PSA for the PBBC, September 23, 2021

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 press.

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

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

Jacob Kornhauser was one of the PBBC’s first authors with last year’s The Cup of Coffee Club, and now becomes our first two-timer with Max Gordon, which was released last month by McFarland. (Jacob also did the video editing for last year’s PBBC game shows—Mets v. Yankees and A’s v. Giants—which was no small task. So thanks for that.)

ASK AN AUTHOR
Jacob Kornhauser
Max Gordon: Life, Loss and Baseball’s Greatest Comeback (McFarland, Aug. 30, 2021)

What’s your book about?
Max Gordon is the story of one family’s journey to healing through baseball. It shares how one man’s pursuit of his dreams helped make a family whole again. It examines the double-edged sword that is determination in the face of tragedy. In his struggle to come back from his brother’s death and fulfill his own dreams, Max accomplished more than he ever thought possible. He also faced a reckoning, which helped reveal that healing isn’t always linear.

Perhaps most importantly, the book looks at a baseball team’s role as family. Max was inspired by his brother and, in turn, Max’s story inspired his teammates at Oregon State. The brotherhood they formed assured Max’s parents he would never be without a brother again.

What surprised you?
Just about everyone I talked to for this book wondered why a book or movie hadn’t been made about Max’s life. It seems like everyone whose life Max touched believed that this story should be told to the masses. I hope we did it justice.

Who had the biggest influence on the book?
At the outset of this project, I was focused on Max and all that he had been through to reach the pinnacle of college baseball. I quickly realized, however, that his parents, Stan and Michelle, were at the heart of the story. Yes, Max was playing for himself and his brother in his blind pursuit of Division I baseball, but he was also playing for his parents. With Max being their only remaining child, his parents were healed in even more profound ways than Max himself throughout this journey. Max is the main character, but almost everything notable he does connects back to his parents and their collective healing process.

What’s the most memorable interview you conducted?
My full-day interview with Max’s parents was impactful. That was when I realized the focus of the book had to to shift in a profound way. They welcomed me into their home and described for me receiving the devastating news—in the same living room where we were sitting—that one of their sons had died and the other was in a coma following a car crash. It was one of the most difficult interviews I’ve ever done. I will always be grateful for how open they were with me, especially because they were so initially hesitant to speak for this project. It is clear now that without them sharing their time and their emotions there would be no book.

What are some lessons you learned along the way?
I learned that, much like working on a documentary film, when you write a single-story narrative nonfiction book you must be flexible. You obviously know the bare-bones details when you embark on a project, but you never truly know which direction you’ll eventually be led. Throughout my dozens of hours of interviews with Max, and countless hours with other key characters, focus shifted and additional storylines moved into view. I constantly had to reconceive the narrative thread of the story. In the end, I think that flexibility made it a more complete and honest story.

What was it like to work with your brother.
My brother Dylan was editor and co-author on this book. He helped weave all the threads of Max’s story into one consistent narrative. His prose, as opposed to my reporter’s writing style, helped gave Max’s overall experience a more poetic context. Specifically, Dylan helped us lean into the unspoken tension of different scenes, adding tension and context to the book’s final dramatic scene, which was missing from the initial draft. It brought the big-picture story into much clearer focus.

How did this process differ from your other book?
This is much different than The Cup of Coffee Club. It’s a single narrative, whereas The Cup of Coffee Club was several short narratives told separately. There was, of course, a big-picture idea that weaved every story together, but it really was 11 individual stories. Many of the details in this book were gleaned directly via interviews or more obscure secondary sources. Since none of it has to do with Major League Baseball, resources were less readily available, but all that extra research and doubling back on interviews to make sure I got the details right made the story one I’m proud to have reported so thoroughly.

How did the pandemic affect your project?
Publishers seemed to be even more picky than usual as I shopped this book to various places. Just as we were getting dejected that the book hadn’t been picked up, we were lucky enough to receive an offer from McFarland after Gary Mitchem read our manuscript. We couldn’t be more thankful.

Why would Max Gordon appeal to a general baseball audience?
After getting into the weeds of professional baseball in The Cup of Coffee Club, I wanted to take a step back and tell an even more relatable baseball story. Max Gordon wasn’t supremely gifted by Division I baseball standards; he didn’t even have the measurables of an average Oregon State baseball player. But he got the absolute most out of himself, at times to the detriment of his mental health, by pushing himself further than most could fathom. His story should serve as a motivator for those in organized baseball and outside of it. He has shown that no matter your physical limitations or the hurdles you’re forced to overcome, as long as you have one more at-bat you’re still in the game.

Buy Max Gordon here.

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NOW UP AT PBBCLUB.COM
Beyond Baseball’s Color Barrier: The Story of African Americans in Major League Baseball, Past, Present, and Future

Author Rocco Constantino recounts the history of Black players in Major League Baseball from the 1800s onward. He details how the color line was drawn, the efforts made to erode it and the progress towards Jackie Robinson’s debut—including a pre-integration survey in which players unanimously promoted integration years before it actually happened. He talks about it for the Pandemic Baseball Book Club with Thom Henninger, author of The Pride of Minnesota.

Watch it here.

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WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT US
PBBC member Dan Epstein (author of The Captain & Me) wrote a roundup of California-based baseball books for the Los Angeles Daily News, including a current-year Club book (Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, by Dan Taylor), a last-year Club book (Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nusbaum), and three non-Club books by Club authors (The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels, by Gaylon White; Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, by Jason Turbow; and San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team, by Lincoln Mitchell.) Dan could also have included Turbow’s They Bled Blue, about the 1981 Dodgers, or Mitchell’s The Giants and Their City, about the 1990s Giants, but with a list this good we’re not gonna quibble.

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WHAT ELSE WE’RE DOING
Brian Wright spoke to “Once Upon a Time in Queens” director Nick Davis for Metsmerized Online. (Davis’ four-part series includes PBBC’s own Erik Sherman and Mark Healey.)

Rocco Constantino interviewed Glendon Rusch about the 20th anniversary of 9/11, his experience that day and the Mets 9/11 reunion for BallNine.

Tyler Kepner took a look at Adam Wainwright and the role of starting pitchers in general for the New York Times. “It starts with a game of catch.”

Lincoln Mitchell wrote about the failed recall in California for CNN, pondered Gavin Newsom’s future for the San Francisco Examiner, and went onto WLS-AM in Chicago to discuss the GOP.

Eric Nusbaum wrote about street racing in LA and one of his mentors in this week’s Sports Stories.

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WHERE WE’VE BEEN
Robert Whiting spoke to the Japan Society about post-Olympics Japan.

Gaylon White appeared on the Good Seats Still Available podcast, discussing his book The Bilko Athletic Club.

Dave Jordan and Dave Parker went onto the FanGraphs podcast to discuss Cobra.

Erik Sherman signed copies of Two Sides of Glory at Cheers in Boston. Yeah, that Cheers.

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WHERE WE’LL BE
Tony Castro will discuss Maris & Mantle today at 7:30 p.m. EST on “The Clubhouse” on WGCH Radio in Greenwich, CT.

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GET SHOPPING
Maybe you’re not the type of person who likes to stick stickers onto things, because if you decide to take them off you don’t want to deal with that sticky residue for the rest of time. This is not you. Do we here at the PBBC have a solution that’s right up your alley: magnets. That’s right, show your PBBC pride with no need for scrubbing upon removal. Make anything metallic in your house look just a little bit better.

What are you waiting for? Go get one.