(Many) Bits and Pieces

Catching up…

• From the Manchester Union Leader, a sports column with reviews of New England-centric media, including Senior Year: A Father, A Son, and High School Baseball, by Dan Shaughnessy; High & Outside, a documentary on Bill “Spaceman” Lee; and Yastrzemski, by Carl Yastrzemski.
• From The London Independent (the unlikely source), this report on the release of the Joe DiMaggio diaries in July. Clyde Haberman penned this account for the International Herald Tribune. Interesting how much of a news item Joltin’ Joe seems to be across the pond.
• From LAobserved.com, this interview with Jim Brosnan, who was Bouton before Bouton.
• Apropos to the Brosnan interview, ESPN posted this story about Jim Bouton and the legacy of Ball Four by Rob Neyer, in which the writer declares that the tell-all project “changed sports and books. ” I did my own take on the same topic several years ago for Bookreporter.com. By the way, Bouton still hosts his ownWeb site, named, obviously, BallFour.com.
• From the Metstoday.com blog in recognition of Bonds’ home run pursuit, a trio of reviews on books about Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Sadaharu Oh, who still holds the professional home run title.
• This one may be a bit off my beat, but it involves reading, so what the heck. A Barry University School of Law professor posted this assignment which considers fantasy baseball on Sportslaw for his students. No reason why we can’t “e-audit” the class.
• From The Pastime blog, this review of Leveling Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball, by Peter Morris.
• Two more author interviews from Gelf magazine: John Heidenry, who wrote The Gashouse Gang: How Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Branch Rickey, Pepper Martin, and Their Colorful, Come-from-Behind Ball Club Won the World Series—and America’s Heart—During the Great Depression, a great book with an unwieldy name, and Joe Posnanski, for his eloquent biography, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America.
• From the Somerville (Mass.) News, this interview with Luke Salisbury, author of The Answer is Baseball and The Cleveland Indians.