The Bookshelf Conversations #198: Rick Cerrone

When I was about 10 years old, I got into a heap of trouble because I spent some of the change from an errand on a copy of The Sporting News and Baseball Digest. Total cost: $1. In retrospect, I understand the difficult financial situation my family was in at the time, but at that age, I didn’t.

The Sporting News is now longer with us in print form, but thankfully, Baseball Digest is, albeit not in its traditional “digest” trim.

But the essence of the oldest existing baseball publication — dating back to 1942 — remains the same and it was fun chatting about it with its current editor-in-chief, Rick Cerrone.

Any student of the game — as well as sports journalism — will enjoy BD. After a hiatus of several years, I recently resubscribed, primarily to get access to the wonderful archives, which offers every article since the magazine’s launch more than 80 years ago. To see — almost hear — the stories written in the style of the times, is especially fascinating to me. But then, I’m just a magazine nerd. The only thing I miss is the advertisements. How I wish I could go back in time and get a set of 1975 Topps for $13.90. Or an official MLB warmup jacket for $23.95 (plus $2 shipping; this prices appeared in the December 1977 issue featuring George Foster on the cover). Thankfully I still have dozens of hard copies of the Digest to remind me.