PSA for the PBBC, March 20

PreHeadnote: This came out on March 17, so take that into consideration when reading date references. I removed some events that have already taken place.

Also, my review of Devin Gordon’s book is now up on Bookreporter.com. He will be a guest on the Bookshelf Conversations in the near future so keep on the lookout for that one.

Headnote: One of the thing I like about the Pandemic Baseball Book Club is that it’s a kind of “one stop shopping.” Instead of posting about various authors, projects, and events, all I’m doing here is cutting and pasting their newsletter. This one was received on March 2. Enjoy.

By the way, here are “Bookshelf Conversations” I’ve had with some of the authors associated with the PBBC:

• John Shea
• Joan Ryan
• Jason Turbow
• Anika Orrock
• Brad Balukjian
• Dan Schlossberg

Visit the PBBC for the latest batch of authors with new books coming out this year.

Yesterday marked the publication of Devin Gordon’s first book, So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets: the Best Worst Team in Sports. Devin is former executive editor at GQ Magazine, and was a writer and editor at Newsweek. Also, he’s a Mets fan, making sense of this team as only somebody in his position can.

What sense might that be? Let’s ask.

ASK AN AUTHOR
Devin Gordon
So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets: the Best Worst Team in Sports (Harper, March 16, 2021)

It seems obvious from the title, but we should ask anyway: What’s the book about?
There is a difference between being bad and being gifted at losing, and this distinction holds the key to understanding the true magic of the New York Mets. My book is a history of the best worst team in sports, but it’s really about the agony of victory and the thrill of defeat—so it’s for anyone who’s ever given their heart to catastrophe.

What’s something you learned doing research?
I knew that the Mets’ original owner had been a woman named Joan Whitney Payson, and I knew that everyone called her Mrs. Payson … and that’s all I knew. Now I know that she deserves to be a 20^th-century sports icon, a barrier-breaking feminist and a beloved figure in her time—the first woman ever to found a major professional sports franchise. She got whitewashed from history by the Wilpons, in part because she loved the Giants, and Fred Wilpon always wanted to own the Brooklyn Dodgers but had to settle for the Mets

What surprised you?
There really was no bottom to the incompetence. One season during the early ’70s, the Mets lost both games of a doubleheader ELEVEN times. That might be the most astonishing fact in the book. I kept finding stuff like that. They started a convicted pedophile at first base in 1962. In 1973, four players got stretchered off the field in a six-week span. (Technically, though, it was only three, because George Theodore got stretchered off twice.) On and on and on.

Who had the biggest influence on this book?
Roger Angell.

How long did the book take?
The brunt of the writing was about four months, but I wrote way, way, way too much, because I had no idea what I was doing.

What’s the most memorable interview you conducted for the book?
It wasn’t so much the interview as the circumstance: I was on assignment for a story about the new rules being tested out in the semi-pro Atlantic League, at a tiny park in New London, Connecticut. When I looked down at the roster sheet for that night’s game, I noticed that the opposing team’s pitching coach was Frank Viola. We ended up speaking for 30 minutes about the Mets.

What are some lessons you learned along the way?
That I wrote way, way, way too much, and that when people tell you that your publisher does nothing for you, they’re being generous to your publisher.

Was anything extremely difficult to cut? 
Weirdly, there was a late decision to cut the chapter that this book was based upon. It didn’t fit anymore. I knew that as I was writing it, but it wasn’t until the line editor suggested it being clearly the right thing to do that I pulled the plug. I chopped it up and moved some bits into other chapters, but it mostly disappeared.

Do you have a favored work routine? Has that been affected by the pandemic?
I worked in an office for 20 years, and I always thought of myself as self-disciplined and conscientious. Now that I’m a self-employed writer, it turns out that I am not!

Buy So Many Ways to Lose here.

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MORE GREAT STUFF AT BASEBALL PROSPECTUS
This week saw another contribution to our partnership with Baseball Prospectus: Andrew Forbes’ awesome essay on the demise of the New York-Penn League. Forbes brings to BP the same care and insight he delivers in his new book, The Only Way Is The Steady Way, in a meditation about a league whose games helped shape his perception of baseball.

“It’s important to call [the New York-Penn League] what it was: a low minor league, a place its players couldn’t wait to escape on their upward climb toward the big prize. The ballparks were small and cramped, the travel always by bus, the pay low. Its member clubs came, went, resurfaced, changed names and affiliations regularly. But at Damaschke Field in Oneonta, with its tiny grandstand and Catskill backdrop, and Tullar Field in Wellsville, amid the rolling green Enchanted Mountains, and beneath the high steel trusses of the grandstand roof at Donovan Stadium in Utica, on warm summer nights and hot afternoons, the fans didn’t mind lingering.”

Read the entire affair at Baseball Prospectus.

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GO HUSKERS
We have a lot of authors whose books have been published by the University of Nebraska. Like, a lot of authors. And right now, you can get all of their offerings for 40 percent off, directly from U of N.

As if that’s not enough, starting on April 1, the e-version of Greg Larson’s Clubbie will be available from Nebraska for $1. One. Dollar. Come on now, that’s worth it even if you don’t have an e-reader.

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WHAT ELSE WE’VE BEEN DOING

We like our logo a lot. Anika Orrock drew it. That’s why we’re rocking it on a hoodie right now, at this very moment. Also, we’re feeling warm during a chilly spring day because it’s a pretty great hoodie, independent of the splendid logo. Can you get in on this action? You can get in on this action.