Almost as Good as the Real Thing

Baseball and books go together as good as peanuts and Cracker Jacks. For years I have enjoyed baseball. I have been a lifelong fan since my parents took me to a game at old Ebetts Field in Brooklyn or to the games of the Williamsport (PA) Greys, a farm team for the Phillies in the 50s. There was a magic to those fields. Something unique that felt quite timeless went on in those green cathedrals. As a result of geography and family history I have been a lifelong fan of "Wait-till-next-year" teams.

First there were the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Wait and wait. Bobby Thompson robbing us of the World Series with a walk-off home run. Next year.

Then there were the Phillies. Until 1980 the only original team to never have won a series. Wait and wait. Even master pitcher Steve Carlton's 27 wins in 1972, with an ERA of 1.97 and 310 strikeouts couldn't help when they only got 32 wins for the other pitchers and ended up in the basement 37.5 games behind. Yes, the Phillies own the title for the most losses of any professional sports team in any sport, ever. Next year.

I can't forget the Brewers who I came to love after moving to Wisconsin. Wait. Wait. When owner Bud Selig traded Paul Molitor to Toronto since Molitor was, well, you know, too expensive old. But not too old to win World Series MVP the next year. Next year.

Then there are my Twins. These lovable Twinkies with wonderful players who just can never pull it together at the end of the season. Wait. Wait. We almost lost them a number of years ago when Bud Selig, (same guy) now Baseball Commissioner, wanted to downsize the Twins away. (Competition for the next door Brewers?) But we came back and have been contenders ever since. But still, next year.

But so much for my martyrdom. I have seen Mike Schmidt and Pete Rose play. Cal Ripken and Robin Yount and Richie Ashburn. Probably Roy Campanella and Pee Wee Reese in that long ago Ebetts Field game. But the underlying martyrdom might explain part of why I like to read about baseball, even during the season. There I read about Timeless Teams and Timeless Plays and Timeless Players. The Babe. Joltin' Joe. The Iron Man. (Yes, all Yankees.) But also Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Joe Garagiola and of course Jackie Robinson.

Probably the first book on baseball I was ever given was for my 13th birthday. It was a biography of Dodger GM Branch Rickey who did the unthinkable of breaking the color barrier with Robinson. (I believe it was probably a gift from my relatives in Brooklyn six years after the Dodgers (Da Bums) left for LA.)

Since I love reading anyway, what better way to enjoy even more of baseball than to read. And baseball has produced some wonderful books, even in the fiction field (These are only the ones I remember reading):

• The Natural - Bernard Malamud
• Shoeless Joe (which became the movie Field of Dreams) W. P. Kinsella
• Bang the Drum Slowly - Mark Harris
• The Southpaw - Mark Harris
• I Don't Care If I Never Get Back - Darryl Broock
• The Brothers K - David James Duncan
• The Iowa Baseball Confederacy - W. P. Kinsella

--Source

But then there are the countless non-fiction books. How about:
David Halberstam:

• The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship
• Summer of '49
• October 1964

Roger Kahn:

• The Boys of Summer (Perhaps one of the greatest baseball books.)
  
• The Era, 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World
• October Men: Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and the Yankees' Miraculous Finish in 1978
• A Season in the Sun
• Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art, and Writing about It a Game

Others:

• Moneyball - Michael Lewis
• Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy - Jane Leavy
• Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy - Jules Tygiel
• Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero - David Maraniss
• Men at Work - George Will
• Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series - Eliot Asinof and Stephen Jay Gould
• As They See 'Em - Bruce Weber
• Confessions of a She-Fan - Jane Heller
• Rickey and Robinson: The Preacher, the Player, and America's Game - John Chalberg
• Baseball is a Funny Game - Joe Garagiola

One of the benefits of getting older is that you can have read a lot of books about baseball! And you can write about them in posts like this. Even though one does get long-winded. This post was originally to talk about the book I am currently reading- Confessions of a She-Fan, but I guess that will have to wait till another day.

What this is really about is the power of words, even words about sports. Some may scoff (though not I) to think that sports can produce great moments of enjoyment, but also great moments of reading- fiction or non-fiction- and in many ways give us insights into ourselves.

Which is what good literature is meant to do.