Haven’t done one of these in awhile, but I have a bit of backlog I’d like to clear, so here goes.
* We’ll have to agree to disagree. One card collector can’t stand the new 2012 Topps series. Another calls it the best one yet. What do you think?
* LibraryJournal.com posted this piece reviewing 22 new titles, complete with “verdicts.”
* Don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel: This critic absolutely did not like a performance Damn Yankees, a play based on the Douglas Wallop book, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.
* Explain yourself, sir: Paul White of USA Today wrote this article titled “The ‘Moneyball’ of baseball flicks, but is it Oscar worthy?” Sorry, but I was confused by the title of this piece. If the premise of Michael Lewis’ book is that the Oakland As did a lot with relatively little money, I would imagine there are more and perhaps even better baseball films that cost less to produce than this project.
* He’s one of us: InsideSportsIllustrated posted this piece proudly lauding Kostya Kennedy for winning the Casey Award from Spitball Magazine for 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports. The website itself is interesting if just for a peek behind the scenes of the iconic publication.
* Another winner: Shelly Sommer received the Sydney Taylor Silver Book Award for her biography Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg. The award is given to children and teens books that highlight and portray the Jewish experience while building bridges to readers of other backgrounds.
* Here’s one of the few who don’t believe The Art of Fielding is the best thing, metaphorically speaking, since sliced bread.
* Timothy Gay, author of Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson (2010) goes ever farther back in time with his new book, Tris Speaker: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend.
* Dirk Hayhurst, an active pitcher who caused quite a stir with his Bullpen Gospels is following in the footsteps of another hurler, Jim Brosnan. Hayhurst will release his second book, Out of My League, this spring. I’m curious why he picked that as his title, since it’s been used in the past in baseball-related contexts by George Plimpton and Dr. Bernie Kastner (not to mention Dave Meggyesy’s Out of Their League, a football book.
is available on Amazon.com,
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About Hayhurst, I asked him the same question, via Twitter, about the name of the book. I mentioned that he had chosen a name already used by a legendary sportswriter. I was ignored, despite us having previous twitter and email exchanges. Also, last summer he asked his twitter followers to suggest book names, many of them much better than what he chose. I look forward to reading “Out of My League.” I loved “Bullpen Gospels,” which is among my top 10 favorite baseball books.
I wouldn’t expect a young guy like Hayhurst to know about the Plimpton book, but one would think a publishing house would do a little research. Don’t know who it would help/hurt more: people looking for Plimtpon’s book and finding Hayhurst’s or vice versa.
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