Looking for a gift for the baseball fan on your holiday gift list – or some entertaining reading for yourself.  Here are links to several past Baseball Roundtable book reviews (Or baseball volumes old and new, non-fiction and fiction) that may help.  

Just click on the book’s image to find the review.  

The Last Best League – One Summer, One Season One Dream (Tenth Anniversary Edition),

by Jim Collins

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey – How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game,

by Edward Achorn

Bill Veeck:  Baseball’s Greatest Maverick,

by Paul Dickson

STAN MUSIAL – An American Life,

by George Vecsey

Summer of ’68: The Season that Changed Baseball, and America, Forever,

by Tim Wendel

Down To The Last Pitch – How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time,

by Tim Wendel

1954 – The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Baseball Forever,

by Bill Madden

Driving Mr. Yogi:  Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry and Baseballs’ Greatest Gift,

by Harvey Araton

Fifty-nine in ’84,

by Edward Achorn

The Great American Novel,

by Philip Roth

One Shot At Forever … A Small Town, An Unlikely Coach, And A Magical Baseball Season,

by Chris Ballard

Harmon Killebrew – Ultimate Slugger,

by Steve Aschburner

The Cracker Jack® Collection … Baseball’s Prized Players,

by Tom Zappala and Ellen Zappala

/

.

Major League Encounters,

by Larry LaRue

Calico Joe,

by John Grisham

Chin Music,

by Lee Edelstein

I tweet baseball @DavidBBRT

The Last Best League – One Summer, One Season, One Dream

Tenth Anniversary Edition

Da Capo Press, 2014

$15.99

“On the Cape, we meandered one evening down Route 28 to the Village of Chatham, and watched the Chatham A’s play the Falmouth Commodores in a Cape Cod League baseball game.  The soft June air carried wisps of fog over the dark brown dirt and lush grass. The field glowed under the lights, seemed alive.  The players, smooth, graceful, beautiful, drew my eye. I felt old longings rise. I recognized the players in an instant.  They weren’t dispassionate, nearly robotic, major leaguers. Nor were they hard-edged minor leaguers fighting for survival.  These were kids, full of life – some of them laughing, some scared, some swaggering with the absolute sureness of invincibility. And they were phenomenally talented.”

            Author Jim Collins, describing the events that inspired The Last Best League”

A decade ago, Jim Collins gave life to the story of the 2002 Chatham A’s of the Cape Cod Baseball League – considered by many (most) to be the premier amateur baseball league in the county.  His book … The Last Best League – One Summer, One Season, One Dream … has been re-released (10^th Anniversary Edition) with a follow-up on what happened to its principal characters over the ensuing decade. (Forty-seven of the young men who played in the Cape Cod Baseball League in the 2002 season eventually made it to the major leagues.)

The Last Best League is, in many ways, a coming-of-age story.  In this case, the stories of some of the nation’s most talented collegiate baseball players coming of age in a league in which many of the them, for the first time, no longer boast the fastest bat, liveliest arm or quickest feet on the field – where the bar has been raised and the competition intensified.  And, while their skill sets may vary, they do (as the subtitle suggests) nearly all share one dream – earning a trip to the big leagues. They also have all chosen (actually been chosen) to pursue that dream in the Cape Cod Baseball League – the last and best amateur league on the road to determining if they possess the talent and determination to bring their major league dreams to reality.

The Last Best League is driven by Collins’ ability to deliver the human side of the Cape Code League story.  Yes, he explores the vaunted history of the Cape Cod Baseball League – which promotional materials indicate has produced one of every six major leaguers and which boasts among its alumni such MLB players as Frank Thomas, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Bagwell, Robin Ventura, Tommy Davis, John Franco, Mo Vaughn, Craig Biggio and, more currently, Josh Donaldson, Jacob Ellsbury, Mark Tiexeira and Buster Posey. (For a complete list of former Cape Cod League players who made the major leagues click here.) Collins also provides insight into the science and statistics of the game, into the cold objectivity of what it takes to “measure up.”   He also gives us the prerequisite pennant race and game action – the big plays and big games that shape a season and determine a champion.  However, he balances all of this with a very personal look the people behind the Cape Cod League experience – the players who make up the league rosters, the volunteers who keep the league running, the host families who take the players in for the summer and the employers who provide them jobs on the Cape (the NCAA does not allow the players to be paid for their baseball activities.)

The players, of course, are at the heart of the book and Collins looks into their lives with both passion and compassion.  He lets us in on what it feels like enjoy the euphoria of a confidence-building hot streak, to feel the angst of an unbreakable slump, or to deal with the anguish of a dream-ending injury or a season-ending family tragedy.  Collins introduces us to players who come into the league supremely talented and supremely confident, as well as those who face an uphill battle with grit and determination (one of whom has made the phrase “Against All Odds” his personal mantra) or who try to hide personal doubt behind an attitude that seems to say “I don’t care.”  We are treated to very personal stories of success that exceeds expectations and devastating failure that catches players by surprise.   And, all of this takes place against the back drop and beauty of a New England summer.

Going back to that Chatham/Falmouth game that started Collins on The Last Best League journey, he tells readers in the Preface what to expect on the book’s pages, “I saw a human story at every position. I wondered what it must feel like to be a twenty-year-old all-star on Cape Cod. To spend ten weeks around the sun and sand and blue water, standing out among the finest college players in the country. Or to be in that same bucolic landscape, but struggling, doubting yourself for the first time and suddenly questioning whether you had what it took to make it.”  Collins took it upon himself to find out and, fortunately, he decided to share what he learned.

Ultimately, The Last Best League tells a tale (in this case tales) worth telling and – for those who hold a place for the national pastime in their hearts – one worth reading.  And, Jim Collins is the right person to tell the story. As a native New Englander, former college baseball player (Dartmouth) and former editor of Yankee Magazine, he understands what makes playing on “The Cape” special – it’s that understanding that also makes The Last Best League a special piece of baseball prose.

I’ll close this review with one quote from Collins’ book that made a particular impression on me as life-long fan of the national pastime.

It ended too early. But that’s true no matter who you talk to – whether it ends in high school or after a Hall of Fame career. It’s a kid’s game and none of us wants to grow old.

Colt Morton, former major-leaguer (19 games in two seasons with the Padres) and Cape Cod Baseball League alum, describing his professional baseball career.”

 

I tweet baseball @DavidBBRT

1954 – The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Baseball Forever

By Bill Madden

Da Capo Press 2014

$25.99

Baseball is often referred to as America’s most literary sport, and there is no doubt that Bill Madden has contributed to that reputation.  In 2010, Madden was recognized with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award – the highest honor given by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America – and enshrined in the writers’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  Fortunately, for fans of baseball and its literature, Madden did not choose to rest on his laurels. Instead, he continues to add to his reputation, which gets another boost from latest book: 1954 – The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Baseball Forever.

Within the back drop of the 1954 pennant races and World Series, Madden gives readers a look at how attitudes toward race – in baseball and across American society – were changing. Consider what was going in baseball in 1954:

• Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League (Indians, 1947), led the AL in home runs and RBI while helping Cleveland achieve an 111-43 record – breaking a five-season Yankee stranglehold, not just on the AL pennant, but also on the World Series championship.
• Willie Mays returned from military service to top the NL with a .345 average and capture the MVP Award, while leading the Giants to the NL title.
• Hank Aaron who, in 1953, had led the Class A Sally League in batting average, RBI, runs and hits, made the jump from Class to the majors, as well as the move from second base to the outfield – where he would join Billy Bruton, the 1953 NL stolen base leader (and first black player to make the major leagues without previous Negro League experience).
• The Cubs began the season with the first all-black, shortstop-second base, double play combo – Ernie Banks and Gene Baker, who had both seen action when the team integrated in  late in 1953.
• On July 17, 1954, the Brooklyn Dodgers broke baseball’s unspoken, but implied, racial quota by starting a line up with more blacks than whites.
• The World Series, for the first time ever, saw black players on both teams’ rosters.

Madden deals with these and other historically and socially significant on-the-field achievements and advancements, and also gives readers a look at the intolerance and indignities black players faced in the early 1950s. He recounts the roadblocks many highly talented black players faced in even getting to the majors (keep in mind, as Spring Training opened in 1954, only eight of the major leagues sixteen teams had integrated).  And, things were not much easier once a player made the leap to the majors (and found on-field success).  Black players found themselves having to stay in separate hotels or negotiating the right to stay in the team’s chosen hotel only if the they agreed to stay out of such areas as the lobby, dining room or swimming pool. Madden, through observation and interviews, provides unique insight in how different players – Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, Don Newcombe and others – handled these (and even more glaring) slights, inequities and prejudices.  (I found Madden’s reporting of the fiercely negative reaction to the the first Sports Illustrated cover to feature an athlete of color – April 11, 1955, with Leo Durocher, Durocher’s wife, actress Laraine Day and Willie Mays – particularly telling.)

While 1954 provides an important (and, I am sure for many, eye-opening) social commentary on the times, it also includes plenty of baseball action, told in the words of the participants, news coverage of the day and Madden’s own captivating prose.  There are accounts of key games, great plays and clutch hits that carry the reader through the 1954 season and World Series.

Overall, 1954 gives the reader the “feel” of the season and the times.  You can feel the anger and frustration of black players striving not just for recognition, but basic respect and fairness, as well as the tension of on-field rivalries and tough pennant races.  As you read, you also get a feel for the churn and change taking place in the game (on the field, in the club house and in the executive offices).  Ultimately, 1954 provides insight into how baseball in the 1950s – despite its flaws and shortcomings – was actually out in front of the curve when it came to the acceptance of black Americans.

And, there are “back stories” as well.

• How – had the Red Sox been less reluctant to integrate or the Giants willing to part with just $100 a month more – baseball might have seen Willie Mays sharing the outfield with Ted Williams or Hank Aaron.
• The fact that, with just one game left in the season, the NL batting race saw three players separated by .0004: Don Mueller at .3426, Duke Snider at .3425 and Willie Mays at .3422.
• The tough, grind-it-out attitude of the players in the 1950s, illustrated particularly well in an injured Al Rosen‘s 3-hit, 2-homer, five-RBI performance in the 1954 All Star Game.
• The negative reaction of players, managers and coaches to a 1954 rule change that required players to bring their gloves into the dugout when their team came to bat. (It had been baseball custom until then for fielders to leave their gloves on the field when they came in to bat, and just pick them up when back on defense.)
• Mickey Mantle’s own assessment of the “Who was New York’s best center fielder  – “Willie (Mays), Mickey (Mantle) or the Duke (Snider)?” question.
• Minnie Minoso’s thoughts on why he led the AL in hit-by-pitches ten times from 1951-1960.

1954 is a solid addition to Madden’s work and to the overall library of baseball literature. It provides readers not only with a look at one of baseball’s most exciting seasons, but also insight into the racial tensions being felt not just across the national past time, but across the nation.  It works on many levels, as a sports book, history book and social commentary.  It  is a fun, but also thought-provoking, summer read for baseball fans.

Other books by Bill Madden:

Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball

Pride of October: What It Was to Be Young and a Yankee

Zim, A Baseball Life (with Don Zimmer)

Damned Yankees: Choas, Confusion, and Craziness in the Steinbrenner Era (with Moss Klien)

I tweet baseball @DavidBBRT

Down To The Last Pitch – How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time

By Tim Wendel

 2014 DA CAPO PRESS

$25.99

The 1991 World Series, matching the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves, will go down as one of the most exciting ever played.  The 1991 Fall Classic went the full seven games, ending in a 1-0, ten-inning win for the Twins.  Three games went extra innings, four came down to the final at bat and five were decided by a single run.  The Series was filled with tension and turning points (close plays at the plate, critical double plays, controversial umpires’ calls, base-running blunders, game-saving catches, timely strikeouts). ESPN, in celebrating the 100^th Anniversary of the World Series, named the 1991 matchup the “greatest World Series ever.”

The 1991 Series had more going for it than dramatic games and avid home crowds (all the games were won by the home team).  It was, in fact, an historic event even before the first pitch was thrown. Never in major league history had a team gone from last place to pennant winner (punching a ticket to the Fall Classic) in a single year.  In 1991, both World Series’ participants had accomplished that feat.

If ever a World Series deserved its own book, it was the 1991 match up.  Fortunately, for baseball fans, Tim Wendel (award-winning author, one of USA Today Baseball Weekly’s founding editors, exhibit advisor to the Baseball Hall of Fame and, as evidenced by his prose, a knowledgeable and passionate baseball fan) has given us that book in the form of the recently released Down To The Last Pitch – How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time.

Down To The Last Pitch lives up to the events it describes.  Wendel couples his journalistic skills with an understanding and appreciation of the national pastime to take readers deep into the 1991 World Series – not just into the ballpark, but right into the dugout and onto the field. Down To The Last Pitch provides an inside look at what was going on behind the scenes and in the minds of the players, managers and coaches as – game by game – the tension ratcheted up.  Wendel presents this historic Series in a combination of his own words and observations and those of its participants. For baseball fans, it’s a story worth telling, reading and remembering.

As Atlanta third baseman and 1991 National League MVP Terry Pendleton said of the Series, “Every pitch, every strike, every ball, every inning – everything mattered in every game.”

Just how much it all mattered comes through in Wendel’s account of Minnesota catcher Brian Harper’s thoughts during a break in the action after the Twins had intentionally walked David Justice to load the bases with one out and the score tied at 0-0 in the top of the eighth inning of Game Seven. Wendel lets Harper describe the pressure in his own words:  “That’s when I envisioned a come-backer to Jack (Morris), he throws it to me at home plate, then I airmail one past (Kent) Hrbek into right field. We lose the Series and I’m the goat of all time. I would be the next Bill Buckner.  I literally thought this after we walked David Justice. So, I then I’m thinking, ‘Okay, get that thought out of your head. Lord, please help me relax here and let me do my job.’”

Harper was apparently successful in pushing that negative vision from is mind.  And, it’s a good thing, because his nightmare (just slightly modified) began to play out right before his eyes. The Braves’ next hitter, Sid Bream, hit a grounder to Hrbek at first base, who fired to Harper for the force out at the plate, leaving Harper to make that inning-ending (or game-losing) home-to-first double play throw- which, as we all know, he did successfully.

Wendel’s game-by-game description of the Series provides plenty of these very human insights into the action, adding color and depth to his accounting.  He includes the often told story of how Twins’ starter Jack Morris (who threw a ten-inning, complete game shutout in Game Seven) had to lobby manager Tom Kelly to stay in the game after the ninth inning. He ends the tale with Kelly’s submission and comment, “Oh hell. It’s only a game.”   Down To The Last Pitch adds a little context to Morris’ grit and determination, having already noted that Morris (described as having “the air of an ornery, aging gunslinger”) was disgruntled after being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning of Game Four (tied 1-1 at the time and eventually won 3-2 by the Braves). Morris later told Sports Illustrated, “TK screwed up by taking me out.  We would have won it.”  Nobody was taking the ball from Morris’ hand in the deciding game.

Down To The Last Pitch also uses the flow of the game as a natural bridge to observations on, not just the players involved, but baseball itself.  The reader gains insight into such player-related topics as John Smoltz’ 1991 turnaround (a 2-11 won-lost record in the first half and a 12-2 record in the second half), how reliever Rick Aguilera ended up as the first pitcher used as a pinch hitter in the World Series since 1965, and events that shaped the baseball lives of many of the players who took the field for the Series (like Mike Lemke’s childhood pickup games on the grounds of the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center or the impact of the lights from the Twins’ original Metropolitan Stadium shining into the bedroom window of a young Kent Hrbek).

Wendel also uses game action to lead into more general commentary on baseball. The crack of the bat on Twins’ number-nine hitter Greg Gagne’s Game One home run, for example, takes Wendel back a previous conversation with Hall of Famer Frank Robinson (who hit 586 MLB home runs). Robinson described the sound of a home run as “Like you’re out in the woods and you step on a branch. A dry branch. It’s that snap that goes just so.”  That’s the sound Wendel reports hearing, even above the crowd, on Gagne’s home run.  That distinctive snap spurred him to share Robinson’s thoughts not only on the “sound” of a home run, but also on its excitement. In Robinson’s words, “Nothing else offers the kind of excitement a home run does. Not even a perfect game. Because a home run is instant – it’s so surprising.”

Down to the Last Pitch also includes commentary on factors affecting the Series’ outcome that may have escaped the average fan.  Wendel delves, for example, into the unavailability of speedsters Otis Nixon (drug-related suspension) and Deion Sanders (Atlanta Falcons’ football training camp) – two Braves’ players with potentially game-changing speed. Few remember that Nixon, out for the Series, hit .297 with 72 stolen bases in 124 games in 1991.

Ultimately, Down To The Last Pitch is a great read not just for Twins and Braves fans – although it is a must for followers of those teams – but for any fans who want to get closer to the game.  I was lucky enough to attend the Twins’ home games in the 1991 Series and, after reading Down To The Last Pitch, I feel “closer” to the action than ever.

And, there is even more.  Once you’ve completed Wendel’s account of the seven exciting contests that made up the 1991 World Series, there is – like an extra inning game – even more baseball to come.  The book includes two Appendices: One covering what happened after the Series to many of the principals involved (and other notables from the 1991 season); and a second outlining a dozen great World Series moments.

In short, Down To The Last Pitch has something for baseball fans down to the last page.

Other baseball books by Tim Wendel you may enjoy: Summer of 68: The Season that Changed Baseball and America Forever (reviewed here); High Heat: The Secret History of the Fastball and the Improbable Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time; Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America; The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America’s Favorite Sport.

BBRT tweets  baseball @DavidBBRT

The Cracker Jack® Collection …

                            Baseball’s Prized Players

By Tom Zappala and Ellen Zappala

2013, Peter E. Randall Publisher

$30.00

                                                      Take me out to the ball game.

                                                    Take me out with the crowd.

                                                    Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

                                                   I don’t care if I never get back.

If you are a baseball fan, those words – and the melody that accompanies them – are no doubt close to your heart. Cracker Jack® and our national pastime have a close and long-standing relationship. The recently released coffee table book The Cracker Jack Collection … Baseball’s Prized Players illustrates just how deep and enduring that relationship was and continues to be. If you’ve ever enjoyed joining in a seventh-inning rendition of Take Me Out To The Ballgame, Baseball Roundtable is confident you’ll enjoy The Cracker Jack Collection. The book commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the first Cracker Jack baseball card set – in 1914 and 1915, the treasured prize in each box of Cracker Jack was a baseball card. It tells the tale of Cracker Jack’s rise to confectionery prominence and its century of ties to baseball, as well as the presenting the statistics and stories of the players honored on the Cracker Jack cards (144 cards in 1914, 176 in 1915). Those players are Baseball Hall of Famers, Hall of Fame “should-have-beens” and journeymen who took the field in the game’s rough-and-tumble early years.

The Cracker Jack baseball cards are among the most valued and valuable in the card-collecting community, and The Cracker Jack Collection is a must-have for the collectors of vintage sports cards. The book, however, has a much broader appeal. Baseball fans, nostalgia buffs, and those interested the life and times of the early 20th century will all find something to like in this book. Co-authors Tom and Ellen Zappala clearly brought a passion for the  history and heritage of  the national pastime to their work, and they supplemented their efforts with contributions from Joe Orlando (president of Professional Sports Authenticator and PSA/DNA), John Molori (Boston Baseball Magazine columnist) and Jim Davis (charter member of the Cracker Jack Collectors Association).

First and foremost, the focus of The Cracker Jack Collection is the players selected for the Cracker Jack card sets. The Zappalas bring these players – and the era they played and lived in – to life, not only by documenting their on-field achievements, but with entertaining and informative glimpses into their off-field lives. They not only inform the reader that Ty Cobb batted under .320 only once in his career, but shine a light on his business acumen, which led to his investments in companies like Coca Cola and General Motors. Walter Johnson’s profile includes his remarkable 110 complete-game shutouts, and his unsuccessful run for Congress. Eddie Plank’s 26-6, 2.22 record in 1912 is featured, as his post-baseball service giving guided tours of the battlefield at Gettysburg.  BBRT note: The Plank profile also includes his winning assignment as the starting pitcher in the April 12, 1909 first-ever game at Philadelphia’s new Shibe Park; which saw Plank win 8-1, but also saw his catcher Doc Powers collide with the stadium’s cement wall and suffer ultimately fatal internal injuries.)

The Cracker Jack Collection brings these players – and the era they played and lived in – to life, not only by documenting their on-field achievements, but with entertaining and informative glimpses into their off-field lives. 

Throughout The Cracker Jack Collection, readers will find the career statistics and life stories of well-known “prized” players like Cobb, Johnson, Plank, Honus Wagner, Tris Speaker, Christy Mathewson, Nap Lajoie, Rube Marquard and Mordecia Brown, as well as front office greats like Charlie Comiskey, Clark Griffith, Connie Mack and Branch Rickey.

While I enjoyed the profiles of the collection’s best-known stars, I found myself drawn to some of the lesser-known players honored in the Crack Jack Collection.

For example, long before baseball statistical guru Bill James, there was “Seattle Bill” James, who ran up a 26-7, 1.90 record for the 1914 “Miracle Braves” of Boston (and won two games without giving up a run in the World Series that year). A star in the making, James developed shoulder problems in the off season – and finished his MLB career with just 37 wins.

Also honored is first baseman Jake Daubert. Daubert led the NL in batting in 1913 and 1914 and, as the Zappalas tell us, was a sparkling fielder, hit over .300 in 10 of his fifteen major league seasons, was Baseball Magazine’s All Star first baseman in 1911 and every year from 1913 to 1919, and captured the Chalmers Award (MVP) in 1913. The authors chose Daubert for their Cracker Jack Collection All Star Team and rightly note that “It is hard to fathom why Jack Daubert has been bypassed by the Hall of Fame.”

There was John “Dots” Miller, considered by many one of the best utility players of the dead ball era. In The Cracker Jack Collection, you’ll not only find his MLB statistics, but the story behind his nickname. Early in his career, Miller was all-time great shortstop Honus Wagner’s double play partner and (due partly to their shared German heritage) close friend. One day a reporter came up to Wagner and asked who the new kid at second base was. With his German accent, Wagner replied “Dot’s Miller” – and a nickname was born.

As I read through The Cracker Jack Collection, I also was entertained and caught up in the biographical sketches of players like Rebel Oakes (a speedy, slap-hitting outfielder); Dick Hoblitzell (a steady-hitting first baseman and Babe Ruth’s Boston roommate from 1914-18); Armando Marsans (one of the first successful players out of Cuba, who ran a Cuban cigar factory in the off season); and Al Wentworth Demaree (who enjoyed an eight-year career as an MLB pitcher and went on to become one of the best known sports cartoonists ever – syndicated in 200+ newspapers and published in the Sporting News for three decades).

I could go on, but the point here is that the stories you’ll find in The Cracker Jack Collection’s player profiles are a good match to the Cracker Jack slogan “The more you eat – the more you’ll want.” In this case, the more you read, the more you’ll want – and the more you’ll find yourself wanting to share these tales with baseball-loving friends. As Boston Herald Editor-in-Chief Joe Sciacca said of The Cracker Jack Collection, “If you’re looking for fresh yarns to tell during the next rain delayed game, you’ve come to the right place.”

While the players dominate the book, it also chronicles the history of the now iconic Cracker Jack – all the way back to 1871 and German immigrant Frederick William Rueckheim. As the story goes, the breakthrough came with the development of a way to prevent the caramel-coated popcorn and peanut confection from sticking together. The Cracker Jack Collection takes us through the development of product, its name and logo, its marketing and the history of Cracker Jack’s prize offerings – the largest of which was a Winnebago Recreational Vehicle (in 1981, one fortunate snacker found a message in his box of Cracker Jack telling him how to claim his Winnebago prize). BBRT note: Cracker Jack prizes – now legislatively limited in scope – have, over time, been made of paper, wood, cast metal, tin, terra cotta, Bakelite, chenille, rubber, felt, straw, cellophane, fiber, papier-mâché, cloth, string, wire, candy, aluminum, celluloid, ceramic, rattan, glass and plastic.

The first Cracker Jack baseball-related prize was a 1907 post card featuring a pair of bears playing baseball. Over the years, Cracker Jack has offered (among others) such items as a Cracker Jack Movies pull-tab toy that changed from a batter to an umpire; A Big League Baseball At Home spin-dial game; baseball player buttons; plastic baseball stand-up figures (two whole teams of blue and gray); plastic miniature baseball caps, bats and gloves; and additional baseball cards.

Whether it’s the player profiles, the history of Cracker Jack or the story of the 1914 and 1915 card sets themselves, the book is well-researched and well-written. Further, it is also beautifully designed and illustrated. The quality of the images of the cards, past Cracker Jack packaging, prizes and advertising, and vintage baseball equipment, all live up to the quality of the prose. The Cracker Jack Collection now rests proudly on BBRT’s coffee table – and Tom and Ellen Zappala’s 2010 book, The T206 Collection: The Players and Their Stories, is at the top of my Christmas list.

The Cracker Jack Collection can be ordered online at http://www.crackerjackplayers.com/order.html

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey – How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game

 By Edward Achorn

 2013, Public Affairs

 $26.99

“Everyone who knew Chris Von der Ahe, it seems, had a story about him – his colossal pomposity; his wonderful generosity; his red-faced rages that inevitably recoiled catastrophically on himself; his thick German accent and wobbly use of the English language; and his insatiable appetite for beer, beautiful young women, song and life.  As a baseball owner, he was George Steinbrenner, Charlie Finley and Bill Veeck rolled into one.”

That’s how Edward Achorn describes the central character in “The Summer of Beer and Whiskey – How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game.”  Achorn proved his ability to bring baseball’s early history to light and to life with his 2010 offering “Fifty-nine in ’94 – Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball & the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had” (see BBRT review in post of March 28, 2013). In The Summer of Beer and Whiskey he reaffirms that talent.

The focal point of The  Summer of Beer and Whiskey is the American Association pennant race of 1883 – a spirited battle between the Philadelphia Athletics and the St. Louis Browns that went down to the season’s final day.  The book, however, really tells the story about how Van der Ahe and the upstart American Association helped revive, perhaps even save, the national pastime.

Ultimately, it’s a history lesson wrapped in a pennant race – and that combination turns out to be not only informative, but a lot of fun.  Achorn has a proven ability to bring history to light and to life. 

In the late 1870s and early 1880s, “base ball” (it was two words back then) was far from the national pastime.  The game was in trouble, impacted by the depression of the 1870s and the influence of gambling interests, elitist ownership and the drunken, rowdy and sometimes corrupt players.  On top of that, the National League’s fifty-cent admission price and ban on Sunday baseball kept most of the working class out of the ballpark.

Despite all of this, Van der Ahe – who immigrated to the United States in 1867 and knew a lot more about beer than he did about baseball – saw potential in the sport.  Van der Ahe, who settled in St. Louis (then the nation’s sixth-largest city), started as a grocery clerk, but in just a few years had acquired ownership in a grocery store, a saloon and boarding house.  But he wanted even more – and saw American baseball (and beer) as the door to wealth and fame. Ironically, it was the decline of professional baseball in St. Louis that opened that door for him.  Scandals related to gambling had soured the city on the sport and, in 1878, St. Louis, for the first time in many years, found itself without a major league franchise.  The fans still following the sport  had to satisfy themselves with the play of the semipro Saint Louis Brown Stockings (the team had taken the name of the former National League squad).

In late 1880, Van der Ahe stepped into this situation, sinking his life savings into the Brown Stockings and the deteriorated “Grand Avenue (Ball) Park.”  His vision was for “cheap tickets, booming beer sales and big crowds adorned by beautiful women.”  That vision, however, was not shared by the National League and Van der Ahe’s hopes for St. Louis’ return to the League were quickly squelched.  That rejection proved essential to the formation of the rival American Association and the reshaping of the national pastime.

Rejected by the National League, the Brown Stockings initially played as an independent – offering: an acceptable brand of baseball; admission prices only half of the NL (25 cents vs. 50 cents); Sunday baseball (banned by the NL); and the availability of alcoholic beverages (also banned by the NL) at the ballpark.  Out of the St. Louis Brown Stockings’ rising popularity came the 1881 formation of the American Association termed, by critics “The Beer and Whiskey League” because of its heavy backing from brewers, distillers and tavern keepers. (The Association played its first official season in 1882.)

Achorn’s book tells the tale of how Van der Ahe and the American Association helped revive interest in baseball, create new legions of “fans” and position the game as America’s pastime.

Van der Ahe isn’t the only “character” who adds life to the Association and the story. Achorn also gives readers an inside look at the rough and rugged individuals who made the AA a success.  Its pages are populated with players like the Louisville Eclipse’s premier batsman Pete Browning, from whom the Hillerich and Bradsby iconic “Louisville Slugger” got its name (and who was also known as “The Prince of Bourbon”); pitcher Jumping Jack Jones, who literally jumped from Yale University to the Philadelphia Athletics with his strange, leaping delivery; Bobby “Shrimp” Mathews, who pitched his heart and his arm out for the Athletics;  St. Louis Brown Stockings’  infielders Arlie Latham and Charley Comiskey, of whom the Sporting News reported “Latham is the mouth of the St. Louis Club, Comiskey its head;” and many more.

There is also much to learn about the early days of baseball in the pages of Achorn’s book – which chronicles a time when it was a brutal game:  players were without batting helmets or fielding  gloves; teams carried only twelve or thirteen players and injury substitutions were almost unheard of; road trips could last a month; foul balls were not strikes; overflow crowds typically stood inside the outfield fence (with balls hit into the crows considered ground rule doubles); batters were not awarded first base when hit by a pitch, making the bean ball a useful (and frequent) weapon of intimidation; and umpires often needed a police escort to get out of the park.

Achorn depends a great deal on news reports of the time in this historical account and the language of the day is enjoyable (far more colorful and  less forgiving than today’s reporting).  Of one player, slowing with age, it is reported that “an ice wagon would have to be handicapped in a race with him;”  another is described in daily news reports as “a wretched fielder and a very moderate batsman;” and a player guilty of an error is chided in print with he “couldn’t have stopped a part of the roof of the grandstand had it blown over his way;” another player’s miscue draws the media comment, “Such slouchy work is is calculated to disgust spectators and demoralize a nine.”

Achorn also dedicates some well-deserved prose to the plight and trials of Moses Fleetwood Walker, who made his foray across baseball’s color line nearly seven decade before Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson made public their intention to erase it.

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey gives readers a look at the fast-paced America of the late 1800s: its changing culture and economy;  its continuing conflicts of class and race; and its energy and opportunity.  All of which were lived out on and off the “base ball” diamond.

 “It (baseball) is a quick, nervous, dashing, brilliant kind of sport,in keeping with our American characteristics.”  Philadelphia Evening Bulletin – Sept. 29, 1883 

In the Epilogue, Achorn shares a look at what happened to many of the principal characters after the American Association’s exciting 1883 pennant race and ten-season run (1882-1891 –  in 1892, the Association’s strongest franchises merged with the National League and four – Dodgers, Cards, Reds and Pirates – continue today).

All in all, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey is another enjoyable and informative offering from Edward Achorn – of particular interest to (and highly recommended for) baseball fans, but also a fun and fast-paced read for those who’d like to gain a better understanding  of the American experience of the late 19th century.

Chin Music

by Lee Edelstein

SELA House, 2012

$14.95

“Chin Music” author Lee Edelstein describes himself as a retired entrepreneur who finally has time to write.  After reading Chin Music, I wish Edelstein had found time to combine his passion for prose and the national pastime sooner.  He brings readers an inspiring story and an endearing cast of characters that are easy to read and easy to like.

Chin Music is more than just a baseball book, it’s a book about life – about tragedy, triumph and the importance of relationships.  It has mystery, history, action and even romance.   Baseball – from the Yankees of the mid-1920s, to the world of sports memorabilia, to the ball fields of today – is the thread that weaves it all together.

The story centers around Ryan Buck, a talented and tormented high school athlete. He has survived a devastating car crash that took his father’s life and his brother Michael’s left leg.  Yet Ryan, suffering survivor’s guilt that has spurred recurring nightmares and blocked memories of the accident, may be the most damaged of all.  Ryan is just beginning to find some release on the baseball diamond (exceptional speed and glove, strong arm, but alternately magnificent and miserable at the plate), when a mystery from generations past sends ripples through the Buck family’s lives and Ryan’s future.

The roots of that mystery lie in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and the 1926 New York Yankees’ Spring Training Camp.  Early in the book, Edelstein takes us back to that time and geography.  He sets the scene skillfully (and believably), working the vernacular of the day and historically accurate set points into his prose.

Chin Music’s early flashbacks prove not just essential to the story, but also informative and entertaining.  They are, in the words of the day: copacetic; the berries; or even the cat’s pajamas.   Readers meet Ryan’s great-great grandmother Zel, one of St. Petersburg’s first lady barbers (which male residents found quite revolutionary).  Zel is relegated primarily to cutting children’s hair – until Babe Ruth drops into Spud’s Barber Shop and chooses “the dame” for his daily shave and bi-weekly haircut.  As the relationship between Zel and The Babe develops, Edelstein also provides plenty of entertaining insight into the times.  Zel’s weekly budget, for example, includes nine-dollars a week boarding house rent (which covers her room, five suppers and one brunch) and seventy-cents a day for “breakfast, lunch, a Dr. Pepper, an occasional picture show, and miscellaneous items like toiletries and the chocolate candy she craves.”

Without giving away the story, the relationship between Zel and The Babe eventually involves trips to the ball park, a game-used bat and hat, a yellow flapper dress, Rum and Dr. Pepper, a few of the Babe’s hair clippings, the Sultan of Swat’s penchant for cigars, and Zel’s treasured personal journal.

From 1926 Spring Training, the story moves to the 21^st century, with Ryan’s mother Susan facing the prospect of selling some of the Buck family’s Babe Ruth memorabilia (to meet Michael’s ongoing medical expenses) which has been passed down through the generations.    This brings Susan together with retired memorabilia collector/seller Sam Frank, who sums up his relationship with baseball early on, stating “Baseball is a part of me.  It’s a place I keep going back to.”   Soon, the Buck household also becomes a place Sam keeps going back to and, as he becomes closer to the family, he sees not only the potential of the Babe Ruth items to bring considerable value at auction, but also the potential of young Ryan on the ball field.

There is, of course, the need to authenticate the Babe Ruth memorabilia and to do that Susan and Sam must rely on Zel’s journal – the pages of which surface a mystery that has plagued (even divided) the Buck family for generations.  Resolution of that mystery, Sam discovers, has the potential to change the Buck family’s lives not just for now, but for generations to come.  Solving that mystery, ultimately, changes not only the Buck family, but baseball itself.

If you are looking for page-after-page of inning-by-inning baseball action, detailed accounts of bad locker room behavior, or obscure statistics like Wins Above Replacement (WAR) or Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), Chin Music may not be the book for you.  However, if you are looking for a solid, well-written story that blends tragedy, redemption, mystery and even romance – all with a baseball hook – Chin Music is a darn good read.  BBRT recommends it – not just for baseball fans, but for anyone who likes an inspiring and entertaining tale.   Chin Music available at  http://amzn.com/dp/0988343401