Spring Baseball Lineup

The new season by the book

By Bob Cottrell, Margaret Heilbrun, Paul Kaplan & Gilles Renaud -- Library Journal, 2/1/2007

Baseball may be our national pastime, but—to paraphrase Tip O'Neill—it operates, and touches our lives, on the local level. This spring's lineup of books reminds us that the game is fundamentally about the hometowns and the individuals who have made it flourish.

Boasting a 125,000-copy first printing, this book will be published on the 60th anniversary of Robinson's breaking the color barrier with his first ML at bat. Veterans of the subject are not likely to find much new here, but that does not diminish the value of Eig's (Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig) accomplished narrative or the moving story of a man who, in breathing integrity into baseball, probably sacrificed his own chances for a long life. Necessary for all general baseball collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/06.]

Though this book is intended as the definitive biography of the man who developed baseball's farm system and who desegregated the major leagues, the chapter titles—e.g.,"A Branch Grows in Brooklyn" and "A Branch Doesn't Grow Fast Enough in Pittsburgh"—may not inspire confidence. Lowenfish is firmly in the pro-Rickey camp on the question of the man's motives in signing black ball players but gives equal attention to every phase of an extensive career. For thorough baseball collections.

To this day, minor league teams mean much to small-town America, and there has been a renewed interest in capturing their histories. The minors flourished after World War II, when there were over 50 leagues and returning GIs filled the lineups, looking for a big break. Mickelson was a star first baseman in the Piedmont, Southeastern, Texas, and Pacific Coast leagues. He only got 37 major league at bats, including some shining moments for the St. Louis Browns in 1953. This is his anecdotal, simply told tale. Recommended for larger collections.

This is a recounting of Posnanski's (Kansas City Star) travels around America and across a baseball season with fellow Kansas City-ian and Negro League legend O'Neil, who died in 2006. O'Neil reminisces about his days in black baseball, his years as a scout, and his times with Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige. There are also some helpings of jazz appreciation along the way. Poignantly, Posnanski describes the anticipation with which O'Neil waited to hear whether he was to be one of the Negro Leaguers retroactively inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006. For all general baseball collections.

Part love song to baseball, part autobiography, part a recounting of his son's senior year in high school, this book delivers its tributes elegantly. A columnist for the Boston Globe, Shaughnessy (The Curse of the Bambino) melds an account of his own coming of age with that of son Sam, who struggles to make his mark at the game his father has made a profession out of covering. In dissecting Sam's trials and triumphs, Shaughnessy recollects his own, in athletics and elsewhere in life. Sure to be a popular title for all public libraries.

This spring will see Sheffield in a Tigers uniform, and he's glad to be back with GM Dombrowski and manager Leyland from his Marlin days. The player with a batting stance that is magically both jittery and ferocious presents a memoir as searching as it is revelatory. There is nothing routine here, from Sheffield's early game tutelage under Dan and Dwight Gooden, grandfather and uncle, to his understanding of fatherhood and selfhood and his candid descriptions of Barry Bonds, Joe Torre, and others. With Ritz (Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye), Sheffield has authored an authentic, spare, yet heartfelt work. For all general baseball collections.

Three-time 20-game winner and longtime pitching coach Stottlemyre traces his career, particularly with the Yankees and Mets. A Yankee pitcher during years when the team made it to few series, Stottlemyre then coached pitchers at Shea and Yankee stadiums, helping bring championships to both teams. He discusses the hitters and hurlers he's worked with (e.g., Mantle, Gooden, Clemens, Rivera) and also delves into his family's personal trials, making for a sports autobiography that will be appreciated in general libraries.

Bjarkman (Baseball with a Latin Beat) delivers the definitive work on Cuban baseball. He looks at four Cuban legends—Martin Dihigo, Adolfo Luque, Orestes "Minnie" Minoso, and Conrado Marrero—before covering Cuba's baseball teams during both the prerevolutionary and Castro eras. He discusses Havana's place as the "amateur baseball capital of the world" and also explores myths surrounding Castro as a ballplayer, as well as such figures as Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez. With useful appendixes and statistics. For all baseball collections.

From the time when immigrant families saw baseball as a means of becoming recognizably American, the Jewish love affair with the game has never really abated. In thematic chapters with a continuing narative flow, the authors cover both the brilliant stars (e.g., Hank Greenberg) and the obscure players. Just as important, they tell the stories of sports writers, coaches, executives and team owners, manufacturers, etc. The first of two projected volumes and a good addition to large baseball collections.

"Doctors x-rayed Dizzy Dean's head and found nothing" may be one of the most apt sports one-liners known. Heidenry's stellar book x-rays the Cardinal's 1934 season, in which Dizzy Dean and a tough-hitting group won the World Series in seven games from the Tigers. The book places its baseball in the context of the Great Depression, yet any chapter will give readers an upsurge in energy as they relive the season with this gang. Recommended for all general baseball collections.

The "Few and Chosen" series has produced some excellent volumes, in which a baseball veteran joins with Phil Pepe to choose an all-time team from among the players he knew best. This year Irvin, who played on the Newark Eagles before moving after age 30 to the New York Giants, picks an all-time team from the Negro Leagues, starting with catchers Josh Gibson (tragically "born too soon") and Roy Campenella, whom he'd have chosen first to integrate the majors. Fans will want to read the book to catch Irvin's other, sometimes surprising, selections. Fun, informative, and controversial; for all general libraries.

Maverick baseball historian Morris (Game of Inches) here gets down to fundamentals that most histories overlook: the dirt and the grass. We learn how significant aspects of the game's evolution can be traced far back to practical decisions made by Irish immigrants Tom and Jack Murphy. These men knew the likes of Connie Mack, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb, and their own contributions (which included pitching mounds and spring training camps) were just as influential. Morris's research and insights rescue these pioneer men from obscurity. For all larger baseball collections.

With adroitness and flair, Murphy (Fortune magazine) revisits this fantastic season in baseball history, which has been certainly studied and celebrated before but never with her skill. This was a year with such driving forces as Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Napoleon Lajoie, Christy Mathewson, and an aging Cy Young. And it was the last time the Cubs won the series. Murphy mixes irreverence, insight, and erudition to produce this treat.

Bradbury (economics, Kennesaw State Univ., Georgia) seeks to demonstrate how economics permeates every circumstance in baseball. (Yes, it's for readers who liked Freakonomics.) He applies his brand of analysis to such topics as the rarity of left-handed catchers and whether the presence of a particular batter on deck can influence the game. He determines which players currently are hugely overpaid (some surprises here). Those fond of number crunching will enjoy. Recommended for larger libraries.

From one of that new tribe of so-called professional fans, here's a guide that will make most of us enjoy the game even more and persuade those still aloof that there is some allure to its complexities. Divided by theme (e.g. "Pitchers and Catchers," "Base Running," "Statistics," as well as "The Basics" and "Random Stuff To Know") and with clear subheadings to keep the reader oriented, Hample's book offers a winning approach. For all collections.

Baseball has had plenty of skilled psychologists among its managers, none of whom likely studied the science of skills acquisition or cognitive distortions. Yet they were successful. Would they have been more so if they'd had this book? Certainly, they would have understood better the "science" of hitting, catching, and throwing and the infinite variations of results even when replicating the same basic actions. Here are near blindfolded workouts (for developing outfield assurance) and the way to parse home field advantage. Recommended.

It's been said that an athlete who "ain't cheatin' ain't tryin'" and that "rules are made to be broken." Zumsteg (coauthor, Baseball Prospectus) has written a lively and challenging account of cheating as part of America's pastime, whether it's the habits of particular notables, such as Gaylord Perry and his spitball, or modern day pharmaceutical legerdemain. He also ponders such issues as whether it's cheating to try to bunt to break up a no hitter. No, it ensures that the game evolves and progresses! This one's a sure hit.

Not one of those parody collections, this is a gathering of elegantly observed moments capturing the interplay between baseball and the other seasons: "summer afternoon/ the long fly ball to center field/ takes its time." This collection will inspire some ball fans to be poets and some poets to be ballplayers. With excellent intros about the poetic forms and their practitioners.

This work offers recent literary nonfiction by 36 contemporary novelists and short story writers, with a couple of sports journalists thrown in. The pieces, often memoirs-in-brief, show the hold that baseball retains upon such writers as Rick Bass, Michael Chabon, Andre Dubus, and (thank you!) four women. Another winner from the Univ. of Nebraska Press.

Both the Mets and the Yankees (see Morrissey, below) get "a season in the life of..." treatments this year, each about the 2006 season and each with a New York City journalist sorting through the team's culture, accomplishments, and failings. The promotion for this one says, "Composed without the rose-colored clichés." Uh-oh. Do the Mets deserve this? We'll see.

Not so much a biography as a friend's appreciation of Matsui, the modest Yankee star left fielder, an undeniably compelling player whose very poise and "quiet" swing invite interest and admiration. Readers should be intrigued.

Yankee fans will likely seek this out. Unlike Marchman, above, Morrissey was granted full access to the clubhouse—er, fishbowl. From the promotion, this looks to be a more sympathetic study than Marchman's, even as it reveals the private thoughts and private struggles—er, the pride and the pressure—of team members.

Back in 1909, baseball cards came in packs of cigarettes or tobacco. Honus Wagner would have none of it: his card was deleted, making it scarce and way valuable. We'll never get to hold that card, but we may all want to read the book about it.