Steven Gietschier, a former archivist for The Sporting News (talk about a dream job for a baseball reader), is one of those people I had know for many years without ever having met. There were numerous e-mail exchanges and a few phone calls, but nothing face to face.
I finally had that chance in 2023 at the Spitball Magazine Casey Awards where we were part of a small dinner hosted by Mike Shannon, the magazine’s editor, the night before the ceremony honoring Joe Posnanski for his excellent Why We Love Baseball.
Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the start of what has come to be known as “The Forgotten War.” Gietschier’s latest book, Warm Summers and Cold Winters: Baseball During the Korean War Years, covers a topic near and dear to my heart. Many years ago, I had started working on a manuscript to address the lack of reporting on that timeline. There have been numerous books about World War II and the national pastime, but nothing about Korea and how it affected baseball. I obviously dropped the ball but I’m glad someone of Gietschier’s high academic scholarship was able to correct that omission and fill the void.
His previous book — Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years— was the winner of the 2024 Seymour Medal, the Society for American Baseball Research’s highest literary honor. Well deserved.
is available on Amazon.com,
