Bits and pieces, Aug. 15

As work on the new book about the Maccabiah Games becomes more urgent, I find I have less time to keep up with the latest baseball books news. Apologies. I guess the good part about the project is that it will be done before the time spring training — and the release of of new titles comes around.

So real quick…

* This could have been me: A Jewish bespectacled baseball author, living in Cooperstown, with the first two letters of his last name being “Ka…” And being the mayor, to boot… Many years ago, my wife, a veterinarian, had a job interview in that town. One of things that kept us from making the move, aside from being relatively far from the families, was what would I be doing for work. Ah, well…

Moving on…

* A Washington Post review of Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis, and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era. Upshot:

Unfortunately, that detail is one of many juicy tidbits from the book that had already appeared in the newspapers. The same goes for the unsavory lengths to which MLB went — for example, paying informants and obtaining stolen documents intended for a state investigation — in its zeal to nail A-Rod, who is now sitting out a season-long suspension. On top of that, the authors faced an unenviable task in their quest for literary relevance: 16 years after the steroids-tainted home-run duel between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, 10 years after the San Francisco Chronicle broke the story of the BALCO steroids ring, and five years after Sports Illustrated first linked Rodriguez to steroid use, does anyone really want to read another book-length examination of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball?

* An author profile/review of Covered Wooden Grandstands, tales by Bruce Johnson about semi-pro baseball.

* Philly.com’s review of Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball, by John Feinstein.

* From StaceyPageOnline.com (“Kosciusko County’s Only Free Digital Newspaper”), this review of Baseball Road Trips: The Midwest and Great Lakes, by Tim Mullin.

* I don’t know why Jose Canseco would show contrition for publishing Juiced. As much as people hated him for it at the time, in the long run it might have done a lot of good.

* An eclectic reading/viewing list from the Cecil Whig (Elkton, MD) website. And by eclectic I mean “seemingly totally random.”

* RedBird Rants, a Cardinals-centric blog, posted this review of Alan Klein’s Dominican Baseball: New Pride, Old Prejudice.

* A bunch of factoids about Rob Goldman and his book, Nolan Ryan: The Making of a Pitcher, via the Orange County Register. Goldman, a former bat boys for the Angels, also wrote Once They Were Angels: A History of the Team and collaborated with Tim Salmon on Always an Angel: Playing the Game with Fire and Faith.

* Moneyball as part of the American canon? Yes, according to this piece on Fox Sports by Russell Carleton, who also asks what will be the next big thing in baseball books?

* I’m surprised there hasn’t been more buzz about George Will’s new book on the Cubs.

* Don’t you hate articles or books that begin with a question? The start of this piece, a movie review of The Battered Bastards of Baseball, a documentary about the indy league Portland Mavericks, got me off on the wrong foot. Streaming on Netflix, you say? Hmm, I know what I’ll be doing over the weekend.