The Book Shopper

Revisiting Wilfrid Sheed's Baseball and Lesser Sports

Just like fans of professional hockey and basketball are ending their long seasons and resting their bleary, red eyes from lack of sleep, I have closed the book on Wilfrid Sheed's collection of essays Baseball and Lesser Sports, which I began several months ago (I was briefly sidetracked by another baseball book Robert Weintraub's The Victory Season). Besides I had already read Sheed's sports-related memoir, My Life as a Fan (2001) and found his prose rich and fun to read. I was confident I would return to finish it.

This collection of sports writing published in 1991, (Sheed died in 2011) spans 30 years of Sheed's sports-related essays and though he devotes much of the book to baseball figures such as Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Connie Mack, and Branch Rickey, I was equally impressed with his take on Howard Cosell, John McEnroe, Muhammad Ali and Jack Nicklaus. Most of these are names from the past, I know, but if you are familiar with them at all, Sheed will give you fresh perspectives.

One of Sheed's essays, “Sports Talk” explains the difficulties of sports writing in the modern era citing that some of the master journalists were Damon Runyon, Heywoud Broun, Ring Lardner and Red Smith. Sheed devotes separate essays to baseball Hall of Famer Smith and Ring Lardners' baseball novel You Know Me, Al, which Sheed maintains is a polished novel (though it reads like a serial) and despite Lardner's denial that he (Lardner) didn't consider himself a novelist.

 

Book Burning Iowans in Field of Dreams

After finishing Robert Weintraub's The Victory Season, (April 21 posting), I reverted back to the other baseball book I've been reading Wilfred Sheed's series of essays, Baseball and Lesser Sports (1991) which makes a good companion book to Weintraub's history of the 1946 baseball season. In addition to think pieces about Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Jackie Robinson, Sheed scoffs at the film Field of Dreams, which is my favorite baseball movie. Here's an excerpt about the scene about the literacy of the local Iowans.

...the only other scene involving local Iowans, we find that their literacy has merely turned them into book burning fascists, whom Costner's wife Amy Madigan easily routs with a few high-spirited cliches about books and the human spirit that astoundingly haven't reached this part of the country yet (how did they find this place?). Obviously, the Costner,man subscribes to the Mark Twain ruling "Heaven for scenery. Hell for company," because the human inhabitants of this earthly paradise seem to have barely made it out of the swamp. If I was Iowa, I'd sue.

I not sure I will ever be able to watch Field of Dreams the same way again - despite all the Carl Jung overtones in the flick.

Mini-Review: Robert Weintraub Presents The Victory Season

When & Where: Weintraub did a slide presentation for his new book, The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age at the Decatur Public Library on April 15, 2013, which was also Jackie Robinson Day and sadly, the day of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Attendence: ~ 75 people which included the final appearance of Director of the Georgia Center for the Book's Bill Starr who is stepping down as director.

Why I Went. I am currently finishing up Weintraub's book about the history of the game, which focuses specifically on the 1946 season. It was the year, many future Hall of Fame stars (Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial ) returned to the game after service in the Armed Forces. It was also the year that Jackie Robinson played for the Montreal Royals in the Triple A International League on the brink of breaking baseball's color barrier in 1947. The season ends with a thrilling seven game World Series between the Musial's St. Louis Cardinals and Williams' Boston Red Sox. (Even though I was to find out neither Musial or Williams had a particularly good Series at the plate.)

By checking the baseball link on the side of this blog, you will know that I read a lot of baseball books especially historical ones (Stengel, The Bill James Historical Abstract, essays by Wilfred Sheed) and I will admit is that there is a lot I didn't know, which speaks well of Weintraub's thorough research. (He even interviewed Jackie Robinson's widow, Rachel Robinson). For example, I had no idea that after the defeat of Germany, the Nuremburg Hitler Youth Stadium was converted to the 50,000 seat Soldier's Field where a kind of Armed Forces World Series was held in September, 1945. In a five game series, the Overseas Invasion Service Expedition (OISE) Allstars led by Negro Leaguers Leon Day and Home Run Brown (yes, the team was integrated) defeated the all-white 71^st Division Red Circlers, representing General George Patton's Third Army, in a five game series.

Q & A. Weintraub's slide presentation lasted about 40 minutes and he covered a lot of territory, except in the book you get the complete back story of equally important figures like New York Yankees owner Larry MacPhail, Dodgers manager Leo Durocher and the millionaire Mexican magnate Jorge Pasquel who competed for American stars with his upstart Mexican League. During the Q & A, I asked Weintraub about Braves Hall of Famer Warren Spahn. Weintraub mentioned in his presentation and wrote his book that only two active major leaguers died in action during World War II – Elmer Gedeon and Harry O'Neill. A kind of amazing number, but many of the players were not at the front. One exception was Warren Spahn who was in an engineering battalion in Germany and barely avoided being killed during the bridge collapse at Remagen. Spahn attributes his war experiences to his success as the winning-est left-hander of all time. Spahn said, “After what I went through overseas, I never thought of anything I was told to do in baseball as hard work. You get over feeling like that when you spend days on end sleeping in frozen tire tracks in enemy threatened territory.”

Notable Atlanta Book Events - April 2013

Even though Atlanta is now inundated with Final Four March Madness and I can proudly wear my vintage Wichita State sweatshirt (I remember “classmates” Antoine Carr and Cliff Levingston, but my favorite whizz u player was “X”), my attentions always turn to baseball in April. Since the baseball season is plenty long, I ignor Spring training, except I usually start the season with a baseball book. Currently, I am reading Wilfrid Sheed's collection of essays Baseball and Lesser Sports (1990). Last year, I read his fine memoir, My Life as a Fan, (1993), which I wrote about in a posting called "The Joys of Losing."

Coincidently, checking through my calendar of links (see below), I noticed that another baseball writer Robert Weintraub is at the Decatur Public Library on April 15th to talk about his new book The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age. I hope Weintraub wrote that the Golden Age actually began in 1945, the last year that my Chicago Cubs were in the World Series. Little did I know in 1968 (shown here), that the Cubs -- a consensus pick for Central Division cellar-dwellers in 2013 -- would cause such a lifetime of misplaced loyalty. As Steve Goodman sang in "The Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," my hopes have been "crushed like so many paper beer cups."

The Prose on Earl Weaver

Friday's passing of Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver struck a book shopping chord with me as soon as I heard the news on sports radio. Although St. Louis Cardinal Hall-of-Famer (player and nice guy) Stan the Man Musial also died this weekend, it is a quote from the crusty Weaver, who managed the Baltimore Orioles for 17 years, that I have taped near my desk, which reads: “If you play for one run, that's all you'll get.”

No matter what is written about Weaver, it won't match the prose of Tom Boswell, a sports columnist for The Washington Post. Boswell has already written a couple of eulogy-columns about Weaver, but some of the best anecdotes about Weaver come from Boswell's two collections of pieces How Life Imitates the World Series (1982) and Why Time Begins on Opening Day (1985). I am dumbfounded that I cannot find my copy of the How Life book (did I loan it out to someone, sell it?) , but it contains many chapters about the great Oriole teams on the 70s (Brooks and Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Mike Cuellar) that Weaver managed. The Orioles were a juggernaut and Boswell devotes many chapters to Weaver strategy (one of the first managers to platoon players based on lefty-righty matchups) and managerial style, which was described as (if I can remember correctly) “primal scream therapy.”

In the chapter “Palmer vs. Palmer” in the Opening Day book, Boswell writes about the enigmatic Baltimore Hall of Fame Pitcher (and Jockey Ad spokesperson) Jim Palmer and his long contentious relationship with the Oriole skipper – even though after baseball, Weaver and Palmer briefly shared a broadcast booth. Palmer once said that all Weaver knew about pitching was “that he couldn't hit it” – a reference to Weaver's baseball playing career, which never included a stint in the majors. Weaver thought Palmer was a hypochondriac and a whiner and said that when he wanted to talk Palmer, “I'll send (Oriole pitching coach) Ray Miller to drag him back by his diaper.”

More Chipper

Since my obsession with the retiring Chipper Jones continues, I had to continue to write about it even though it doesn't quite fit The Book Shopper blog brand. So I sent a brief thought piece, “Is There Happiness After Chipper Leaves?” to Like the Dew, A Journal of Southern Culture and Politics.

For those of you who have may have straggled from Like the Dew to here, click on the “Baseball” link on the right for other books about baseball. One baseball book that seems appropriate in light of Chipper's retirement is John Updike's Hub Fans Bid The Kid Adieu, which is basically a long essay about Updike being at Ted Williams' last game for the Boston Red Sox. I think every great ball player should have such a literary send-off.

Chipper Dreams

When I am asked “What book is on your nightstand?” that is not necessarily a place of honor for books at my house. Most books that have been relegated to my nightstand are not books that are likely to be read cover to cover, because it only takes a few paragraphs at bedtime before I get sleepy. This explains why encyclopedias and reference books are my preferred genre of nighttime reading. Entries are short. You don't feel like your offending an author who has put his or her heart and soul into the prose. And at the end the day, you've learned something new.

For months I have been falling asleep to the Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract, which was first published in 1988 and then revised in 2003. James, who belongs in the writer's wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame (being mentioned in the film Moneyball should seal the deal), divides his encyclopedia into three sections. Part One is called The Game and is about how baseball was played in each decade from the 1870s through the 1990s. In Part Two he rates the Top 100 players at each position and finishes the book with a reference section. I spent most of my time reading Part Two.

 Of course unless you've been hiding under home plate, you know that this is Larry “Chipper” Jones final season and so the big question on Atlanta fans' mind: is “Where does Chipper Jones rate in the pantheon of all time third baseman?”

The Braves organization is constantly reminding us this season that it is important to share this historical experience with Chipper and that t-shirts and uniforms emblazoned with Jones name and number could become endangered (like my Biff Pocoroba jersey). It is imperative to get to Turner Field during Chipper's farewell season. I've been out three times to see Chipper this year. Until he was named to the 2012 All-Star team, I think Chipper's nickname should have been Crapper since he seemed “down in the toilet” about being hurt, his impending retirement at the end of the season, and problems at home, while being obsessed that the front office needs to add another starting pitcher for the pennant run (which it does). From the stands, I saw him just hang his head walking from the dugout to the middle of the field between innings. At home watching Brave broadcasts, there seem to be constant camera shots of Chipper sitting in the dugout with his head buried in a towel. Lately though, Chipper has been perkier. I think it is smart for him to retire when he is still a very good baseball player (except for his range) and allow players and fans alike in other cities to pay their respects to a future Hall of Famer.

Moreover once he retires, baseball fans can begin to speculate on where Chipper ranks in the all-time list of third baseman?

In the Historical Baseball Abstract using his intricate methods that allows players to be compared in different eras, James ranked Jones 28th right after Tim Wallach, who James considered the poor man's Brooks Robinson. James readily updated the ranking in his postscript that Chipper had a lot of years left and he expected Chipper to move up significantly though James didn't speculate whether Chipper would move into the mid-teens near Craig Nettles (#13) or Ron Cey (#16) or in the Top Ten of all time great third basemen. But here's the weird statistic. According to Bill James, Chipper may be only the third best Brave third baseman of all time.

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).

 

But the book, like any baseball season, had its fine moments, more specifically the chapter on Race and Empire, which gives a brief history of the players of color. At first these players, ranging from black players of the Caribbean to the Parsees, Hindus and Muslims who played for India, could only play for England but later competed against the mother country. It was a struggle, reminiscent of Jackie Robinson's integration of major league baseball.

Flip Flop Fly Ball

There is no shortage of diagrams or infographics in Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure by Craig Robinson who grew up in England, but didn't begin become an obsessive fan of the game until he moved to Berlin and then finally to New York in 2007. Though there are a few short narratives, the main emphasis of the book is Robinson's quirky graphics illustrating certain aspects of the game: different managers of all the teams during Bobby Cox's tenure with the Braves, the uniform number that clubs have retired the most (after Jackie Robinson), and the longest championship droughts (it's the Cubs of course, by almost 40 years over the Cleveland Indians). Check out his website for more examples.  Fun stuff to look at, but the type is so small that Robinson has should have included a coupon for a magnifying glass.

Perhaps complaining about the size of the type qualifies as old fart talk, but judging from the average age of hardcore baseball fans who say good bye to every baseball season, it's a statistic that Robinson should include in his next book.

Disclaimer: Paul Dry Books (who published my book The Book Shopper) provided me a reviewer's copy of Right Off the Bat. I bought my own copy of Flip Flop Fly Ball, but the author himself provided the artwork.

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?