Why I write: Diane Firstman

Image result for quill pen Welcome to a new feature on the Bookshelf.

I’ve always been as interested in the process as the finished project, so a frequent question in the Bookshelf Conversations is “Why did you decide to write this book.”

Diane Firstman is a long-time member of SABR who has contributed wise and witty articles to numerous baseball sites. Besides her own baseball blog (Value Over Replacement Grit), her work has appeared at ESPN, Bronx Banter, Baseball Prospectus, The Hardball Times, and in the Village Voice.

At last, she’s publishing her first book: Hall of Name: Baseball’s Most Magnificent Monikers from ‘The Only Nolan’ to ‘Van Lingle Mungo’ and More, coming March 2020.

Here’s what she post today on Facebook that answers my question:

Why did I write this book?

I’ve always been inquisitive and a lover of words. I love to anagram, make spoonerisms, puns and the like. When I come upon an “unusual” name, I am drawn to it, perhaps out of affinity and curiosity, with a dash of kinship thrown in. Baseball, given its ever-widening reach beyond the United States, has provided many such names. These names, be they given, middle and/or surname, can be alliterative, or rhyming, or naughty-sounding, or just plain throw your hands up and say, “I don’t know what their parents were thinking.”

Sometimes a player becomes memorable, or adds to his cachet, through his name. Mickey Mantle would still be a legendary player given his 536 homers, light-tower power and career .298 average for the dynastic Yankees of the 1950s and 1960s. But, the alliteration and pronunciation of his name . . . “Mic-key Man-tle” is pleasing to the ear and memorable on its own. Similarly, Mickey Morandini (born Michael Morandini) was a pretty decent second baseman for the Phillies in the early 1990s. Part (most?) of his popularity stemmed from the way Phillies play-by-play man (the late) Harry Kalas enunciated each syllable of Morandini’s name.

I wanted to pay homage to some of the great “names” in the history of this great game. I originally put a few of these appreciations on my baseball blog back in the early 2010s, but then I got the idea to put them and many new ones in a book.

Looking forward to it.