Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox

Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox is the latest Society for American Baseball Research-authored book on a specific team. The editors, with the help of some forty SABR members and friends, have compiled original biographies of every player, coach, broadcaster, and front office personnel who contributed to the ’59 White Sox. One might think that with so many individual authors the text might be uneven or chapter, but that isn’t the case. The editing and writing is consistent. Career stats for each player are included. Some stand-out bios include Warren Corbett on Bill Veeck and Paul Ladewski on Ted Kluszewski. This is a must-have for any White Sox fan. Who wants to send one to President Obama?

Don’t judge a book by its cover, judge it by baseball’s magic numbers:
page 27
line 9
first 3 words: “play was reclassified”

Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 White Sox
Edited by Don Zminda, Associate Editors R.J. Lesch, Len Levin, and Bill Nowlin
ACTA Sports, ISBN: 978-0-87946-386-1

The Baseball Talmud

In The Baseball Talmud, Howard Megdal uses sabermetrics and humor to answer once and for all the question of who was the greatest Jewish player of all time–Hank Greenberg or Sandy Koufax? (According to Megdal, it’s Greenberg by a hair.) Megdal has a good sense of humor and a nice writing style. How can you not like a guy who writes things like: “Right field is the Jewish people’s deepest position. If a baseball diamond were America, right field would be New York City. If a baseball team’s roles were professional organizations, right field would be the American Bar Association?” It’s not giving anything away to say that his top 10 are (in order): Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Lou Boudreau, Shawn Green, Buddy Myer, Sid Gordon, Ken Holtzman, Harry Danning, and Mike Lieberthal. After that, Megdal goes position-by-position to assemble the all-time Jewish All-Star team and estimate how they would fare against some of the greatest teams in baseball history, from the 1906 Chicago Cubs to the 1998 New York Yankees. He doesn’t give the team a name, but he ought to call them the Kosher Krushers. All in all, a fun read for baseball fans of any denomination (including non-believers).

Don’t judge a book by its cover, judge it by baseball’s magic numbers:
page 27
line 9
words 3: “(Norm) Sherry went on”

The Baseball Talmud
Howard Megdal
Harper Collins, 978-0-06-155843-6, sftcvr $22.99

Take Me Out to the Ballgame: The Story of the Sensational Baseball Song

For everyone who’s ever wondered why you sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch (or why you request to be taken to a game when you’re already at the ballpark), Amy Whorf McGuiggan has the answer. McGuiggan gives a detailed overview of the social, cultural, and historical context in which the song was written. In 1908, America was baseball crazy. The game had evolved to something similar to what we know it as today, and both men and (heavens) even women* were fans. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was written on the subway by vaudeville song and dance man Jack Norworth, who reportedly had never attended a professional baseball game. The music was composed by Albert von Tilzer, who was one of a number of Tin Pan Alley musicians cranking out songs during that time. Norworth debuted the song in April 1908 on stage. McGuiggan gives the reader the full picture of how the song developed, soared in popularity, and might have been relegated to the “isn’t that a quaint old song” file had Harry Caray and Bill Veeck not revived it during the 1970s. This is a quick, fun read, with plenty of turn-of-the-century graphics.

*The verse (which practically no one knows) actually talks about Katie Casey (yes, a girl) who wants a beau to take her to the ballgame–we just sing the chorus during the 7th inning stretch.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, judge it by baseball’s magic numbers:
page 27
line 9
first 3 words: “and children, and”

Baseball and the Baby Boomer

Talmage Boston’s Baseball and the Baby Boomer: A History, Commentary, and Memoir is a series of long essays on various individuals who have helped shaped that generation’s relationship with baseball. Boston focuses on an individual or an ideal in each chapter/essay, for instance fathers and sons, using the cautionary tales of Mickey Mantle and Jimmy Piersall or a lovely chapter on “baseball’s lyricist” (Bart Giamatti). As Lou Brock puts it in his preface to the book, “I began to think I was reading a love story—love of the game, love for its heroes, and love for the values and lessons the game has taught the Baby Boomer generation.” Boston has a fine writing style, although he goes a little heavy on the father-son mythology (doesn’t his daughter like the game at all?), but this is, after all, a book about and for the baby boom generation. As Frank Deford points out in his introduction (Boston does have some nice blurbs and, clearly, friends in high baseball places), the people he writes most lovingly about are those who were the heroes of his youth, not his manhood. If other baby boomers can shift their gaze from their own navels to this book, they’d probably find a lot to like in this book.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, judge it by baseball’s magic numbers:
page 27
line    9
first   3 words: “fall into the”

I feel compelled to add that these words share the spread with a full-page picture of a very young Mickey Mantle and his partner in debauchery, an equally young Billy Martin, looking cocky and on the prowl. If you’re going for ball four, the next word is “bottle.”  How appropriate.

Baseball and the Baby Boomer
Talmage Boston
Bright Sky Press
978-1-933979-26-7

The Postwar Yankees

I need to start off by saying that I hate the Yankees. Here in Cleveland, they put stuff in Lake Erie water to make you grow up hating the Yankees, yet I recognize the team’s significance and near-mythic stature in the postwar years, when it seemed that all of baseball gravitated around New York City. In The Postwar Yankees: Baseball’s Golden Age Revisited, David Surdam uses an economist’s lens to deconstruct what is popularly known as baseball’s Golden Age—the postwar years of 1949-1964. While the Yankees piled on pennants and World Series titles, Major League Baseball attendance consistently declined and gate revenue disparity widened throughout the 1950s. Surdam analyzes the roots of this period’s enduring mythology, examines why the Yankees and New York teams were consistently among baseball’s elite, and how economic and social forces set in motion during this time shaped the sport into its modern incarnation. He asks some good questions, such as: Would ballplayers of the time have considered this a “golden” age in which to play? What about fans and teams outside the New York area–was it golden for them? Surdam’s writing is straightford but not boring. If you need to read something by an economist, you could do much worse.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, judge it by baseball’s magic numbers:

Page 27

Line   9

First   3 words:

“Major League owners”

The Postwar Yankees: Baseball’s Golden Age Revisited

David G. Surdam

University of Nebraska Press

978-0-8032-1789-8, $45.00, hrdcvr

The Best Team Ever: A Novel of America, Chicago, and the 1907 Cubs

The Best Team Ever is part baseball novel, part crime drama, and part love story. The novel follows the 1907 Chicago Cubs from the beginning of the season to the World Series against the backdrop of a wild, corrupt Chicago and a transforming America. Some main characters include Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance, Kid Durbin, an escaped prostitute named Connie Dandridge (okay, so not everybody in the book plays ball), Percy McGill (the evil abducting pimp), and a host of other characters both historical and fictional. In style and structure, it’s reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, in that it features a big cast of characters in short chapters who are all moving through the same time and place (with some interlacing stories). Some really nice baseball writing scattered throughout as well as a lot of historical detail.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, judge it by baseball’s magic numbers:

Page 27

line     9

first    3 words:

“his own child”

The Best Team Ever: A Novel of America, Chicago, and the 1907 Cubs

Alan Alop and Doc Noel

Bascom Hill Publishing Group

978-1935098027

Great Baseball Books is brought to you by the Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org).

Ballet in the Dirt

Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball by Neil Leifer is a stunning beautiful collection of photos from the 1960s and 1970s. From his beginnings as a teenage photographer selling his photos to Sports Illustrated to established sports photographer, Leifer’s book covers all of the greats of that era The photos are divided into five main sections: The Game, Heroes, Rivalry, World Series, and Biography. Some of the photos are so striking that you can’t help but stare. A couple of my favorites are a candid shot of Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow in stands at a game and a two-page panorama of the fans storming the field after the Mets won the 1969 World Series. The forward by former minor leaguer-turned-film-maker Ron Shelton is a good read, and the captions by author (and Society for American Baseball Research member) Gabriel Schecter are succinct and informative. I have to get this book for my husband for Christmas, then I can justify spending $40 on yet another book–although the price is worth it (it’s practically 300 pages, which is quite thick for a coffee table book).

Ballet in the Dirt

published by Taschen, ISBN #978-3-8228-4550-9

Great Baseball Books is brought to you by the Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org).