Play ball!

Forget the steroids and the obscenely high salaries. Baseball is still a great game, and this new crop of books takes readers entertainingly from past to present and cogently into the minds of the men on the diamond.

Baseball books hit the shelves for opening day

REVIEWS BY MARTIN BRADY

Legacy of a pivotal player

Jonathan Eig's Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season recalls events of 1947 when, under intense media and public scrutiny, Robinson made history—as the opening day first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers and major league baseball's first African-American player. Eig sets up the reader nicely with personal background on Robinson, charting his multi-sport college success at UCLA, his stint in the Negro Leagues and his singular relationship with Branch Rickey, the legendary executive who determined that Robinson was the right man to break the color barrier. Then follows a blow-by-blow account of Robinson's inaugural season, including his experiences (both bad and good) with fellow players and fans throughout the National League. Robinson had a key role in leading the Dodgers to the World Series at season's end, while also winning the first-ever Rookie of the Year Award for his stellar play. Moreover, he proved that a black man could combine courage with skill and earn respect on his own terms.


Robinson's hardships enduring bigotry are well known. But after him came a slow stream of other African Americans who, with less publicity, entered the major leagues yet still had to put up with ugly racist attitudes and practices. Steve Jacobson's Carrying Jackie's Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball—and America offers profiles of 19 such players, whose value as pioneers should never be underestimated. Once Robinson opened the door, these stalwart individuals still had to walk through it, and, as Jacobson relates, it was never an easy path. Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Mudcat Grant, Elston Howard, Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron are among the subjects here, as is Emmett Ashford, the first black man to umpire a major league game. Jacobson's accounts are pithy, inspiring and informative, and they shed necessary light on a part of the integration process that has been somewhat overlooked.


Band of brothers

The 1934 St. Louis Cardinals were one of baseball's most colorful gangs of players, a combative bunch who rallied at season's end to overtake the New York Giants for the National League crown and then proceeded to defeat the Detroit Tigers in a storied World Series. John Heidenry's The Gashouse Gang is a solidly researched and warmly told account of that team and season, with special focus on star hurler Dizzy Dean, who won 30 games and provided newspapermen with reams of copy that recorded his attention-getting antics both on and off the field. Other Cardinals who come alive in Heidenry's well-written text are Leo Durocher, Pepper Martin, Frankie Frisch, Joe Medwick and Dean's younger brother, Paul, who, as a rookie, won 19 games and played a critical role in the team's success. Cardinals honcho Branch Rickey—the same man who later ushered Jackie Robinson into baseball—is a key figure in this story as well, emerging as a skilled front-office manipulator of men and money.


Personal portrayals

Only one man has ever won 30 or more games in a season since Dean did it in 1934. That was Detroit Tigers ace Denny McLain, who achieved a 31-6 record in 1968 while leading his team to a World Series title. After one more terrific year in 1969, McLain's career went south fast. His arm troubles had something to do with his demise, but McLain also made bad personal decisions that alienated the baseball establishment. Poor judgment and consorting with unsavory characters eventually landed McLain in prison on two separate occasions. I Told You I Wasn't Perfect, co-authored with Eli Zaret, is McLain's autobiography, and it is as brash as McLain was in his playing days. He tells his tale frankly, sparing no feelings where his former teammates and managers are concerned, and he forthrightly describes his involvement in the drug, racketeering and embezzlement schemes that caused his downfall. Despite also losing his eldest child, Kristin, to a tragic car accident in 1992, McLain has battled to regain respectability and keep his family intact. It's an interesting story, and Zaret helps McLain tell it in an unpretentious first-person style. Baseball fans will appreciate McLain's honest-to-a-fault take on the game during his era.


New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui is coming off an injury-shortened 2006 season. In 2007, he hopes to rebound to the form that initially brought him Western stardom in 2003, his first year in American baseball after an impressive career in Japan. Hideki Matsui: Sportsmanship, Modesty, and the Art of the Home Run is a brief but intimate bio of the man known as "Godzilla." It's written by Shizuka Ijuin, an award-winning Japanese novelist who knew Matsui during his Japanese playing days. Matsui, his stern exterior notwithstanding, comes off here as a dedicated ballplayer and an honorable individual. Ijuin paints a portrait of an uncommonly determined and thoughtful athlete who struggled mightily with his decision to leave the Yomiuri Giants and stake out a claim as an elite player in the even more competitive American major leagues. Ijuin also lets readers in on Matsui's penchant for charitable giving and the genuine humility with which he has shared his wealth. The book includes a nice selection of photos of Matsui from childhood to the present day.


It's all in your head

University of Missouri psychology professor Mike Stadler has always had a passion for baseball. In The Psychology of Baseball: Inside the Mental Game of the Major League Player, he merges that interest with his academic training to turn out a rarefied investigation of where head meets heart at the highest level of the sport. Stadler succeeds at keeping the writing lively, while also dropping in research results and some necessary terminology in trying to help readers understand the psychological aspects of batting, fielding and pitching, with further examination of elusive subjects such as hitting streaks and clutch performances. He offers plenty of examples of famous players and how their demonstrated abilities fit into his conclusions. The text winds up with a fascinating deconstruction of the nature of fandom. This book offers something a little different from the usual baseball fare, and its original approach puts a new slant on how to view the summer game.


Touching all the bases

Zack Hample is already famous for collecting nearly 3,000 baseballs—all of which he caught or found at major league games. But Hample is also a writer covering the minor leagues, a blogger, a former college shortstop and a baseball instructor. Watching Baseball Smarter is a marvelously compact omnibus in which Hample neatly breaks down positions, game play, rules, strategies and slang, while also explaining the workings of team management and the way pro baseball functions at every level. And even though he's having fun throughout, Hample is extraordinarily comprehensive in his approach. Topics that come under discussion include awards, uniform numbers, chewing tobacco, the origin of the seventh-inning stretch, statistical history, how to read a box score, how to keep a scoresheet, the umpire's job and even what goes on at a conference on the mound. To his credit, Hample covers a lot of stuff that will serve as welcome refresher for longtime fans, and, needless to say, his book is perfect for those who are new to the game and want to get up to speed quickly. This handy reference ought to be kept near the armchair while enjoying any Saturday afternoon baseball telecast.


Martin Brady writes from Nashville.

© 2007 ProMotion, inc.