunate, but those who played for Allington and several others, played for managers who really were dedicated to teaching the finer points of the game.

We also learn about life off the field. Chaperones both maintained discipline and were friends to the women. Some of the women were still in their teens when they started playing, and maintaining trust with parents was an important issue. Wrigley made to league worth it to the women. Earnings were between $45 and $85 a week for players, far more than they could earn in most jobs.

When the league ended in 1954 many of the women continued to find ways to compete. A touring team by Allington lasted a few years. Surprisingly, less than half married, unusual at a time when over 90 percent of women married. Some lived singly, some were in lesbian partnerships. Friends kept up with each other, and a newsletter and reunions and exhibition games began in the 1980’s. In 1988 the National Baseball Hall of Fame established an exhibit remembering women in baseball, including a ceremony many of the players attended, and described as one of their proudest moments–a recognition of the high level of competitive play their league had achieved. Then, the 1992 movie made them celebrities, something not altogether welcome for some.

I wish I could have seen these women play. They proved what women were capable of. Some baseball pros said that some could have played with the men and a few had invitations to do so. Sadly, there is no such league today, although this league helped make the case for women in sports. Baseball is a game that can be enjoyed no matter who is playing it. The physics of a curve ball is the same. A good drag bunt is the same no matter who is holding the bat. What it takes to execute a good double play or hit and run play does not vary by gender. In many sports, the level of team play is higher among women than in male leagues where individual superstars may dominate. That is what made this book a delight to read. It not only told the stories of some of the amazing women who made up this league, it celebrated the game–the joy of playing it well, and the joy of or reading of well-played games, no matter the gender of the players. And these women came to play!

[You can read more about The All-American Professional Baseball League at their website, including player search, league and team history, statistics, articles, and reunions]