* Class in session

[This piece appears in the May/June issue of ForeWord Magazine.]

Baseball books: Class is in session

The notion that baseball is a metaphor for life has been around since man first took bat to ball. In reality, it’s more appropriate to say that the national pastime is a metaphor for education; academic disciplines that baseball can teach include history, mathematics, science, journalism, and even philosophy, just to name a few. If one were to spend a semester at “baseball college,” a typical day of classes might consist of all the subjects needed for a general liberal arts degree. With the start of a new school year, a.k.a. Opening Day, here’s a list of suggestions to keep the studious fan up to date.

American History, Contemporary

If they serve no other function, titles that incorporate any kind of ranking or employ words like “best” and “greatest” act as a catalyst for discussion/argument. So does “forever,” as in Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and The Say Hey Kid: The Year That Changed Baseball Forever by John Rosengren (Sourcebooks). This volume focuses on the 1973 season, when Hank Aaron moved closer to Babe Ruth’s career home run record, a broken-down Willie Mays called it quits, and George Steinbrenner began his reign as lord and master of the New York Yankees. Readers may wonder what was the triggering event that made this a watershed season in the eyes of the authors.

Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Modern Baseball, by Larry Burke and Peter Thomas Fornatale (Rodale) will no doubt kindle some arguments as well. The authors contend that their selections were meant to “focus on the external changes that have shaped the game we know and love” and that they “set aside…the discussion for the game on the field.” But at least a few of these “events” will leave some puzzled as to how they made such a major impact on the sport. Ball Four and its effect on how we read about sports is worthy of such magnification, as was the establishment of the players’ union, but other suggestions seem downright silly and contrary to the author’s “mission statement.” After all, the debut of the designated hitter and Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streaks took place on the field. Likewise, their assertion that the 1962 New York Mets heralded the age of expansion is erroneous, since the American League added two teams the year before.

American History, Older

Fans of baseball’s Pre-Golden Age will appreciate the scholarship that went into Chief Bender’s Burden, Tom Swift’s sad but sweet biography of the Native American pitcher who toiled for Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics in the early 1900s from the University of Nebraska Press, a constant source of quality baseball literature. Another title in this genre is Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees First Dynasty, by Daniel Levitt (Nebraska). Prior to the Moneyball era of Billy Beane, Theo Epstein, et al., Barrow put together the first and perhaps mightiest of all ball clubs: the Bronx Bombers of Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Tommy Heinrich, and company. Barrow cut his teeth by managing minor league clubs and received a lifetime of experience just by dealing with a young and headstrong Babe Ruth who was with the Boston Red Sox.

Science: Biology

Rooting for a team can leave you elated or deflated, but before Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans, edited by Dan Gordon (Dana Press), there wasn’t much concrete material to explain why. The contributors to this slim collection of essays are mostly scientists and academics concerned with what goes through the brain of the participant (“Why Did Casey Strike Out: The Neuroscience of Hitting”) and the observer (“The Depths of Loyalty: Exploring the Brian of a Die-Hard Fan”). The unifying theme is that the sport, in one way or another, is a drug, releasing chemicals that have a positive or negative affect and, in many cases, are addictive. How else to explain sticking with a team that does nothing but disappoint year after year?

Civics

Cities love their teams, regardless of success or failure (although success is always more fun). Perhaps no two metropolises represent this ideal more than New York and Boston.

Bill Nowlin retains the title of expert par excellence when it comes to the Red Sox. Imagine collecting every bit of information on the team, churning it up, and spitting it out, and you have some of idea of Red Sox Threads: Odds and Ends from Red Sox History (Rounder). Of course there are the usual player profiles, anecdotes, and trivia, but Nowlin, who has made a cottage industry of writing about the Sox, goes above and beyond, breaking down the team history into hundreds of pages of minutiae not found anywhere else. The book includes lists of players by ethnicity, by place of birth, the best and worst opening day and Patriots Day games, players who were stabbed or shot or killed themselves, and who served in the military. No topic is too insignificant: “If Odell HALE had the ball bounce off his head and ricochet to CESAR Crispo, the scorer could have called it Hale-Cesar.”

Similar in concept, although different in delivery, is Mets by the Numbers: A Complete Team History of the Amazin’ Mets by Uniform Numbers by Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman (Skyhorse Press). The chapters highlight every player who wore every uniform number, with a larger profile of the most noteworthy athletes, as well as other bits of trivia. This is another fun title for Mets devotees who, like readers of Threads, will appreciate the authors’ efforts more than the average fan.

A much simpler approach is employed by David Green in 101 Reasons to Love the Mets (Stewart, Tabori, & Chang). Straightforward and simple, this slim photo album-like offering extends through the club’s history, from “Marvelous Marv” Thornberry’s fabulous flubs through Endy Chavez’s miraculous (if ultimately superfluous) catch in the 2006 National League Championship Series.

Mass Communications

Ever since baseball held the first World Series night game in 1971, sports pundits have complained that the late starting times dictated by avaricious television broadcasters would preclude kids with early bedtimes from becoming future fans. James R. Walker and Robert V. Bellamy Jr. take a deeper look at this sometimes-stormy marriage in Center Field Shot: A History of Baseball on Television (Nebraska). It’s hard to believe that there once was a time when team owners didn’t want their “product” shown on TV for fear it would keep fans from buying tickets. Little did they know how rich they would become from network and cable contracts.

Of course, a previous generation said the same thing about broadcasting on the radio. In Baseball Over the Air: The National Pastime on the Radio and In the Imagination (McFarland), Tony Silvia chronicles how that medium made countless fans out of those who heretofore had no way of accessing the game in “real time.” Radio, an aural enterprise, allowed listeners to use their imaginations, as the title suggests. Both books pay homage to the pioneers and personalities—such as Mel Allen, Red Barber, Harry Caray, and their broadcast descendants—who brought baseball into kitchens, living rooms, and cars, and helped extend the lineage of fans.

Economics

Going, Going, Gone: The Art of the Trade in Major League Baseball by Fran Zimniuch (Taylor Trade Publishing) actually deals with several ways by which teams transfer players in additional to swapping. The author does a nice, if somewhat been-there-before, treatment of enumerating some of the biggest—and worst—trades in history. The most important deal, however, may have been one that never actually came to pass. Curt Flood, a long-time fixture for the St. Louis Cardinals, refused to go to the Philadelphia in exchange for Dick Allen, a situation that led (for better or worse) to today’s free agency and multimillion-dollar contracts.

Foreign Studies

Latinos account for more than twenty-five percent of players on Major League rosters, and that number is growing. While Jackie Robinson and other early African-Americans had a tough go of it in the nascent days of the game’s post-War integration, Hispanic players had it even worse with the added burden of cultural and linguistic differences. In recent years, some teams have sought to make things easier for such players. Milton H. Jamail’s Venezuelan Bust, Baseball Boom: Andres Reiner and Scouting on the New Frontier (Bison Books/Nebraska) reports on how the Houston Astros, among others, scout and nurture young players from that country who hope to capture their dream to make their living playing ball in the United States.

Graphic Arts

Each year, fans can expect at least one gorgeous book of baseball art or photographs. This season the honor goes to Baseball 365 Days, a “perpetual calendar” with photos from the archives of Major League baseball and text by Joseph Wallace (Abrams). The reader will be hard-pressed not to jump ahead to sneak a peak at ensuing treasures as selected by the author from his own baseball memories from the 1970s to the present.

Journalism

“There is something irresistible about the sport that reaches across generations and though time,” writes Lee Guktind, co-editor with Andrew Blauner of The Anatomy of Baseball (Southern Methodist University Press). Their collection of twenty essays from a wide swath of writers on myriad aspects of baseball proves that “there are unlimited potential crevices and corners to mine for…material.” Contributors include the “usual suspects” of Roger Angell and George Plimpton, and cover topics such as Katherine A. Powers’ “My Glove,” John Thorn’s “Fan,” and Frank Deford’s “An Ode to Baseball Caps.”

Philosophy

It may seem bizarre to put Ted Williams in the same sentence with Albert Camus, or Mickey Mantle with St. Thomas Aquinas, but Raymond Angelo Belliotti, author of Watching Baseball, Seeing Philosophy: The Great Thinkers at Play on the Diamond (McFarland), makes some compelling connections. He matches nine players with a “philosopher-teammate” and explains why the two are compatible. These may seem a stretch at first, as he discusses each athlete in terms of the great thinkers’ teachings, but the patient reader will be rewarded. The most intriguing chapter links Jose Canseco with Immanuel Kant in a fascinating “dialogue” between those who advocate the use of steroids and those who see them as providing a detriment to fair play and sportsmanship. (See sidebar.)

Statistics

Statistics enhance the enjoyment of baseball more than any other sport. And no one has been more influential in that area than Bill James, the “alpha” of Sabremetrics. He first published his annual Baseball Abstract in the 1980s and since then has gone on to create a statistical empire. Although the Abstract is long gone, he returns to the field with The Bill James Gold Mine 2008 (ACTA Sports) where he combines his keen sense of numerical dissection with amusing essays on topics no one else can seem to envision. The only complaint is that it’s too brief, even at 317 pages; James does not provide full details for every team and player, just enough to prove his points. Surely his loyal followers would pony up a few more dollars for an enhanced volume.

Every serious baseball fan can explain 56, 61, .406, 714.… These numbers represent, respectively, Joe DiMaggio’s consecutive game hitting streak, Rogers Maris’s home run total in 1961, Ted Williams’ accomplishment as the last major leaguer to bat over .400 in a season, and Babe Ruth’s career homer total. This is the premise of Major League Baseball: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports, by Daniel J. Brush, David Horne, and Marc C.B. Maxwell (Savas Beatie). The book tries to note one exceptional feat for every numeral from one to one thousand. It’s a cute concept, but somewhat flawed. Some entries are legitimate, such as the aforementioned quartet; others are more esoteric and seem to be included to complete the theme (“The number of World Series titles [1] it takes to make your childhood dreams come true.” “The number of times [1,000] our brothers took us yard on our own field of dreams”). As a bonus feature, the “secret codes” embedded in the text allow readers to log on to the publisher’s Web site for exclusive material.