Baseball Books

Feh is a hilarious character.

It's making the NYT bestseller list. Had a brief chat w/ Ben L last night, gave him a little grief for letting Sean Conroy throw 140 pitches.

RIP WP Kinsella

Kinsella's Iowa Baseball Confederacy is terrible, too...

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, June 17, 2004

can anyone confirm?

I saw Jim Bouton and his wife speak at the SABR convention today on a panel dedicated to him. He acquitted himself well and wittily, given the post-stroke hardships detailed here:

Bouton’s body was largely unaffected by the stroke. But his mind, the one whose pointed and poignant observations produced the classic memoir “Ball Four” in 1970, will never be the same. This weekend in New York, at the convention for the Society of American Baseball Research, Bouton went public about his brain disease: cerebral amyloid angiopathy, which is linked to dementia.

Bouton had a smaller stroke before his 2012 episode, which was treated immediately with blood thinner. That was “catastrophic,” said Dr. Alec Kloman, a neurologist at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass., and led to a hemorrhage in the frontal lobe. The hemorrhage dissipated, but in the aftermath, Bouton’s language skills were essentially wiped out. He had to relearn how to read, write, speak and understand.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/sports/baseball/jim-bouton-brain-disease.html

Nice to hear that. Re: Iowa Baseball Confederacy, I read it long ago, I wouldn't say it's terrible, but it is completely fucking nuts.

Just started Posnanski's book on the '75 Reds. Great intro, where he goes through the everyday lineup player by player--even now, not sure if there's been a deeper starting eight since (starting with Morgan and Bench, where you almost certainly have the best post-war players at their positions). Eye-opening: Tony Perez's signing bonus in 1960 as an eighteen-year-old out of Cuba, $2.50. I know about inflation, but...

Gleaned from the above:

1) Before the '75 season, the Royals almost traded George Brett to the Reds straight up for Tony Perez. Brett was 21, a second-round pick, and had just finished third in ROY voting; Perez was 32 and coming off a mediocre season. According to Joe, the Royals backed out of the trade. Maybe even more than a lot of infamous trades that were made, this tells you a lot about the thinking then about established stars (put aside that Perez was somewhat overrated) vs. young players.

2) The night before the 1970 All-Star Game, Pete Rose had Ray Fosse over for dinner. Never knew that.

The Jays are nowhere, my favourite players are hurt or hurting, the past beckons.

Something about 1975 I have no recollection of: the attempt to make a big deal out of who would score baseball's one millionth run. Communications being what they were then, there ended up being some uncertainty, when it finally happened, about whether it was scored by Bob Watson or Dave Concepcion (early May). They credited it to Watson (years later, they retroactively switched to someone else entirely).

Tootsie Rolls had a big contest around the run, with money and prizes to both the player and fans who guessed correctly. Posnanski digs up a quote from the Tootsie Rolls VP:

"I was glad to hear (Watson)'s a clean-living athlete. We have to keep the image--good for kids, good for Tootsie Rolls. I know he's not blond and blue-eyed, but he's my kind of an All-American."

I'm sure Watson was thrilled with such a testimonial...Odd to see the Reds presented as the personification of All-Americanism in the book (no long hair, no mustaches) next to the Dodgers (scruffy third baseman, iconoclastic closer). Not that the Reds weren't, but by the '77 and '78 World Series, the Dodgers inherited that role when contrasted with the Martin-Jackson-Munson Yankees.

Well worth reading. The afterword, which is partly Joe explaining why he thinks the '75/76 Reds were the best team ever, but which is mostly him explaining why he wrote the book, is especially beautiful. It sums up why Posnanski and James and Rob Neyer and a few others are my favourite baseball writers: they can hold two thoughts in their mind at once, and since one of them they assume you already know, they're okay with still writing about the other one as fans.

Good backdrop for the Dodgers' season. The Reds were 18-19 when they bottomed out mid-May; they went 90-35 the rest of the way, .720 baseball. Looks like the Dodgers will blow past them: 11-12 late April, 68-20 since, .773. Man for man, I don't know--depends too on whether you'd only compare them 1975 vs. 2017, or whether you'd pull back a little bit.

About halfway through the Jaffe HOF book. Another improbable feud, one I didn't know about, joining Abbott and Costello, the Everly Brothers, Sam and Dave, and Joey and Johnny: Tinker and Evers argued over a cab in 1905 and didn't exchange another civil word for 30 years. And this from the pre-launch-angle universe:

"(Grich) experimented with his swing during the spring, emulating new teammate Rod Carew's wrist action so as to produce more topspin, and raising his hands. Via Sports Illustrated's Joe Jares, 'He stands deep in the batter's box and holds his hands near his right ear, which he feels has eliminated his old uppercut swing that produced far too many strikeouts and fly balls.'"

new: Visualizing Baseball

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/a-new-classic-in-sabermetric-literature/

has anyone read this?

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/09/18/robert-coovers-dark-fantasy-baseball-novel/

yes. it is very good. but it gets so dark it becomes basically.. what's the word ABJECT, and was difficult for me to finish because of that.

I read it a million years ago but I remember liking it a lot.

I held off on this because it was a little bit pricey, but I bought it today with a gift certificate (stupid thing was, I was looking at the American price on the back instead of the Canadian, so I ended up ridiculously overpaying anyway.):

http://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51vMbuQ-0SL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Rooted against them in '72 and '73, for them in '74. In '71, Vida Blue was probably the second player to ever really capture my imagination, after Bench. Vaguely recall my dad and his friend driving down to old Tiger Stadium to see him that summer. Checking his game logs, could have been his July start there. His line for three starts against the
(90-win) Tigers in '71: 24 IP, 6 H, 10 BB, 26 K, no earned runs.

Try again.

http://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/52029217?wid=520&hei=520&fmt=pjpeg

i haven't read ned colletti's new book, but i've seen (surprisingly?) good things about it

I have only the dimmest memory of this, but the A's book has a fascinating chapter on Vida Blue's holdout in '72 (concurrent with the first-ever league-wide player's strike--cost them eight games). Finley was prepared to pay Blue $50,000, he and his quasi-agent (really an advertising man) wanted close to $100,000. Blue threatened to quit altogether, and took a ceremonial post with the Dura Steel Products Company rather than give in. It wasn't resolved until May 2, when Blue accepted the $50,000 with some extra money kicked in (some of it already owed to him) that Finley wouldn't admit to publicly. Most unlikely Blue defender: Nixon called him "the most underpaid player in baseball."

Hilarious how ill-equipped Finley was for the first set of arbitration hearings in 1974. Across the rest of the league, the owners won 25 or 33 cases--a combination, I'm guessing, of institutional bias and poor representation. Finley, though, lost five out of eight. The players would come armed with mountains of statistics (a few them were represented by Jerry Kapstein, the Scott Boras of his day; Reggie even had Marvin Miller arguing his case), Finley would pace the room and say things like "Mr. Reggie Jackson is a superstar...Gentleman, I ask you: what is a superstar?" When he was pitted against Ken Holtzman, he'd tell the arbitrator that Holtzman would be lost without Rollie Fingers; an hour later, arguing against Fingers in front of the same arbitrator, he'd say that Fingers only piled up saves because of Oakland's great starting pitchers. The suggestion is that Finley never recovered from the reality of arbitration, and just became (even) more and more erratic and resentful for the rest of the decade.

Do they have anything in there about Bowie Kuhn nullifying the trade of Vida Blue to the Reds?

Don't remember that...I'm up to the '74 Series; if it happened after that, it'll be in the book. (I remember the aborted trades to the Yankees and Red Sox in '75, but not the Reds.)

Disconnect. When Hunter left before the '76 season, the A's tried to replace him with a 20-year-old Mike Norris. After two brilliant April starts--a complete-game three-hitter against the White Sox, followed by one hit over seven innings against KC--he came up lame in his third start and was shut down for surgery.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=norrimi01&t=p&year=1975

I completely associate Norris with the Henderson-Martin A's of the early '80s. Had no idea he was around so early.

In that '74 Series (five games), the A's used five pitchers in total. The Dodgers used six. This year, the two teams combined to use 24 pitchers. (Obviously, two extreme cases of a general trend.)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1974_WS.shtml

(That should say that Hunter left before the '75 season, not '76.)

70s baseball is the shiznit. I've thought about what some 70s version 'extended' modern playoffs where 4 teams from each league met in those seasons instead of just the 2 division leaders for each league would have been like.

Crazy thing about Mike Norris: wrapped up in 1983, then made a brief comeback in 1990(!!!)

His 1980 season was terrific but those 24 complete games probably destroyed his career.

Billy Martin completely f'ed those guys arms on that A's team in 80/81. They had the makings for a great rotation for long term and he just ran in them all into the ground.

it's crazy to think how much pitching has evolved since then. look at rick langford. his K/9 in 1980 was 3.17!! but back then he managed to go 19-12 and pitch 290 innings. wtf

in 1981, the strike-shortened season, Langford made only 24 starts but had 18(!) complete games!

I don't know if evolved as just as much as changed. I figure some guys have the durability to throw that crazy amount of innings and some do not. Even then, the whole complete game thing with that A's team was considered a bit unique. There was a Sports Illustrated cover and lead about that rotation.

earlnash otm, it's like someone paid Martin to destroy those guys.

One thing I noticed reading the book that hasn't changed--at least in terms of those '70s A's--was the quick hook during the post-season. If Holtzman or Blue or Odom (a little less so with Hunter) got into any kind of trouble early in the game--say a couple of runs and a couple of baserunners--there was no hesitation to send Knowles or Lindblad or someone else out there in the third inning. Holtzman had a running feud with Alvin Dark over this.

Sad in a "Campaigner," even-Richard-Nixon-has-got-soul way: when Finley died in 1996, only two ex-A's--Reggie and Hunter, the two guys he screwed over the worst (with the possible exception of Mike Andrews)--showed up at the funeral.

Earl: Blue's overruled sale to the Reds turns up in passing (happened during the '77 meltdown).

I'd have to conclude after finishing the book that Finley was an even more volatile and erratic bully than Steinbrenner (but who did help bring a handful of innovations to the game, and also was the only owner who really understood what free agency was going to mean for the owners; his suggestion that every player be declared a free agent at the end of the season would have indeed kept power with the owners).

Kids in my neighborhood back in the early 80s were huge baseball geeks. We all had copies of "Who's Who in Baseball" or "Street and Smith" and during those early 80s years we played homerun derby or tennis ball (in the neighborhood) along with watching Cubs and Braves games all the time, since they were always on TV.

My neighbor Tobey his dad was a huge A's fan and had one of those huge early 80s satellite dishes (RIP Bo Diaz) and had it to specifically watch west coast baseball like the A's or sometimes Dodger or Giant feeds. His dad got hooked on them when younger with the 70s teams, so trading baseball cards and the like, Tobey was the A's guy and we knew everything about them in that era.

We eventually invented our own game we called 'dice baseball' that we played all the time keeping stats and what not. Later on we got into the Sports Illustrated Baseball Stat game (never Stratomat), but I remember during a blizzard in probably '84 playing out lots of games with Tobey and my buddy Barry. Two would play the game and the third not playing would be kinda like the play by play guy.

Don't know what it was about those games, but there would always be some oddball player that would hit like Babe Ruth out of nowhere. I know Bob Brenly was one when we played those games that hit way, way better than he ever did on the field.

earlnash! have you heard of deadball?? i have played a little with my kids and a slightly embarrassing amount with er, myself:

http://wmakers.net/deadball/

Bought Keith Law's book on Boxing Day, also The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent '60s and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Law's book is good, although I did spend the first few chapters (on the old stats) thinking "Tell me something I don't know." And there's this condescension that runs through it, starting with the cover hype: "The story behind the old stats that are ruining the game..." Really? I'd agree that the save stat has had a negative impact, insofar as it negatively altered the way games are managed, but some player getting undue credit for his RBI count actually "ruins" the game? Or this sentence towards the end: "The battle is over, whether the losers realize it or not." There's a lot of that. Enough that you realize by "losers," he doesn't just mean the side that lost "the battle." He means losers. I guess I was really tuned out on the Jays for a few years--no recollection of his time with the team.

Jerald Podair's City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles is a superb historical monograph based on extensive, original research and brilliantly written. Podair delineates clearly the connection between the decision to build Dodger Stadium and the intricate machinations and alliances of urban politics. This decision ultimately determined that Los Angeles would henceforth develop economically and culturally from a centralized downtown core radiating outward rather than a decentralized conglomeration of independent neighborhoods. The result was the creation of modern Los Angeles.

https://sabr.org/latest/jerald-podairs-city-dreams-wins-2018-sabr-seymour-medal

Almost finished The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent '60s and the Los Angeles Dodgers that I mentioned above. Very good account of the Roseboro/Marichal incident from '65. The conventional wisdom is that outside events--the Watts riots, political chaos in Marichal's Dominican Republic--were very much weighing on everyone, but the author says it was much more the simple fact of how much the Dodgers and Giants hated each other. Sad: the event dogged Roseboro (the hero) and Marichal (the villain) for the rest of their careers and beyond. But the players eventually made their peace--everyone said Marichal's actions were completely at odds with the kind of person he was--and Marichal ended up as an honorary pallbearer at Roseboro's funeral.

http://s.abcnews.com/images/Sports/espnapi_dm_150820_MLB_Dodgers_Giants_baseball_brawl_wmain.jpg

As good as the book is on capturing the team and the decade, it's kind of awkwardly old-fashioned on player evaluation. Example: the author, without explicitly saying so, seems to think Maury Wills should be in the HOF--which, unless you give him a thousand bonus points as an innovator, is a stretch, to say the least. Noticed something interesting when I looked up how Wills did in balloting, though. In 1978, both he and Mazeroski came onto the ballot; Wills drew around 30% support, Mazeroski 6%. Sure was some drastic re-evaluation around the corner.

a glance down the mvp list suggests that wills' mvp was one of two to go to a hitter with an OPS+ under 100 -- the other being marty marion during the war

(tbf, fangraphs gives wills a 103 wRC+ for 1962)

Trying to project yourself into the moment, I can sort of see why writers voted for Wills: he broke a record, he was the acknowledged team leader, he scored 130 runs, MVP voters loved middle infielders back then. Obviously he wasn't the MVP--Mays, Robinson, and Aaron all had epic years. About the best you can say looking at it today is that he may have been the best pick out of the second-tier candidates.

Wes Parker's story is fascinating--as is, as the book points out, his inclusion on this, the one name out of nine guaranteed to elicit puzzlement.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/All_Time_Gold_Glove_Team.shtml

On to this now:

http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348440741l/6211199.jpg

http://www.bhcpress.com/publishImages/Books_Morgenstein_A_Mound_Over_Hell~~element149.jpg

It’s 2098 and the last season of baseball -- forever. After the ravages of WWIII, the once all-American sport is now synonymous with terrorism and treason. Holograms run the bases for out-of-shape players and attendance averages fifteen spectators per game. The only ballpark left is Amazon, once known as Yankee Stadium.

America, nearly wiped out by radical Islam, has established a society based on love. Religion, social media, and the entertainment industry have been outlawed. All acts of patriotism are illegal, and the country is led by Grandma. Heading up the Family in her home base in the Bronx, she works tirelessly to build a lasting legacy for the future.

As baseball historian Puppy Nedick prepares for opening day, a chance encounter lands him face-to-face with former baseball greats. Determined not to go down without a fight, the players band together to revitalize the game for one last hurrah.

But not everyone wants peace. Will baseball become the catalyst for WWIV, or will it save America?

out on march 29!

prod. steve bannon

America, nearly wiped out by radical Islam, has established a society based on love.

I feel like if I repeated this sentence out loud 1000 times I would achieve some kind of enlightenment

but I can't because every time I even think of it I start giggling

Um you guys you can read the text of this in Google Books and it's everything you dreamed of and more

When baseball writers wander astray (Bill Reynolds, Red Sox book above, writing about Bill Lee):

"The article caught the outrageousness of Lee, everything from his fascination with the British rocker Warren Zevon..."

http://watchtowergeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/jem-1.png

Great story from the Red Sox book (Bill Lee, who else?). In '75, in the midst of all the furor over busing--the book's almost as much about that as about baseball--Lee, a vocal supporter, got some death threats, and also a visit from the Winter Hill Gang, local mobsters who showed up at his house and threatened to kill him.

"We eventually ended up going out for pizza and getting drunk together, but it was scary there for a while."

Congratulations to Jim Leeke, Steve Steinberg, and Bill Young, who were selected as the winners of the 2018 SABR Baseball Research Awards, which honor outstanding research projects completed during the preceding calendar year that have significantly expanded our knowledge or understanding of baseball.

Leeke was honored for "From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During The Great War," published by University of Nebraska Press.

Steinberg was honored for "Urban Shocker: Silent Hero of Baseball's Golden Age," also by Nebraska.

Young was honored for "J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball," published by McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

https://sabr.org/latest/leeke-steinberg-young-win-2018-sabr-baseball-research-awards

Roger Angell is 98 (!) today. This is my favorite passage of his: pic.twitter.com/jRvjIcI3Tx

— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) September 19, 2018

podcast

https://baseballbythebook.libsyn.com/