Final PSA for the PBBC

The Pandemic Baseball Book Club was a product of its time.

I don’t have to remind anyone of the toll the Coronavirus took on this planet. So singling out a small sector (authors) and a smaller sub-sector (baseball authors) might seem silly. But the PBBC under the stewardship of Jason Turbow — offered a way for that group to let readers know about their projects without the benefit of author appearances or book release events. And thanks to him I was able to be have Bookshelf Conversations with several Club “members,” including:

And here’s the Conversation with I had with Turbow in 2021.

Turbow posted this farewell letter at the beginning of the 2023 season:

Welcome to opening day, everybody. Allow me to opine for a moment about the Pandemic Baseball Book Club.

This thing began during the early confusion of the Covid-19, when nobody knew how long things would last or how bad they would get. It was the spring of 2020, which coincided with the beginning of baseball season and a slew of new baseball books. Publishers tend to tie the latter to the former, the better to piggyback on six months’ worth of action.

The paperback edition of They Bled Blue was being released, and I had a handful of promotional events on my calendar. Having long since recognized my preference for conversations over monologues when it came to bookstore appearances, I reached out to my pal Brad Balukjian, whose most fabulous The Wax Pack had just come out, and we arranged to host each other at a couple of spots around the Bay Area. I also wrote to Eric Nusbaum, author of a newly released Dodgers-adjacent book, Stealing Home, to see if he might be interested in something similar once he arrived in the Bay Area. Of course he would. He’s a mensch like that.

Once the coronavirus descended, Brad, Eric and I set to figuring out how we might have our previously scheduled conversations online. Like most of the world, we had only just heard about Zoom, which seemed like a fine stopgap until we could again gather in person. Little did we know.

As it happened, each of us was connected to others in a similar boat, and just like that the Pandemic Baseball Book Club was born. Noteworthy among our first wave of authors was Anika Orrock (The Incredible Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League), who through sheer enthusiasm and more than a few great ideas quickly joined our planning committee. Her illustrations of our logo and collateral material was a deciding factor in whatever professional appearance the PBBC was able to achieve.

The idea was simple: authors talking to each other about their books—an online simulation of the talks we’d been hoping to have amid bookshop stacks. We held our first conversation—me, interviewing Brad about The Wax Pack—live. Why not, right? Interacting with readers is a big part of the draw.

Our resolve was immediately put to the test when, only moments after the event started, an unknown lurker began shouting random curse words. If the Zoom platform included security safeguards back then, Brad and I were unaware of them. Without any real idea about how to respond, we stopped the call and told everyone to log back on. I’m not sure what I thought this might achieve. Maybe the guy would get bored and leave us alone? The second time around he screenshared hardcore porn, and we ended up canceling the whole thing. It was my first public Zoom call ever.

The Club eventually figured out security protocols and hosted some public events, though the vast majority of our author conversations took place in private sessions that we posted after the fact. It made for much easier scheduling.

Anika, Brad, Eric and I worked to hone our purpose. Promote authors and their books, of course. Promote independent booksellers, which continue to need all the help they can get. (You’ll find next to no Amazon links on our site. It was a good day when Eric set up the PBBC Bookshop.org page.)

Before we knew what was happening, the PBBC had 25 authors on its roster, representing publishing houses big and small, and even a self-publisher or two. A year went by and we onboarded another batch. Then another. Our numbers pressed toward 100. We developed relationships with SABR, Baseball Prospectus and any number of publishing houses. We ran giveaways and promotions. We even developed our own online game show or two.

Along the way, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know so many authors, which for me is an enduring benefit of my time with the PBBC. Which brings me to the purpose of this post.

The time I just described, of a societal hunt for lockdown solutions, has passed. Mostly, though, the energy and attention required to run a club like this has grown unwieldy. I had plenty of help along the way. Adam MacKinnon (Baseball for Kids) walked me through the art of podcasting, and ran our feed. Greg Larson (Clubbie) put together YouTube graphics and highlight clips. Mitch Nathanson (Bouton) kept me howling throughout last year with his content on our Twitter feed. Authors of all stripes stepped up to expertly interview each other in unique and intimate ways.

Now, though, the time has come to move on. To all of the Pandemic Baseball Book Club’s participating authors, I say thank you. To every reader who has graciously followed our little journey, your participation is appreciated in ways big and small. Thanks for participating, and even more so, thanks for continuing to read the baseball books that keep us all going. The PBBC may be done, but those books are still there.

Now go out and get ’em. We have a long season ahead of us.

Jason Turbow
March, 2023