Sacrifice hits, or Baseball in a New Paradigm

Let’s be honest: Most of us are not real good at making sacrifices. Even in baseball, the bunt with men on is no longer considered desirable because it means giving up something. And who wants to do that? Someone recently asked me to pick up a dozen jars of Trader Joe’s organic salted peanut butter with Valencia peanuts (“no substitutions please”). Really? Talk about first world problems.

So asking us to delay gratification by holding off the beginning of the baseball season is torture, relatively speaking. The Mets cable station is replaying games, as is the MLB Network and Youtube.

I feel sorry for the writers who have books coming out this year. I know it was a tremendous kick for me when 501 Baseball Books came out and I got a chance to do some promotional tours. Nor did the novelty wear off for the subsequent two releases. Forget the sales; it was just fun being out with people who actually wanted to hear me talk about something I love (God bless you, Jay Goldberg!)

But now authors need to get more creative to get the word out, as exemplified by this enterprising group, the Pandemic Baseball Book Club, featuring a growing roster of scribes including — as of this posting — Tyler Kepner, Jason Turbow (who runs the outfit), Brad Balukjian, Eric Nussbaum, D.B. Firstman, Anika Orrock, Emily Nemens, Mitch Nathanson, Dale Tafoya, Jared Diamond, Joan Ryan, John Shea, Jacob Kornhauser, and Ralph Carhart.

Thanks to apps and websites, you don’t have to be isolated when it comes to chatting about various aspects of the game, including baseball literature. Even your humble Bookshelf host has been asked to head up a Zoom discussion on baseball books. Look for details in days to come.

While we wait for Opening Day, there are a few articles to remind us the joys of the game. Here is a sampling: