Major League Encounters gets to the heart of the national pastime, and those privileged to play it at its highest level.

Major League Encounters

By Larry LaRue

Reader Publishing Group 2012

$11.95 print – eBook $3.99

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Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski earned his way into the HOF more with his glove than his bat – he was known as a second baseman who could capture a moving baseball and skillfully turn it into a double play.  In long-time sportswriter (more than three decades) Larry LaRue’s first book –  Major League Encounters – LaRue proves he can capture a moving baseball story and skillfully turn a phrase as he tells it.

In 100 real vignettes over 255 pages, LaRue gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at what drives the men – and boys – who earn the rare opportunity to play the game at its highest level.  Readers get the benefit not only of LaRue’s sportswriter’s access, but of his knowledge of the game, powers of observation, interview skills and way with words.

The stories range from heart-warming to heart-breaking and from comic, to tragic, to dramatic.   They are stories of weakness and stories of courage – of success, failure and perseverance – of veterans who enjoyed long careers and players with shorter, less-stellar stats sheets.   Most of all they are very personal stories, glimpses into the heart of the game and those who play it.  

You’ll read about:

–  The forces that drove Jim Abbot, who won 87 games and threw a no-hitter, despite being born with no right hand;

– The trials of Ken Caminiti, the 1996 NL MVP, who LaRue writes “kept his demons close and hid them well,” and who died at age 41 from “acute intoxication due to the combined effects of cocaine and opiates;”

– The passion for the game that drove utility man Rich Amaral, who LaRue tells readers “kept chasing baseball long after it stopped chasing him;”

– Hall of Famer hurler Bert Blyleven’s legendary sense of humor and skill at applying a devastating hot foot (when he was with the Angels, the team had a fire extinguisher in the dugout labeled “In case of Blyleven – Pull;”

– Cal Ripken, Jr.’s love of the game “Every day, it’s like being a little kid again;”

– Pitcher Freddie Garcia, who had a “capacity for fun that might have killed a lesser man.”

In terms of reading enjoyment, not only are the stories compelling, LaRue has a way with words that gets right to the point and pulls you into (and through) each story.  Consider these opening lines:

The Barry Bonds’ story begins “Follow Barry Bonds for a few days and the three words most used to describe him – by friends, teammates and coaches – were ‘That’s just Barry.’  Occasionally, they were meant to be complementary.”

Then there are the opening lines for power hitting first baseman and 1995 AL MVP Mo Vaughn, “Mo Vaughn read newspapers, which never made him doubt his talent.  Occasionally, it made him wish he was illiterate.”

LaRue’s insight into two-time AL batting champion Edgar Martinez begins with “The first time the Seattle Mariners offered him a contract, Edgar Martinez turned them down because he had everything he wanted – a factory job and a new Toyota.”

Or Reggie Jackson:  “There were four or five Reggie Jacksons and I got to meet all of them in the year we were together with the California Angels.”

Depicting current Seattle Mariners pitcher Tom Wilhelmsen, who made it to the majors in 2011 at age 27, LaRue begins: “At 19, Tom Wilhelmsen faced a life-changing decision – continue his career as a highly rated minor league prospect or keep smoking dope.  For Wilhelmsen the choice was clear.  He walked away from baseball, became a bartender and traveled the world, smoking as he went.”

If you’re a baseball fan, this is a great book to keep on your bed stand, carry aboard an airplane, take to the beach, enjoy at a coffee shop or even read between innings at a ball game (when you put your scorecard down.)  The only problem is you’ll start out planning to pass the time by reading just a few stories and find yourself committing to “just one more” again and again.

Are all 100 stories absolute gems?  No, but LaRue’s batting average is well north of .900 – and that makes Major League Encounters highly entertaining, a hit with BBRT and recommended reading for the avid and casual fan.

Bill Veeck:  Baseball’s Greatest Maverick

By Paul Dickson

Walker & Company, 2012

$28.00

Where to start?  Where to end? What to include?

There is so much to like about Bill Veeck:  Baseball’s Greatest Maverick – and to like about Bill Veeck himself – that it’s difficult to write a review.   The best place to start is to say that I‘ve probably never had as much fun reading a book.  Nor have I ever interrupted my reading so many times to regale my family with passages and anecdotes.  If you haven’t picked this book up yet, the time is now.  If you are a baseball fan, a humanitarian, a history buff, someone who enjoys a good story, you’ll have a hard time putting it down.

If I had to describe Bill Veeck in  a single sentence (a truly impossible task), I would say he was an individual who lived life – every minute – to the fullest, and brought those whose lives he touched along for the ride.  That spirit pervades this book.  Bill Veeck – in his lifetime, a four-time major league team owner – ignores adversity, tweaks the baseball establishment, champions social justice and brings his version of “play” and “fair play” to life and to the ball park.

While he is often remembered for celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the American League by bringing three-foot-seven-inch, 65-pound Eddie Gaedel to the plate for his St. Louis Browns or for the near-disastrous Disco Demolition night when he owned the White Sox, Bill Veeck’s legacy runs much deeper.  As you will learn on the pages of Dickson’s book, much of what you see as part of today’s game: promotional give-aways; scoreboards that celebrate home runs and victories by the home team; names on the backs of uniforms; expanded concessions; and even quality rest rooms can be traced by to the innovation and initiative of Bill Veeck.  Further, Veeck bullt teams that  captured two league championships and one World Series crown.  And along the way, he earned the love and respect of players and fans and, he would proudly point out, the animosity of fellow owners and baseball’s top administrators.

To Bill Veeck, life was meant to be both fun and fair – for everyone.  He was a man of privilege, who turned away from privilege – except when it meant he could avoid wearing a tie in places or circumstances that seemed to demand that formality.  In 1943, considering military service in World War II, Veeck (given his economic status and celebrity) was offered the opportunity of  an officer’s commission in the Army or Navy (and most likely a safe promotional assignment). Veeck’s sense of fair play instead led him to enlist as a private in the Marine Corps – a decision which would eventually cost him much of his right leg.

It was that same sense of fair play that made him a champion of civil rights and a force in the integration of baseball.  Dickson, in fact, devotes a chapter to Veeck’s plan to purchase the Philadelphia Phillies before the 1943 season, hold a mock all-white spring training and then show up on opening day with an all-Black or primarily Black team. (Veeck was convinced baseball could not turn away Black players while Black soldiers were fighting for the country in World War II.) Before Veeck could complete his purchase, however, word of the plan got out and the Phillies were taken over by the National League and an alternative buyer was sought. (In 1947, Veeck, then owner of the Cleveland Indians, signed Lary Doby as the American League’s first Black player.)

Ultimately, Bill Veeck was an innovator and promoter – a true impresario; a baseball man who knew how to build a winning team; a humanitarian; a social activist; and perhaps the most passionate fan and friend of baseball ever.

Now, I could relate story after story from the pages of Dickson’s book, but it would be more fun if you read it yourself.  So, here are just a few previews of what you’ll find on the book’s pages:

– Bill Veeck hiring a young concessionaire named Jack Ruby (yes, the same Jack Ruby who later gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas).

– Veeck talking baseball and art with Salvidor Dali.

– Veeck tricking Harry Carey into leading the fans in “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and justifying it by telling Carey he was perfect for the role because his voice was so bad, the fans would be more than willing to sing along.  ”Hell, if you had a good voice, you’d intimidate them and nobody would join in.”

– Veeck’s testifying in support of Curt Flood (and against Major League Baseball) in Flood’s historic 1970 challenge to baseball’s reserve clause.

– The multiple times Veeck had vendors serve “drinks on the house” to fans in the stands.

– Veeck’s loyalty to Satchel Paige, a loyalty that translated into making Paige MLB’s oldest-ever rookie – and, later, multiple major league opportunities for the Negro League legend.

– Vick’s penchant for joining the fans for a beer in the bleachers, shirtless and in shorts with his wooden leg on display – consistent with his commitment to the everyday fan and his comment that:  “I have discovered in twenty years of moving around a ball park, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.”

– Veeck’s voracious appetite for reading – 3-5 books each week.

– Veeck overcoming adversity on the field, in the boardrooms of baseball and in the operating room.  (Veeck once described himself as “whole” – defining whole as having “a lung and an eighth, a leg and a quarter, 40 percent of my hearing and one legal eye.”

After Veeck’s death, Dickson reports, Chicago Magazine writer William Brashler had this to say “Somehow, we will have to muddle through Opening Day without him.  And we will have to adjust to a few sad facts:  the gross national consumption of beer has diminished, some say measurably.  Every day now, one good book goes unread.  And marches against handguns and for peace and civil rights have one fewer peg-leg pounding the pavement.”

Bill Veeck was more than a baseball man.  He was, as the last line on his Baseball Hall of Fame Plaque reads “A CHAMPION OF THE LITTLE GUY.”  I’d take it a step further, Bill Veeck was a champion of life.  As a result, this is more than a baseball book.  It’s a book about life – and about living it to the fullest.

I began this review wondering how to start and how to end.  Well, I finally came up with an ending.   All of us have at some time played that parlor game in which you answer the question, “If you could invite five people – past or present – to dinner, whom would you choose?”  I can’t imagine anyone who reads this book leaving Bill Veeck off their guest list.  Take the time to read a truly interesting and entertaining book about a truly interesting, entertaining and impactful fellow.