The Book Shopper - Atlanta

The Joys of Losing: My Life as a Baseball Fan

The English won all the battles but the Irish went home with all the songs.-- Wilfred Sheed

Books such as Wilfred Sheed's baseball-laden 1993 memoir, My Life as a Fan eloquently rekindles one of sports' ongoing debates, “Is there happiness rooting for a perpetual loser?” As a Cubs fan, who has allowed his daughter (shown here with her fiance) to go down this mine-filled base path, this is a topic I'm always interested in.

With prose that rivals John Updike's short account of Ted Williams' last game for the Boston Red Sox, Sheed addresses this question. As a nine-year old, Sheed arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1940 in the wake of a possible German invasion and found that baseball was a way to assimilate into his new country. Sheed's first allegiances were with Connie Mack's hapless Philadelphia Athletics. Slowly, Sheed switched leagues to become a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, expecting the glory to begin immediately.” Little did the young Sheed know that there would be a delay in gratification.

Sheed's years of disappointment began when Dodger catcher Mickey Owens dropped a third strike leading to a loss in Game Four of the 1941 World Series. Sheed writes, “Anyone can root for a winner, but it takes a stab of pain to initiate you all the way."(My daughter's initiation was the Bartman game during the Cubs loss to the Marlins in the 2005 NLCS. Young Atlanta Braves fan were baptized last year during their September collapse.)

However the book is much more than a fan's love of baseball, which is a subject that often borders on the cliché. Sheed illuminates the often forgotten baseball played during the World War II. 1941 was a memorable season with Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak, and Ted Williams hitting over .400 for the season. Though Sheed maintains that Williams was willing to put his .400 batting average in jeopardy on the last day of the season, because he was facing the miserable Athletics. In general, the quality of play suffered during the war. Sheed writes, “the shortage of baseball talent was critical, and even more painfully noticeable than the substitution of phony meat in the frankfurters—a a hot dog still looked like a hot dog and you could paint your margarine yellow, but there was no hiding that chunk of Spam you had playing shortstop or a pitching staff made of powdered eggs.”

 

Bidding Adieu to the Baseball Season

Even though there are a few games left in the season, I did make it out to Turner Field last week on a cool summer evening for a long (12 innings, but I left after nine) unceremonious farewell to 2011. Even though the final score was Florida 6, Atlanta 5, there was no disappointment for me. Emotionally, my team is the Cubs, which I characterize as “monotonous seasons of losing punctuated with several interludes of spirit-crushing defeat (1969, 1984, 1989, 2003).” This year, the Cubs punched out early. If there was a highlight of the Cubs season, it was probably winning two of three here in Atlanta on Bobby Cox tribute weekend. (shown here).

I don't consider myself a Braves fan, but like many, I developed an appreciation of the ball club during the 1980s when the WTBS was the only way to watch a game daily on television. I tell people I am a Braves follower, because I like the rhythm of tracking a team throughout the season and it's easier to do since I live in the Atlanta metro. This season is no different. Full of ups and downs – Jair Jurrjens All-Star performance before falling victim to a knee injury, the emergence of a lights out bullpen of Eric O'Flaherty, Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters (well, almost lights out), and Chipper Jones has been amazing this year with his clutch hitting. Conversely, I am sympathetic to the situation of the classy Martin Prado as he continues to wait until Chipper retires. This doesn't means I don't root for Atlanta from time to time, especially if it means making the playoffs and eliminating from post season competition the Cubs' arch rivals – the St. Louis Stinkin' Cardinals.

The same mixture of highs and medium lows has been characteristic with the baseball books that I have read this year. By far, my favorite was the reissue of Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, John Updike's classic of Ted Williams final game with the Boston Red Sox. The slender book is a reprint of the essay Updike wrote after he sat in the stands and witnessed Williams' last at bats (See earlier posting).

Right Off the Bat

Coincidentally, the two other baseball books that I looked at over the summer were both penned by Englishmen. In the case of Evander Lomke & Martin Rowe's Right Off the Bat: Baseball, Cricket Literature & Life, it was Martin Rowe who grew up overseas. The premise of the book is simple as the authors explain to cricket lovers about baseball and likewise to baseball fanatics the rudiments of cricket. Since I consider myself quite knowledgeable about baseball (after all Hall of Famer Sam Rice was born near my hometown,) I was anxious to learn more about cricket, but sometimes a book just isn't the way to learn about a sport. I appreciated what the authors were trying to do, but if you're a baseball guy, reading an the explanation about baseball is redundant and the cricket explanation need more diagrams (the first illustration of a cricket field appears on page 184 in the Glossary and some of the artwork left me scratching my head).

 

An Updike Baseball Keeper

After finishing reading a tattered copy of a Walker Percy book (see last posting), I shifted 180 degrees and switched to a recently purchased copy of John Updike's account of Hall of Fame slugger Ted Williams' final game at Fenway Park in Boston.

Published last year, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a re-issue of an essay that John Updike wrote for the New Yorker in October, 1960 a few weeks after witnessing Williams' exit from baseball. Less than fifty pages long, Updike's writing is superb and worthy of all the praise from notable sportswriters such as Roger Angell and Peter Gammons that grace the back dust jacket.

What struck me about this slender $15 book, which you can read entirely over your Saturday morning coffee, is how physically wonderful it is to hold. Designed by Chip Kidd, the book jacket is shiny with the title hologram over the picture of Williams and the subtitle, “John Updike On Ted Williams.”

The inside art (known as the endpapers) has a reprint of Updike typewritten manuscript complete with edits and minor changes. If you remove the jacket, you'll see a second cover – a sepia tinged, black and white photo of Ted Williams' perfect swing, which Updike describes as “a grand motion, never a lunge or a hasty fending, with a graceful follow-through that left his body yearning toward first base.”

I almost decided not to include my pathetic photograph with this posting, because it doesn't do the look and feel of this book justice (and baseball is a tactile sport: the leather of the mitt, the red stitches of the baseball, the grip of the bat....) Stop by your local bookstore ( I picked up my copy at Blue Elephant) and check it out. Hold it in your hand. Can you resist taking it home?

 

Autographed Baseball (Books)

 

Last year, my book friend Dave in Seattle sent me a personally autographed copy of Luke Salisbury’s The Cleveland Indian: The Legend of King Saturday (Black Heron Press, Seattle). Each spring I try to read at least one baseball book to mark the beginning of the new season (last year it was Robert Coover’s  The Universal Baseball Association). Salisbury and I are connected by two degrees of separation as we both were contributors to the now defunct baseball literary review, Elysian Fields Quarterly.

Originally published in 1992, The Cleveland Indian is a solid historical novel and centers around the King Saturday, a Native American who played for the Cleveland Spiders in 1898 and is based on the real life Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis.  The story is told from the perspective of a Harvard educated Harry Harrison, who admires Saturday’s athletic prowess and keen sense of “hustle.”  (The phenomena of Saturday’s athleticism reminded me of Bo Jackson’s incredible 1989 season with the Kansas City Royals.) But the book is more than just a glimpse into old timey baseball – though there are insights to all time greats John McGraw and Cy Young -- there is love, murder, and several underlying political messages. Not only are there examples of racism, but the book reminds us of U.S. hegemony that dates back to the Spanish American War.

 If you interested in used baseball books, check out Books Again in downtown Decatur.  According to owner Jim Adams they’ve recently required some autographed books via Atlanta Braves trainer, Dr. John Cantwell. Included in the Cantwell collection is autographed copy of Henry Aaron’s Bad Henry (1974) autographed by Aaron himself. There are also signed copies of Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks for a Better Life (2005) and Sir Edmund Hillary’s School House in the Clouds (1964). (Photos courtesy of Books Again)

While I was visiting with Jim, he also pulled out his latest major acquisition, an autographed copy of Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. Albeit, this is not a baseball story, but those interested in American history cannot help but being in awe when seeing this autographed book.

 

Coover or the Cubs?

 

It’s baseball week for me as the ill-fated Chicago Cubs come to Turner Field for three games against the Atlanta Braves beginning tonight. I have already taken my Cubs 1908 World Champions T-Shirt out of the storage closet in preparation for attending Thursday night’s game.

As a Cubs fan, I have learned that it is critical to focus on other aspects of baseball besides cheering the team from Wrigley Field.  Thus, I recently finished reading a baseball classic – if peculiarity counts – Robert Coover’s 1968 book, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

Field of Dreams Fanatic

 

Mention anything about the movie Field of Dreams and I am there. So when Brett Friedlander stopped by the Opal Gallery on Moreland Avenue last Thursday to talk about the book he co-authored, Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams’ Doc Graham,  I showed up to swap FOD  trivia with the North Carolina sportswriter. (In case you haven’t seen the 1989 movie a dozen times like me, Doc Archibald “Moonlight” Graham was the character played by Burt Lancaster. In the movie and in real life, Graham played in one major league game, but never got to bat.)

Unfortunately for Friedlander, I was one of the few non-family members in attendance. But a supportive, friendly family is nothing to sneeze at (ask Ray Kinsella) and for a moment I found myself wishing they’d invite me along for a celebration burger at the nearby Vortex. Instead of a full, aching stomach, here’s what I did take home with me from his presentation:

• After being banned from playing Major League Baseball, Shoeless Joe Jackson (one of the main characters in FOD) continued to play baseball, barnstorming through small towns that included Graham’s adopted hometown of Chisholm, Minnesota, where they played against each other.
• Graham met Ted Williams in an exhibition game while Williams was a minor leaguer playing in Minnesota in the 1930s.
• The author W. P. Kinsella (FOD was based on his book Shoeless Joe)declined to write an introduction to Friedlander’s book, having retired from writing after a debilitating accident.
• The town of Galena, Illinois (hometown of Ulysses S. Grant) was used as a location for filming instead of Chisholm, Minnesota.

 If you’re interested in learning more – and you may be because the FOD phenomena should not be underestimated – see a review of Friedlander’s book at the California Literary Review.