Bits and pieces

A semi-occasional attempt to catch up on various items of literary (and other) interest.

♦  Keith Eggener published this nicely-illustrated piece on “The Demolition and Afterlife of Baltimore Memorial Stadium” on designobserver.com. I love finding baseball items from sources that are about as far away from baseball as you can get.

♦  As mentioned in previous posts, now is the time for all good media to come to the aid of their non-baseball fan readers. In this case it’s The Wall Street Journal which produced this interesting video:

“Bat like Derek Jeter and Josh Hamilton with the new line of bats from Louisville Slugger, the MLB Prime. See how the bats are made and get a lesson in “striping” your lawn from the pros at Fenway Park. Plus, tips on how to be a better baseball fan from WSJ’s Sam Walker. With Off Duty Host Wendy Bounds.”

Don’t get me wrong; not everything put out along these lines is condescending. There are some nice surprises and “gentle reminders” to be consumed. Well done, WSJ. The Sam Walker in the second video is none other than the author of the 2006 title, Fantasyland: A Sportswriter’s Obsessive Bid to Win the World’s Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball.

♦   Don’t you hate it when people who should know better get it wrong? (Mea cupla here from time to time.) This Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports blog entry reports the release of David Shield’s Baseball Is Just Baseball: The Understated Ichiro. But what the blogger fails to mention for whatever reason is that this is a reprint of a book which was originally published in the summer of 2001, when the Japanese star was just beginning his North American Major League career. It was recently re-released with a new introduction to correspond with Ichiro’s trade to the New York Yankees.

Tagged as: New York Yankees, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Wall Street Journal