2008 Lineup of Baseball Books
Bruce Dancis - Sacramento Bee
Apr 07, 2008
Baseball's steroids scandal and the publication of former Sen. George Mitchell's report on the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs affects how we fans look at our national pastime. It also affects how we look at some of this season's baseball books in our 18th annual guide.
Take Jonathan Mayo's "Facing Clemens: Hitters on Confronting Baseball's Most Intimidating Pitcher" (Globe Pequot Press, $19.95 paperback, 288 pages), which was written before Clemens was included in the Mitchell Report and before the pitcher testified at a congressional hearing.
Not a biography per se, Mayo's book is an examination of Clemens' career and the keys to his success based on interviews with players who had to hit against him, such as Cal Ripken Jr. and Ken Griffey Jr. Read today, one can't help but wonder whether Clemens had some illicit help in making him so "intimidating," especially after he reached his 40s.
"Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment" (Triumph, $24.95, 256 pages), by attorney David Ezra, makes a valiant (though futile, in my opinion) attempt to defend Barry Bonds from the charges made against him both in federal court and in the court of public opinion. However, Ezra is persuasive when criticizing the circumstantial evidence against Bonds -- for example, he shows that Bond's weight gain and muscle mass development, often cited as "proof" of his use of steroids, actually predated any suggestions that Bonds was using performance-enhancing drugs and was due to an ultra-rigorous training regimen.
And now we have Jose Canseco's "Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle To Save Baseball" (SSE, $25.95, 260 pages), the former player's obnoxiously self- aggrandizing self-defense for accusing Mark McGwire, Raphael Palmeiro and other players of using performance- enhancing drugs, just as he did. In his 2005 "Juiced," Canseco wrote that he personally injected or saw particular players inject themselves with steroids; here he adds the Detroit Tigers' Magglio Ordonez to his list, though his charges against Clemens and the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez are largely speculative.
While all this sordidness certainly challenges a fan's faith in the game, it needn't destroy one's enjoyment of baseball or the sport's history. As law professor Roger Abrams demonstrates in his "The Dark Side of the Diamond" (Rounder Books, $24.95, 216 pages), some of baseball's most notorious vices -- including gambling, alcoholism and drugs -- have been with us since the 19th century.
When it comes to baseball, I believe in what William Faulkner once wrote: "The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."
Richard Bradley's "The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Playoff of '78" (Free Press, $25, 287 pages) lets this lifelong Yankees fan relive Bucky Dent's climactic home run all over again.
Ever since Lawrence Ritter published his "The Glory of Their Times" in 1966, composed of lengthy interviews with players from the early part of the 20th century, oral histories have been among the most popular baseball books.
This season, we can add entertaining volumes featuring interviews with players who played in the 1950s and '60s, by former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent in his "We Would Have Played for Nothing" (Simon & Schuster, $25, 327 pages); excerpts from catcher-broadcaster Tim McCarver's radio and TV show, "Tim McCarver's Diamond Gems" (McGraw Hill, $24.95, 270 pages), covering players from the '50s to today, and Larry Burke, Peter Thomas Fornatale and Jim Baker's "Change Up" (Rodale Books, $24.95, 290 pages), which relies on interviews to tell the story of eight developments that shaped modern baseball, including the birth of the players union and the advent of the designated hitter.
Yet, there have always been limitations to oral histories because people, ballplayers included, don't always remember events as they actually were. And as they get older, ballplayers have a tendency to embellish their stories.
"Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, The Lies, and Everything Else" (Fireside Books, $16 paperback, 331 pages) is a marvelous debunker of famous baseball stories and legends, from Babe Ruth's alleged "Called Shot" home run in the 1932 World Series to many less-than-accurate tales told in famous books and by famous players.
In the "it takes one to know one" category, the always entertaining former Red Sox and Expos pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee, with Jim Prime, casts an amusing look at "Baseball Eccentrics" (Triumph, $22.95, 206 pages), a collection of anecdotes about Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, Bo Belinsky, Manny Ramirez and other characters.
Among the new biographies of great ballplayers from the past, consider: Charles C. Alexander's "Spoke: A Biography of Tris Speaker" (Southern Methodist University Press, $25.95, 360 pages), on the great center fielder whose 22-year career (mostly with the Red Sox and Cleveland Indians) led him to be among the first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Carlo DeVito's "Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original" (Triumph, $25.95, 400 pages), a useful reminder that the Yankees' Yogi Berra not only provided baseball with some its greatest quotes and malapropisms but was one of the greatest catchers of all time.
Two biographies of current players show very different pathways to the major leagues: Ian Browne's "Dice K" (Globe Pequot, $19.95, 220 pages) examines the career of Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka and his first year with the Red Sox, and Chris Coste's autobiography, "The 33-Year-Old Rookie" (Ballantine, $25, 202 pages), details the catcher's 11 years in the minors before finally reaching the big leagues in 2006 with the Philadelphia Phillies.
John Feinstein's "Living on the Black" (see story at right) offers a superb journalistic account of the art of pitching, as told through a study of the Mets' Tom Glavine (now with the Atlanta Braves) and the Yankees' Mike Mussina during the 2007 season.
For examinations of the ways in which Latino ballplayers have transformed major league baseball, Tim Wendel's "Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America" (National Geographic Books, $28, 160 pages), featuring more than 100 compelling photographs by The Bee's Jose Luis Villegas, offers both a history and a current roundup, while Milton H. Jamail's "Venezuelan Bust, Baseball Boom" (Bison Books, $19.95, 269 pages; to be published April 16) tells the story of baseball in that South American country and the impact Venezuelan players have had in the big leagues.
Also worth checking out are Alan O'Connor's "Gold on the Diamond: Sacramento's Great Baseball Players, 1986-1976" (Big Tomato Press, $24.95 paperback, 176 pages), a history and celebration of Solons and Senators from the old Pacific Coast League, and "Heroes of the Negro Leagues" (Abrams, $19.95, 128 pages), an exquisite collection of Mark Chiarello's watercolor portraits and Jack Morelli's short biographies of great African American and Latino ballplayers in their Negro Leagues uniforms.
Several books are out to commemorate the final season at Yankee Stadium, a.k.a. "The House That Ruth Built," which opened in 1923 and has been the storied home field for baseball's all-time most successful franchise, as well as the home for many years of the football New York Giants and site of heavyweight boxing championships, memorable college football games, rock concerts, speeches by Nelson Mandela, and Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, and historic monuments to Yankee greats.
The "official" retrospective book, "Yankee Stadium" (Pocket Books, $50, 232 pages), by Mark Vancil and Alfred Santasiere III, is filled with terrific photographs, but did we really need a two-page spread on Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's office or a congratulatory note from former Vice President Dan Quayle, who visited the stadium for the first time in 2007?
An alternative is Scott Pitoniak's "Memories of Yankee Stadium" (Triumph, $19.95, 224 pages), which includes a short history, an annotated list of memorable moments and reminiscences by Yankees, the media, fans and opponents.
In fairness, we'll admit that Michael Ian Borer's "Faithful to Fenway: Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark" (NYU Press, $18.95 paperback, 256 pages), gives proper props to the Red Sox home since 1912, while Tony Massarotti's "Dynasty: The Inside Story of How the Red Sox Became a Baseball Powerhouse" (St. Martin's Press, $24.95, 288 pages) will offer solace to those on the other side of the game's greatest rivalry.
Regardless of a fan's favorite ballpark, we'll all be singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," the song whose 100-year anniversary in 2008 is chronicled in "Baseball's Greatest Hit" (see story on Page 25) by Andy Strasberg, Bob Thompson and Tim Wiles.
For the stat-minded fan, "The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia" (fifth edition, Sterling, $24.95 paperback, 1,856 pages), edited by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, remains the best baseball reference book available. The encyclopedia contains stats for every player who appeared in at least one major league game through the 2007 season, plus information on annual league leaders, the World Series and postseason games, the Negro Leagues, international baseball and just about every other relevant matter.
Bill James, whose annual "Baseball Abstracts" and books on the history of the game, the Hall of Fame and other topics pioneered the use of new stats to challenge long-held baseball assumptions, has a new collection of essays and stats, "The Bill James Gold Mine 2008" (ACTA Sports, $21.95 paperback, 320 pages). In addition to providing assessments of current players, James takes on such issues as judging clutch hitters and whether having "strength up the middle" (catcher, shortstop, second baseman and center fielder) is really the key to success, among other matters.
For fantasy league players and others who love the statistical side of the game, the choice here is "Baseball Prospectus 2008" (Plume, $21.95 paperback, 607 pages), edited by Steven Goldman and Christina Kahrl. Among the many books available, it has the best analysis of current players and the statistical heft to back up its assertions.
The more literary fan will enjoy Paul Dickson's "Baseball's Greatest Quotations" (Collins, $19.95 paperback, 652 pages), a sparkling compendium of quotes smart and stupid, baseball lore, jokes, home run calls, slogans and more.
Finally, as a daily reminder that baseball's beauty, precision and athletic grace are ultimately more important than human growth hormones, Joseph Wallace's "Baseball 365 Days" (Abrams, $29.95, 744 pages), offers wonderful color photographs for every day of the year.
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