* Author profile: Josh Pahigian

There are still a few places that Josh Pahigian, author of (The Lyons Press) has yet to visit. Three are in Hawaii and Alaska, which is easy to understand. But how could he miss The Baseball Mud Site in Burlington County, NJ?

Maybe it’s his busy schedule. Between teaching writing at the University of New England and researching his other books — The Ultimate Minor League Baseball Road Trip, The Spring Training Handbook, and The Red Sox in the Play-offs; and co-author of The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip and Why I Hate the Yankees — Pahigian he can be forgiven. Ninety-eight out of 101 is still very impressive.

So what were his favorites?

“It’s hard to top the Hall of Fame, but that’s probably what most fans would conclude. I guess I was surprised at how neat it was to visit the Field of Dreams movie site in [Dyersville, Iowa]. That’s second on the list. I know it’s kind of derivative of pop culture, but it was pretty neat for me to see this completely free site.”

That “free” bit is kind of ironic, since Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones) predicted that people would come and gladly plunk down a few bucks to relive their childhood dreams to Ray Kinsella’s (Kevin Costner) field.

This is just one of the places ranging from ballparks to museums to restaurants that Pahigian enjoys sharing with his readers.

“I didn’t start out with the intent of writing this book,” he said. “In the course of my travels I just kept bumping up against these other neat attractions on the way. I wouldn’t necessarily write a book about the best baseball museums or the best college fields. The kind of places that kind of fell into random categories and then after I’d been doing that…I got the idea to lump all these attractions and landmarks into one book.”

Conspicuous by its absence are modern citations — i.e., website information — which was a conscious decision by the author. “I guess I was trying to steer people to visiting the places themselves or being able to sit in their easy chair and get the flavor of the place from the book. I wanted it to be more of an exploration than a directory.”

Initially, there was no order to the entries other than arranging them by basic geography. “The editors wanted it to be more of a ranking, so he rearranged the original order.” So Cooperstown comes first and Lenny Dykstra’s Car Wash in Simi Valley is last. “But that’s a very subjective thing,” he said. “One person’s number four is apt to be someone else’s number 15.”

A few places seem to be included for the joke factor, such as the Alcor Life Extension Foundation: “I did talk to someone in P.R. and told them ‘I won’t portray you as a bunch of crazy people,’ but they didn’t want to have a picture in.”

There are several incarnations of the Green Monster among the 101 Places book, including Fenway, of course, plus a less likely location: the Bucky Dent Baseball School (#92 ). “It’s a colorful story how … Dent is not just in Red Sox Nation [lore]. I guess his identity is built around that one home run, which he also embraces,” said Pahigian, who lives in Buxton, Maine, not far from Portland.

The index breaks the sites down into manageable categories such as museums, current and defunct ballparks, eating establishments, and all types of monuments (including graves and shrines).

Josh Pahigian’s Top Ten Baseball Spots

1. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown

2. Field of Dreams movie site

3. Negro League Baseball Museum

4. Monument Park, Yankee Stadium

5. Little League International Complex, S. Williamsport, PA

6. Rickwood Field, Birmingham, AL (home of the Black Barons)

7. Green Monster, Fenway Park

8. Babe Ruth’s grave, Gates of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, NY

9. Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, Omaha, NE (home of the College World Series)

10. Dodgertown, Vero Beach FL