QUICK HITS III

Here are some quick looks at a few more books that I have given a rating of 5 out of a possible 5 stars.  All deal with the world of sports.  Two are novels about professional boxing while all the others are nonfictional looks at professional baseball.

THE PROFESSIONAL by W.C. Heinz (originally published in 1958)

This debut novel by notable sports journalist W.C. Heinz is the story of the quest of a boxer to become the middleweight champion.

Here are what some other writers thought about the book:

"....one of five best sports novels ever written." -- Pete Hamill   

"....the only good novel I've ever read about a fighter." -- Ernest Hemingway

"The way I remember it, I read The Professional when it came out in January 1958, and for the first and only time in my life wrote to the author to tell him how much I liked his book." -- Elmore Leonard

And finally this:

"Heinz is not just one of the great sportswriters this country has produced, he is one of the great American writers." -- Mike Lupica


THE KILLINGS OF STANLEY KETCHEL by James Carlos Blake (published in 2006)

Stanley Ketchel

"The short brutish life of Stanley Ketchel, the middleweight champion of the ragtime era who ruled the ring until his murder at age 24, serves as inspiration for Blake's action-packed novel....From Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbitt, who enjoys a passionate liaison with Ketchel, to Emmett Dalton, last of the old-time outlaws, Blake brings to life a huge cast of characters across a glittering, vital America. -- Publishers Weekly

Yes, Blake's book is a novel, but it is based on the life of a fighter that many experts believe to be the greatest middleweight champion in history.

He won forty-nine of his sixty-four fights by knockout and lost only four.  A handsome, dapper, lady's man, he was murdered in 1910. 


STEINBRENNER: THE LAST LION OF BASEBALL by Bill Madden (published in 2010)

Bill Madden is a veteran baseball writer who has covered the New York Yankees for the New York Daily News for many years.  He has been there for many of the ups and downs in the life and times of George Steinbrenner and his team. 

Love him or hate him (being a lifelong Cardinals fan, I confess to being in the latter camp), it is impossible to argue with the man's success as the owner of the New York Yankees -- or is it?  Well, the team did win seven World Series during his stewardship, but Michael Shapiro argues in his review of the book that those victories were not always the result of his actions -- but sometimes in spite of them.  

Shapiro goes on to say that if Steinbrenner "had limited his involvement to writing checks, there is every reason to believe the Yankees might have fared better."  In the end, he says, Madden's book is "a devastating account."

At the time of the book's publication, Steinbrenner, at age seventy-nine, was retired and in bad health. He died later that year.


SEASONS IN HELL: WITH BILLY MARTIN, WHITEY HERZOG AND "THE WORST BASEBALL TEAM IN HISTORY" -- THE 1973-1975 TEXAS RANGERS by Mike Shropshire (originally published in 2005)

Billy Martin makes his point with the man in blue

Mike Shropshire, who covered the Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, wrote a humorous, irreverent, politically incorrect, funny book about that team and its cast of characters. If Hunter Thompson had written a "Ball Four" book about the Texas Rangers this would have been the book.

Here is a sample:

"Even before the start of spring training, Herzog had said, 'If Rich Billings is the starting catcher again, we're in deep trouble.' When that evaluation was passed along to Billings, he simply nodded and said, 'Whitey, obviously, has seen me play.'"

If one reads the reader reviews on the Amazon website, one will find that Texas Rangers fans hate the book and everybody else loves it. I'm not a Texas Rangers fan.

THE LAST REAL SEASON: A HILARIOUS LOOK BACK AT 1975 -- WHEN MAJOR LEAGUERS MADE PEANUTS, THE UMPIRES WORE RED, AND BILLY MARTIN TERRORIZED EVERYONE by Mike Shropshire (originally published in 2008)

This is Shropshire's sequel to the above book.  It is a humorous, irreverent, politically incorrect, inside view of the 1975 baseball season, starring Billy Martin and the hapless Texas Rangers, a team that began the season with playoff aspirations. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and the Rangers had to wait another twenty-one years before it would happen.

Shropshire had the job of covering the Rangers when they were one of the most incompetent teams in the major leagues. He was able to survive with the aid of certain mood enhancers and a sense of humor.

If you are a baseball fan and old enough to remember the escapades and exploits of Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin, I think you will really enjoy The Last Real Season. If not, you might still enjoy it; but maybe not if you are a Rangers fan.

CULT BASEBALL HEROES: THE GREATS, THE FLAKES, THE WEIRD AND THE WONDERFUL -- edited by Danny Peary (originally published in 1990)

This is an anthology of essays written about fifty-nine baseball players -- the greats, the flakes, the weird and the wonderful -- by a varied collection of writers.  As Peary writes in the introduction, the essays "were written by sports columnists from around the country, broadcasters, and former players, as well as actors, directors, and an assortment of writers who have a deep love of baseball."

My personal favorite among the essays is the very first one. Film director Ron Shelton writes about minor-league phenom Steve Dalkowski, whose fastball even scared Ted Williams -- yes, that Ted Williams!  

You probably never heard of Dalkowski because he was so wild that he never made it to the major leagues.  But could he ever throw hard!  He once hit an umpire with a wild pitch and broke his mask in three places.  An attempt was made to measure the speed of his fastball with a primitive radar gun, but it took him almost an hour to hit the target.  Due to the fact that he had made so many pitches and consequently had lost so much off his fastball the measurement when he finally did hit the target was meaningless. The actual speed of his legendary fastball remains a mystery.

MONEYBALL: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

In honor of the MLB postseason, I am resurrecting a book review that I wrote back in 2009.

I hardly know where to begin in attempting a review of Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.  It isn’t that I don’t think that the book is well written, because it is. It isn’t that I disagree with the conclusions that are reached in the book, because, for the most part, I don’t. What bothers me, as a recovering baseball fanatic, is that I don’t enjoy the game that utilizes the approaches that are proposed in this book.

Moneyball describes how the general manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, has been able to use sabermetrics (statistical analysis originated by Bill James and others) to more intelligently draft players and win games.

According to the proponents of this new approach:

1) offense is more important than pitching; 2) defense hardly matters at all; 3) the most important baseball statistic is on-base percentage, followed by slugging percentage; 4) stealing bases should not be attempted because it is not worth the risk; 5) the same goes for the hit-and-run; 6) never sacrifice because it is not worth giving up the out ; 7) scouts are unnecessary; and 8) line-ups and game strategy are dictated to the manager by the general manager and his statistical analysts, making managers almost as unnecessary as scouts.

Beane and his statistical guru, and not the scouts, decide who should be drafted.  According to Lewis, the most important statistic to Beane and his statistician in determining what position players to draft is the ability of the player to draw walks. They look for players (only college players for they never draft high school players) who have exhibited the ability to work deep in the count and to draw walks.

I can’t speak for others, but I don’t watch baseball games in order to watch hitters work deep into the count, draw a walk, camp out on the bases until somebody gets an extra-base hit (or two) to drive them home. The strategy utilized by Beane and his proponents may produce a more efficient style of baseball, about that I am in no position to quibble. It may be the only way that a team like the Oakland A’s can compete with the deep pockets of the New York Yankees (the ‘unfair game’ mentioned in the book’s subtitle).

However, to repeat, I find the emphasis on this approach to result in a game that is much less fun to watch. 

Michael Lewis

I'M TALKIN' BASEBALL

‘Tis the season!  No, not those seasons.  I’m talking about the MLB postseason. 

I’m not the fanatical fan (fan being derived from fanatic) I once was. Free agency (an overdue and absolute necessity) means that players jump from one team to another resulting in less team continuity which in turns makes it virtually impossible to root for players for the entirety of their careers (I’m looking at you Albert Pujols). To further shore up my credentials as a fan of dinosaur vintage, I will add that I don’t like the DH, interleague play or, especially, the newly instituted instant replay appeal rule, which sometimes brings an already slow game to a complete standstill.

Stanley Frank Musial: Classic stance and classy guy

I say all this in order to say that I still have a nostalgic delight in the team (Cardinals, of course) and the games they played in the past.  My first hero was Stan Musial.  Because in my youth we lived too far away to attend games and the team was never featured on TV’s Game of the Week, my picture of Stan the Man was one created by voices on the radio.  And what voices they were.  It is hard to imagine, but there was a time when Harry Caray, Joe Garagiola, and Jack Buck were in the same broadcast booth.  I don’t know how it held them.

In later years, I moved closer to St. Louis and was able to attend games on a regular basis.  But by that time, however, Stan had been retired for a decade and I was too old for sports heroes.  But I sure did admire a couple of Redbirds by the name of Gibson and Brock and later a wizard at shortstop named Ozzie.

Gibby

Lou

Ozzie

Today I am a more passive, more detached follower of the exploits of the Cardinals.  At the moment, they have a slender lead in their division as they attempt to return to the World Series to avenge the loss to the Red Sox a year ago.  But if it happens, it won’t be against the Red Sox, a team that fell from first to last in its division and has engaged in a fire sale this season ridding itself of players and slicing its payroll. 

I own over a hundred baseball books and who knows how many I have actually read.  I certainly don’t.

If you are interested, and of course you are, here is a list of my favorite baseball books.  On the list are ten nonfiction books and one novel (baseball fiction for the most part has not been great).  They are listed in no special order, except for the first, which is number one on my list.

Gibby v. Mickey, October 1964

October 1964 – David Halberstam

This account of a year featuring a young team (Cardinals) on its way up and an old team (Yankees) on its way down is a jewel written by an outstanding journalist.  Like all good baseball books, it is about much more than just baseball.



Ball Four – Jim Bouton

This groundbreaking tell all book shocked many people and made many people angry (especially the Yankees).  I loved it! Bouton wrote an enjoyable follow-up titled “I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally.”  Bouton, by the way, was one of the stars of the ’64 Yankees team that was defeated by the Cardinals.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood -- Jane Leavy

This book proves one of two things: as outrageous as Bouton’s book was thought to be at the time, he 1) didn’t tell everything he knew or 2) he didn’t know everything.  And Leavy’s book proves it. Mantle’s story is a sad, sad story of what-could-have-been and what-should-have-been.

Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race – Larry Colton

This book by a former pro player is as inspirational as Leavy’s book is sad.  It is too bad that it is not better known, for it should be read, by not only baseball fans, but also everyone.  You can read a review here. 

 The 33-Year-Old Rookie – Chris Coste

Coste’s story of how after many, many years of toil in the minor leagues, he finally managed to make it to the big leagues at an age when many players have already retired or are seriously contemplating it.  He stayed there four years.

Hank Aaron and the Home Run that Changed America – Tom Stanton

The long title pretty well tells the story of a great player, but more than that, a great man.  As far as I am concerned, he is still the career leader in home runs.

The Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump – Terry Pluto

A humorous, but often sad, especially for Cleveland fans, account of the strange, sometimes tragic, bordering on unbelievable bad luck of the Indians and their fans in the wake of Colavito’s trade to the Tigers.

A Day in the Bleachers – Arnold Hano

A play-by-play account of a World Series game at the Polo Grounds in which a young outfielder by the name of Willie Mays made one of the most spectacular catches in baseball history and broke the hearts of the Cleveland Indians and their fans, written by someone who was there. And this was before the Colavito trade.  Maybe this is where the jinx began.

The Boys of Summer – Roger Kahn

The classic account of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the ’50’s, written by a man that many have anointed as the best baseball writer ever.

1941 – The Greatest Year in Sports – Mike Vaccaro

It was not a great year in all ways, of course. In fact, in many ways it was a tragic year.  But the title is correct and baseball was front and center.  It was the year that Joe DiMaggio hit safely in a record 56 consecutive games and Ted Williams hit .406.  Nobody since has come close to DiMaggio’s record and Williams is still the last hitter to top .400.

Bang the Drum Slowly – Mark Harris

Mark Harris wrote a number of baseball novels all of which were narrated by a pitcher named Henry Wiggen who threw and thought left-handed.  They are all worth reading, but this is the best one.  As far as I am concerned, it is the classic baseball novel.







The Whiz Kids had won it,
Bobby Thomson had done it,
And Yogi read the comics all the while.
Rock 'n' roll was bein' born,
Marijuana we would scorn,
So down on the corner the National Pastime went on trial.

We're talkin' baseball (Kluzewski, Campanella),
Talkin' baseball (The Man and Bobby Feller),
The Scooter, The Barber and The Newk,
They knew 'em all from Boston to Dubuque,
Especially Willie, Mickey and The Duke.

Well Casey was winnin',
Hank Aaron was beginnin',
One Robby goin' out, one comin' in.
Kiner an' midget Gaedel,
The Thumper an' Mel Parnell,
An' Ike was the only one winnin' down in Washington.

We're talkin' baseball (Kluzewski, Campanella),
Talkin' baseball (The Man and Bobby Feller),
The Scooter, The Barber and The Newk,
They knew 'em all from Boston to Dubuque,
Especially Willie, Mickey and The Duke.

Now my old friend The Bachelor,
Well he swore he was The Oklahoma Kid,
An' Cookie played hookey to go an' see The Duke,
An' me I always love Willie Mays,
Those were the days.

Well now it's the eighties,
An' Brett is the greatest,
An' Bobby Bonds can play for everyone.
Rose is at the Vet,
Rusty again is a Met,
An' the great Alexander is pitchin' again in Washington.

I'm talkin' baseball (like Reggie, Quisenberry),
Talkin' baseball (Carew an' Gaylord Perry),
Seaver, Garvey, Schmidt an' Vida Blue,
If Cooperstown is callin' it's no fluke,
They'll be with Willie, Mickey an' The Duke.

Willie, Mickey an' The Duke,..
(Say Hey! Say Hey! Say Hey!)
It was Willie, Mickey an' The Duke,..
(Say Hey! Say Hey! Say Hey!)
I'm talkin' Willie, Mickey an' The Duke,..
(Say Hey! Say Hey! Say Hey!)

-- Terry Cashman

SOUTHERN LEAGUE:A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race by Larry Colton

People of a certain age will remember Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. On the nightly news, viewers watched as the city's police force under the leadership of the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, beat Civil Rights marchers with clubs, attacked them with dogs, and sprayed them with high-pressure water hoses. So how could they forget? 

In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," written after his arrest in April for marching in the city's streets without a permit, Martin Luther King wrote, "Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." President Kennedy would later state that Bull Connor did more for racial integration than anyone since Abraham Lincoln.

In late August of that year, King made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Seventeen days later the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed on a Sunday morning and four little black girls died and twenty other people were injured. 

The bombing became a touchstone of the Civil Rights Movement, but it wasn't the only bombing of a black church in Birmingham. No, in fact it was the seventeenth in seven years. As a result, the city earned the dubious nickname, "Bombingham."

Birmingham had a long history of fielding professional baseball teams -- both black and white. However, they were segregated teams. 

 The Birmingham Barons played in the all-white Double-A Southern League and the Birmingham Black Barons played in the Negro League. Few white fans ever attended the Black Barons games while the black fans who attended the Barons games were restricted to an area in the right field corner stands. A chicken-wire fence was used as the boundary that separated the two races. (In St. Louis, there was no fence separating the races, but black fans up through the 1950's were restricted to the right field bleachers in Sportsman's Park in what was called "the pavilion." Moreover, this was in the major leagues.)

At the end of the 1961 season, Major League Baseball mandated that all minor league teams be integrated. The KKK pressured Barons owner Albert Belcher to disband his team. He gave in and the whole Southern League collapsed. However, Belcher was able to get Charlie O. Finley, the colorful and often outrageous owner of the Kansas City (later Oakland) A's, to become the parent organization of a resurrected Barons team. Finley, a Birmingham native, agreed and the Southern League was reborn in 1964.
 
Just one year after the terrible events of 1963, the 1964 edition of the Birmingham Barons became the first integrated team -- in any sport -- in Alabama's history. 

The team had two black players and three Latin players on the roster when the season began. One other black player, John "Blue Moon" Odom, was added when he graduated from high school after the season began. 

Adding further uncertainly was the fact that the seating in the stadium would also be integrated, creating a distinct possibility that there would be conflict in the stands and the clubhouse.

The manager was Haywood Sullivan, a native of Dothan, Alabama who was in his thirties and had just retired as a player after spending seven years as a catcher with the Red Sox and A's. There was much speculation about how this rookie manager, a native of the Deep South, would deal with what could very well be a volatile situation. He had attended an all-white high school, an all-white university, and was signed to a large bonus by the Red Sox, the last major league team to have a black player on its roster; twelve years after Jackie Robinson integrated the sport.

Larry Colton's book concentrates on Sullivan and four players. The players are Tommie Reynolds, Blue Moon Odom, Hoss Nowlin, and Paul Lindblad. In addition, Campy Campaneris would have gotten more ink, but the A's called him up during mid-season. 

The reader also learns about the contentious relationship that developed between Belcher and Finley. Of course, any relationship involving Finley had to be contentious. He was never involved in any other kind.

Larry Colton does a good job of covering the racial divide that plagued Birmingham during this era, but it is baseball that he knows best and it is about the game that he is the most insightful. As a former professional player himself, he has an intimate knowledge of the game and is able to transmit that knowledge to the reader. He also knows from personal experience something about the Southern League, since he pitched in that league in 1966.

In a discussion of the book on C-Span, Colton joked that he had a higher strikeout ratio than either Nolan Ryan or Sandy Koufax -- which is true. He pitched in only one major league game. He faced nine batters and struck out two. That means that he struck out almost one-fourth of all the batters he faced. He was traded from the Phillies to the Cubs but never played in the majors again. He was the infamous "player to be named later" in that deal.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book is the epilogue which details what happened in the lives of the players and the other principals in the years after 1964. I haven't given any details about what happened during that season or later because I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read the book. I'll leave that to people who don't mind doing that sort of thing. But I certainly encourage you to read it -- even if you are not a baseball fan.

Larry Colton, spring training, 1968

I own over a hundred baseball books -- fiction and nonfiction -- and have no idea how many I have read. However, this one goes near the top of my list of favorites.

I see Colton's book as a companion to one of my other favorites: "October 1964" by David Halberstam. Both books deal with baseball in the same year, but at a different level. And race relations are at the forefront of both. 

In 1964, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. They could not have won without their four young black stars -- Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Lou Brock, and Bill White. They defeated the New York Yankees, a great dynasty, but one of the last major league teams to integrate. The Cardinals would win two other pennants and one World Series in the 1960's, while the Yankees would have to wait more than a decade to play in their next World Series. It is not coincidental that by that time the team was thoroughly integrated.