by JoeMagennis on March 21, 2010
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We have a unique topic on this episode of Cover the Bases. Rather than the biographies, histories and memoirs that we usually speak about, instead we cover myths, legends and ghost tales with Dan Gordon. Dan is a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and has covered the game of baseball internationally, but discovered the folklore and story telling near his home on Cape Cod MA., leading him to seek out those same types of stories in baseball.
His first book is Haunted Baseball: Ghosts, Curses, Legends, and Eerie Events
published by Lyons Press. He has a followup book coming out in the summer of 2010 called Field of Screams. There is a web site to find information about his books at HauntedBaseball.com.
With his co-author and classmate from Union College, Mickey Bradley, Dan headed off to his first Spring Training with a few ideas and some access to players. With a bit of apprehension his first interview was Turk Wendell, one of the most superstitious and colorful characters in the game. Turk’s initial advice was to “go talk to the Yankees” which seemed to be a common response.
The book opens with the Yankees in their Spring Training facility called Huggins Stengel Field. The team trained there from the 1920’s up through the Sixties, and carries many stories from local residents and grounds crew. Dan always makes it a point to visit some of the old facilities around baseball since they have a great chance of catching a glimpse of nostalgia. It is said at Huggins Stengel that you can see Babe Ruth’s apparition and Casey Stengel sitting in the dugout, as well as noises of card games in the clubhouse.
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by JoeMagennis on March 15, 2010
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Seamheads.com Founder and Managing Editor, Mike Lynch is our guest on this episode of the Cover the Bases podcast. He is the author of two baseball books and writes regularly as his web site. We really appreciate the time that he took out of his night to talk some baseball with us.
His most recent book is It Ain’t So: A Might Have Been History of the White Sox in 1919 and Beyond
. It is published by McFarland, and was released in November of 2009.
Mike took a completely unique approach to writing about the Chicago White Sox team of 1919. After first pitching the concept to his publisher and getting some push back, he pitched another book which turned out to be Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League
. Once McFarland saw what Mike could accomplish, they let him revisit his concept for examining what might have happened if the Black Sox scandal had never taken place.
Out of the Park Baseball provided the computational muscle, while Mike allowed the players who were banned from baseball in 1920, to continue on in their careers. Mike chronicled the impact that this would have had on the American League races, as well as some World Series Championships. He played the 1919 World Series, completed the 1920 season, and then reset all of the American League teams each season to play a “might have been” version of the White Sox. This simulation and writing process took Mike about 10 years to complete.
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by JoeMagennis on March 4, 2010
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The book Ball Four
is a seminal book on the bookshelves of many baseball fans, particularly fans who are of a certain generation. During the early to mid-seventies I became a fan of the game. Key influences included the thousands of pickup games played with my brothers and other kids in the neighborhood, my father and mother who clocked many miles delivering us to and from organized baseball, television and radio which delivered the sights and sounds of the games taking place in the Major Leagues, and last but not least the many baseball books I gathered that would create images in my imagination.
The Baseball Life of Sandy Koufax, Strange But True Baseball Stories, and books with titles like How To Play Baseball were devoured at every opportunity. A time came when I needed to graduate to a more grownup level of baseball literature, and the book Ball Four took me there. The book is published by Wiley.
It is a well known, behind the scenes memoir from author Jim Bouton, who was reinventing himself as a knuckleball pitcher catching on with the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969. His pull no punches personality, plus considerable arm trouble, had worn out his welcome as a New York Yankee, after having pitched in The Bronx starting as a rookie in 1962.
The book caught fire with many baseball fans as it provided a first person account inside the camaraderie, challenges, exploits, strategies, and business of a major league baseball team. It did not go over so well with some of the main characters or so-called protectors of the game. Jim was ostracized for many years because of the perceived slights contained within the covers.
Especially with forty years worth of hindsight, the book is not a scandalous tell-all rag intent upon hurting player reputations or the game itself. It is what it was intended to be .. a real-life personal diary of one player’s experiences, playing the game at its highest level.
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by JoeMagennis on February 27, 2010
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Our guest on this episode of Cover the Bases is David Cataneo, author of I Remember Joe Di Maggio: Personal Memories of the Yankee Clipper by the People Who Knew Him Best 
. The book is published by Turner Publishing. We discuss the contradictions in DiMaggio’s public persona as we hear stories of his hardened persona cringing from the public spotlight, while at the same time marrying one of the most public women of all time in Marilyn Monroe.
David describes the format of the book as an oral history which he has collected by interviewing players, manager & coaches, sports writers and many others who were direct witnesses to the life of Joe DiMaggio.
The books starts out with a direct anecdote from David and his encounter with DiMaggio as a 13 year old autograph hound, on a mission to get a response from The Yankee Clipper. One has to wonder what might have happened if the encounter had concluded differently!
Since DiMaggio was such a complex person, this oral history will provide numerous insights into his life from the ones who knew him personally. David felt that some of the participants in the book came to DiMaggio’s defense in response to the biography Joe DiMaggio : The Hero’s Life
written by Richard Ben Cramer, since there were aspects of the book that did not portray him in a good light.
Image, especially a “regal image”, was something that DiMaggio understood and protected mightily throughout the years. He felt that it was important as a player and a Yankee. David equates it today to Derek Jeter’s reputation.
Some of the more interesting conversations in the book came from those that had not really shared their stories before. As David describes them, his subjects are the 25th man on the roster who might not have received much attention from DiMaggio, or the woman in a story he relates who was an assistant at a card show who saw another side of the man.
We move off into a great conversation about the motivation behind Baseballisms.com, and the fact that we now have the digital storage space to capture essential and valuable stories from people who one day will no longer be with us. David believes this is an essential mission because once the person is gone, that story is gone forever. David lost his chance to speak to Johnny Sylvester, the legendary sick boy in 1926 who received the gift of a promised Babe Ruth home run. Sylvester passed away before they could meet. To this day, David thinks about the fact he could not chronicle Johnny’s perspective on the story as an adult.
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by JoeMagennis on February 19, 2010
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We continue to focus on the Negro Leagues on the Cover the Bases podcast, in recognition of February’s designation as Black History Month. During the first half of last century, the Negro Leagues provided an opportunityfor players who were unable to participate in the major leagues simply because of racial inequality. It is a critically important baseball story to tell, and we are pleased to have as our guest, Neil Lanctot professor of History at The University of Delaware.
Neil’s book is Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution
, published by University of Pennsylvania Press . The book was awarded the prestigious Seymore Medal from SABR honoring the best book on baseball history or biography.
This book provides a different perspective of the Leagues than the typical analysis of the players, teams and events on the field. Neil determined that a complete analysis of the business aspects had not been told before, and launched on an effort to uncover any information about the finances and business activities that produced Negro League baseball games.
We take a look at the use of the name “Negro Leagues” as a catchall term for the various loosely affiliated organizations, including the Negro American League (NAL), the Negro National League (NNL), and earlier entities such as the Eastern Colored League. This does not even take into account the numerous barnstorming Negro teams who traveled the country playing exhibitions against mostly semi-pro industrial teams.
One of the great contributors to the development of the League was a player and owner by the name of Rube Foster. Not only was he a great pitcher, he also had the vision and the ambition in around 1910 – 1911 to team up with a white tavern owner named John M. Schorling, who was the son in law of Charles Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox. There was a need to fill the ballpark that was under Schorling’s control, so he teamed with Foster to put players onto teams to use the park.
The business structure lead to many white businessmen getting involved with the League as owners , booking agents and organizers.
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