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.
Today’s Q&A isn’t quite a twofer, but it’s close. Last week we featured video of author Chris Lamb, in conversation about his book Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball’s Civil War, about a Little League team that was segregated right out of the World Series. This week we give you Chris’s written Q&A, in which he distills his book’s essence onto the virtual page. We defy you to avoid wanting to learn more.
Wanna check out the video? It’s right here. Wanna check out the Q&A? Read on.
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ASK AN AUTHOR
Chris Lamb
Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball’s Civil War (University of Nebraska Press)
What’s your book about?
When the 11- and 12-year-olds on the all-Black Cannon Street YMCA All-Star team registered for a Little League Baseball tournament in Charleston, SC, in July 1955, it put them on a collision course with segregation, bigotry and the Southern way of life. White teams refused to take the field against them. Hundreds of Southern teams left Little League Baseball altogether and created the segregated Dixie Youth Baseball league. Given that nobody would play them, Cannon Street advanced by forfeit to the regional tournament in Rome, GA, where a victory would advance them to the Little League World Series in Williamsport.
They never got the opportunity. Little League officials ruled Cannon Street was ineligible because they had advanced via forfeit. It became a national story for a few weeks, then faded and disappeared beneath other civil rights stories, including the torture and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi. Stolen Dreams chronicles the racism of Jim Crow South Carolina, and how institutional bigotry permanently scarred the ballplayers on the Cannon Street team.
Is there a photo that captures your story?
Little League Baseball president Peter McGovern recognized the injustice of ruling Cannon Street ineligible for the regional tournament, and invited the team to the championship game of the World Series. Players and coaches were introduced before the game, even as the crowd cheered, “Let them play! Let them play!” The photo on the book’s cover shows the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars sitting in the bleachers during the championship game. They’re staring into the camera and hardly anyone is smiling.
Why this book? Why now?
This is a story about racism and sports. What makes it different is that it involves children who learned the demoralizing lesson that no matter how good they were, they could never be good enough to achieve equality with whites, whether in baseball or in society. The story of the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars is freshly relevant as state legislatures and local school boards across the South prohibit the teaching of Black history. As William Faulkner said: “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”
What surprised you?
The unconquerable spirit of men like John Rivers, the shortstop on the Cannon Street team, who grew up in segregated Charleston, where he could not share schools, swimming pools, baseball fields or even sidewalks with white people. Still, he became a highly successful architect. When asked to identify the moral of the Cannon Street story, he said, “It’s a tragedy to take dreams away from youngsters. I knew it then, I know it now, and I’ve seen to it that no one takes dreams away from me again.”
Who had the biggest influence on this book?
Gus Holt, who wasn’t a member of the Cannon Street All-Stars yet became the team’s heart and soul. In 1993, Holt’s son, Lawrence, made the all-star team in his Dixie Youth Baseball league, which had long since integrated and replaced Little League Baseball in South Carolina. On his uniform sleeve was a Confederate flag patch. When Gus investigated how a symbol of white supremacy ended up in such a place, he learned about the Cannon Street All-Stars, and how the Dixie Leagues had been created on the tears of Black ballplayers. Holt began contacting the Cannon Street players, by then in their 50s, and organized a reunion. He also brought Little League Baseball back to Charleston. He did all this while Lawrence was suffering from inoperable brain cancer that would take his life at age 18.
Gus continued his journey to find redemption for the Cannon Street players. In 2002, the All-Stars returned to the ballfield in Williamsport where 47 years earlier they had not been allowed to play. Gus knew more about the Cannon Street story than anyone else. I met with him often, and he peppered me with questions. If I didn’t know the answer, or if I answered incorrectly, he would stare at me in disbelief. I finally got to the point when I could answer his questions, and his stare turned to a smile. “You got it,” he said.
How long did the book take?
Years and years and years.
What’s the most memorable interview you conducted?
The last interview I did for the book was with Lamar Holt, Gus’s brother. It had nothing to do with the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars, and everything to do with a father’s grief over the death of his son. Gus kept photographs of Lawrence prominently displayed in his den, and decorated a Christmas tree with ornaments bearing Lawrence’s image. Lawrence’s framed baseball jerseys hung on the wall, most of them with Jackie Robinson’s number 42. “That hurt him, watching his son get sicker and sicker and eventually die,” Lamar told me. “It was so traumatic. He never got over it.” Lamar asked his brother to take down the tree and put away the photos, jerseys and ornaments in an effort to move on. Gust left the memories of Lawrence where they were. Lamar told me: “I concluded that this is how you deal with loss.” He never brought it up again.
Buy Stolen Dreams here.
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NOW UP AT PBBCLUB.COM
After a career spent building tens of thousands of residences in California, Steve Schott bought the Oakland A’s, fostering the culture of experimentation and autonomy during the 1990s and early 2000s that was highlighted so well in Moneyball. Four straight playoff appearances behind the likes of Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez, plus the Big 3 pitchers, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, cemented this as one of the great eras in franchise history. Long Schott is a story about unlikely victories, from the historic A’s squad that tallied a 20-game win streak to the booming California real estate market and beyond. Author John Shea is interviewed here by A’s historian David Feldman.
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WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT US
More Long Schott: The San Jose Mercury News talks about the revelation in John Shea’s book that Warriors owner Joe Lacob was on the cusp of buying the A’s in 2005 … until Bud Selig decided to approve his own college frat brother, Lew Wolf, instead. Given the divergent paths of the Warriors and A’s, this has to be infuriating for A’s fans everywhere.
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WHAT ELSE WE’RE DOING
Paul Aron (The Lineup) has a new book—American Stories: Washington’s Cherry Tree, Lincoln’s Log Cabin, and Other Tales—True and Not-So-True—and How They Spread Throughout the Land—out in paperback from Rowman & Littlefield. As is evidenced by that extensive subtitle, it’s about the myths of American history—not so much debunking them but exploring how they started and why they spread.
Gary Cieradkowski (21) just finished a new research story.
David Krell (1962) wrote about the first victory in Yankees history for the SABR Games Project.
Clayton Trutor (Loserville) reviewed Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth biography for American History magazine.
Dan Epstein (The Captain & Me) sat down with Steve Perry—yeah, the Steve Perry—to discuss the remixed version of Journey’s “Separate Ways,” recently featured in Stranger Things, for Flood Magazine.
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ALERTE DE TRADUCTION
For the second time, Andrew Forbes’ baseball-related emoting will be available in another language. The Only Way Is the Steady Way will be published in a French translation on Nov. 1 by Montreal’s Les Éditions de Ta Mère as La Constance d’Ichiro: Nouveaux Textes de Balle.” The translation was done by Daniel Grenier and William S. Messier. (Ta Mère also published Andrew’s The Utility of Boredom as De l’utilite de l’ennui: Textes de Balles in 2017.)
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WHERE WE’VE BEEN
Luke Epplin appeared on the For the Love of the Game podcast to talk about Our Team.
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WHERE WE’LL BE
All times local unless otherwise noted.
Aug. 9: Danny Gallagher (Bases Loaded) will be guest speaker at the Probus Club of Oshawa, Ontario. He will talk about the history of the Expos and his new book with a book signing before and after the event. 10:30 a.m.
Aug. 10: Luke Epplin will be at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown as part of their author series to talk about Our Team. 1 p.m., in person and virtually.
Aug. 17: Scott Longert will be at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, to give a presentation on Victory on Two Fronts. 1 p.m.
Aug. 17-21: The SABR Convention in Baltimore. Look out for a whole host of PBBC members!
Aug. 18: E. Ethelbert Miller (How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask and When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery) will be in conversation with poet/essayist Remica Bingham-Risher at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. 7 p.m. He will also host a book party at Busboys and Poets in Columbia, MD, on Sept. 25 at. 7 p.m.
is available on Amazon.com,
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