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 weekly newsletter. Do take a moment to read the author Q&A. I find them particularly interesting as they discuss the arduous process of bringing their projects to presss.
By the way, here are 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
- Devin Gordon
- Luke Epplin (which is mentioned in their weekly update below)
Visit the PBBC for the latest batch of authors with new books coming out this year.
Ron Blomberg is best remembered as baseball’s first designated hitter, a function of his opening day game with the New York Yankees in 1973 starting earlier than others around the American League. In that game, Blomberg batted sixth against the Boston Red Sox. Batting eighth for New York was catcher Thurman Munson, who would go on to have his first monster offensive season in what would be a storied, if far too brief, career.
As it turns out, the two players became fast friends—which is the topic of Blomberg’s new book, The Captain & Me, written with the PPBC’s own Dan Epstein.
Yesterday was release day, which we’re marking on the website with Dan’s book discussion with Lincoln Mitchell, and on our podcast, with the audio version of that talk.
Or you could just scroll down and see some other things Dan has to say.
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ASK AN AUTHOR
Dan Epstein
The Captain & Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson (Triumph Books, April 20, 2021)
What’s your book about?
Two ballplayers form a deep, “odd couple”-like friendship in the tumultuous New York Yankees clubhouse of the 1970s. It’s like a real-life Bang the Drum Slowly, except that one of the guys dies in a plane crash.
How long did the book take to write?
It was about a year and a half from our first phone call to the finished manuscript, though there was an eighth-month break in the middle—between finishing the proposal and landing a book deal—where I concentrated on other projects.
What’s the most memorable interview you conducted?
I mostly just interviewed Ron for it, because I felt his stories were strong enough to carry the project by themselves. I did speak to a couple of players and several non-players from the era who knew both him and Thurman. Their stories basically corroborated what Ron had already told me, but I realized pretty quickly that adding other voices would dilute or distract from the emotional core of the book, which is the unlikely friendship between Ron and Thurman, and the way their respective career paths diverged just as the Yankees became contenders again.
That said, when Ron told me that Thurman’s widow, Diana, was willing to write the book’s foreword, I jumped at it. She’s a fairly private person who has understandably always been extremely protective of Thurman’s legacy, and I knew that her voice would lend legitimacy and gravitas to our book. She was absolutely lovely, with a wonderfully dry sense of humor that must have meshed beautifully with Thurman’s. At the beginning of our interview, I told her that Thurman had hit a home run in the very first MLB game I ever attended (May 30, 1976, at Tiger Stadium). “He didn’t hit that many, so I’m sure it was memorable,” she laughed.
What are some lessons you learned along the way?
It wasn’t exactly news to me, but talking to Ron reminded me of how challenging it can be to interview ballplayers about events that occurred 45 or 50 years ago. Ron has a ton of great stories, but the dates and details are often blurred by the passage of time. For instance, Ron is absolutely certain that he seriously injured himself chasing a Carl Yastrzemski fly ball during spring training in 1977, when it was actually Doug Griffin who hit the ball. I had to do a lot of detective work to make sure that the stories he told me (and the players involved in them) actually synced up with specific dates and actual games. This was definitely the most challenging part of the book.
What’s one memorable instance of your editor lending direction?
The one pitfall I really wanted to avoid with this book was something I’ve seen in a lot of other player memoirs, in which the player starts rattling off statistics, standings, etc., and it rings totally false. That stuff is helpful for context and story, but Ron does not talk like that, and frankly doesn’t have much of a grasp on what his or Thurman’s statistics actually were. (This is totally understandable. They were playing to win ballgames, not to bump up their OBP.) Likewise, it wouldn’t make sense to have Ron explain the forces and events that were involved in the players’ strike of 1972, the AL’s adoption of the DH rule, etc.—he’s a retired ballplayer, not a baseball historian. I struggled with this for a while before finally discussing it with my editor at Triumph, Jesse Jordan, who suggested that I chime in from time to time in my own voice to add the necessary stats, events, narratives, etc., and then get out of the way and let Ron do his thing. It was a valuable suggestion, and I’m really happy with the results. I liken it to sitting in a deli booth with me and Ron; Ron goes off on his various hilarious tangents, and then I gently interrupt him in order to give you some contextual or historical insight into what he’s talking about.
How did this process differ from your other books?
My previous baseball books have been almost entirely based on my own research, which I could then draw upon to create the narrative structure and tell the story. With this one, the narrative was largely at the mercy of Ron’s memories, and what he was actually present for. He can recall a lot, but there were some things I asked him about where he’d be like, “Sorry, big guy, I just don’t remember that.” Sometimes, though, I would jog his memory and he’d suddenly pour out an amazing story that he hadn’t thought about for four decades. Every one of our interviews was kind of like a treasure hunt—a very enjoyable one, I might add.
Do you have a favored work routine? Has that been affected by the pandemic?
I have worked from home as a freelance writer and editor for 20 of the last 25 years, so I’m lucky to say that the pandemic hasn’t cramped my style much in terms of my daily work routine. (Unless I’m on a serious deadline crunch, I generally wake up around 7:30, read for a bit, sit down at my desk by 10, and wrap things up around 6:30.)
The most frustrating aspect of the pandemic with regards to The Captain & Me is that I still haven’t met Ron in person. We had plans to spend a couple of weekends together in our respective cities last summer, and to attend Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium together. While I’m very happy with how our book came out, I can’t help feeling that hanging out in person (especially at Yankee Stadium, with other players around) would have unleashed a number of other stories from the hidden depths of his memory. Plus, Ron is just a really nice, positive dude, and I hope to have the experience of basking in his good vibes someday soon.
Buy The Captain & Me here.
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EVERYBODY LOVES A WINNER
The PBBC wrapped up our Opening Day Giveaway contest last week. Congratulations to our grand prize winner, Kelly Barnes, who walked away with all 10 University of Nebraska Press 2021 baseball releases. She has some serious reading in her future.
Clubbie by Greg Larson
Cobra by Dave Parker and Dave Jordan
Comeback Pitchers by Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg
Escape From Castro’s Cuba by Tim Wendell
Forty Years a Giant by Steven Treder
The Best Team Over There by Jim Leeke
The Pride of Minnesota by Thom Henninger
Tony Lazzeri by Lawrence Baldassaro
Two Sides of Glory by Erik Sherman
1962 by David Krell
If you want to catch up on those titles yourself, you can find them available at PBBC’s Bookshop.org storefront, supporting independent booksellers.
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Congratulations to Rob Fitts, who won SABR’s 2021 Research Award for his book Issei Baseball, based on its having “significantly expanded our knowledge or understanding of baseball.”
This makes the defending SABR Research and Seymour Medal winners among the PBBC ranks. Our authors must be doing something right.
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SPEAKING OF SABR …
SABR has recently published two books, both edited by PBBC member Bill Nowlin. The most recent, published on Jackie Robinson Day, is titled Jackie: Perspectives on 42.
It includes contributions from PBBC members Ralph Carhart, Brian Wright, Lyle Spatz, Rob Fitts and David Krell.
The second book is Baseball’s Greatest Comeback Games, and makes for one heck of a twofer.
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WHAT ELSE WE’RE DOING
Andrea Williams wrote about MLB’s mishandling of integration doomed the Negro Leagues for the New York Times.
Danny Gallagher marked the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Montreal for the Montreal Gazette.
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WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT US
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has thoughts about Dave Jordan‘s book with Dave Parker, COBRA.
Greg Larson‘s Clubbie was reviewed in Cliff Corcoran’s CYCLE newsletter.
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WHERE WE’VE BEEN
Dan Epstein guested on the fabulous Baseball by the Book podcast.
Lincoln Mitchell was joined by Bob Lurie for a talk he gave about The Giants and Their City to the New York Giants Preservation Society.
Andrew Maraniss appeared on the feminist sports podcast Burn It All Down to discuss his book, Singled Out.
David Krell was a guest on the Talkin’ Mets podcast, hosted by Mike Silva, talking about his book 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK.
Steve Steinberg spoke with Start Spreading the News about his book, Comeback Pitchers.
Luke Epplin spoke to Ron Kaplan, of Baseball Bookshelf fame.
Greg Larson appeared on SquareStories with Brian Burkhart to discuss Clubbie, and failure as a means to success. He also appeared on the Success Ascent podcast. More importantly, he adopted a puppy named Penguin.
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UPCOMING APPEARANCES
Luke Epplin will appear on the BRCSJ Social Justice Power Hour today at 7 p.m. EST.
Mark Healey brings back the in-person bookshop appearance this Saturday, April 24, at The Avoid The Day Bookstore in Rockaway Beach, NY, at 12:30 p.m. EST.
This Sunday, April 25, Andrew Forbes will officially launch The Only Way is the Steady Way at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival at 3 p.m. EST.
Brian Wright will be joining the Locked on Mets podcast each “Throwback Thursday” to discuss the Amazins from a historical perspective.
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GET SHOPPING
Spring is here and ballparks are open and what better way to watch baseball than wearing baseball-themed gear? As it happens, the PBBC has some stellar items in that very vein. Head over to the Pandemic Baseball Book Club shop to see what we’re talking about.
is available on Amazon.com,
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