Forewords
by Marty Appel
Ron
Blomberg Autobiography
First off, after all these years, what’s with the “bloom-berg”
pronunciation? If it’s “BLOOOM-berg,” how
come his first name isn’t pronounced “Roon?”
more
As
appeared in the book "Baseball, The Perfect Game"
Talkin’ Baseball, The Man and Bobby Feller --from Talkin’
Baseball (Willie, Mickey & “The Duke”)
Baseball fans measure their own lives by the entrance and
exit of players. There is the day the son of a major leaguer
you saw play is suddenly in the big leagues. There is the day
you realize that you knew every manager and coach when they
played. There is the day the last active player from your first
year as a fan retires. more
As appeared
in Krause Publications
Great
Yankee Moments
In 1968, I was a 19-year-old fan mail clerk for the
New York Yankees, assigned to spend my summer answering Mickey
Mantle’s fan mail. It was the final season of Mick’s
18-year career, although no one knew it at the time. But Mickey
probably did. more
As appeared in
Memories and Dreams
(The official magazine of the Baseball Hall of Fame)
The
Birth of Instant Replay
Using videotape instant replays has changed the way
we watch sports over the last four decades. The idea that people
saw Bobby Thomson’s historic home run in 1951, and never
saw it again until movie theater newsreels a week later is almost
unthinkable today. more
Kelly
and the Autograph
By the latter part of the 19th century, people knew
that it was a nice thing to own the signature of a Washington,
a Lincoln or a General Grant, but the practice of approaching
someone and saying, “Can I please have your autograph?”
did not exist until young baseball fans followed Mike “King”
Kelly to the South End Grounds on Walpole Street in Boston in
the late 1880s. more
Ladies
Days
Ladies
Days ended in, naturally, the 1960s, an era when much that was
accepted without question in America came under challenge. more
Baseball
Best Sellers
Baseball’s place in American literature is not necessarily
measured by book sales and a landing on best-seller lists. Indeed,
many fine books about the game develop cult followings, strong
word-of-mouth, and a treasured place in baseball libraries without
being necessarily reflected in sales. more
A free round of golf for Mickey and Whitey
The first of the two All-Star Games of 1961 was to be played in Candlestick Park, San Francisco.
With the game being played on Tuesday, and the Yankees playing Sunday afternoon in Chicago, teammates Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford flew to San Francisco immediately after the game and had a full day off on Monday.
more
As appeared in
2003 All-Star Game Program
ALL-STAR
FIELD OF DREAMS?
Tom Seaver was 22-year-old rookie with the hapless New York
Mets in 1967, but a strong first half of the season had made
him the Mets’s lone All-Star selection. He was still in
single digits on a career that would find him scaling 300 victories,
and he spent most of that July 11 evening in the visiting bullpen
at Anaheim Stadium, hardly expecting to see action at all. more
As appeared in Sports
Collectors Digest, Vintage Books Section
NY
Times Best Sellers
Here’s something for book collectors to ponder: would
it make an interesting collection to have a copy of every baseball
book to ever make The New York Times best seller list? more
Jim
Brosnan
It’s
been 60 years since he signed his first pro contract (at age
16!), and 46 years since the publication of “The Long
Season”, but Jim Brosnan’s place in the hearts of
admirers of baseball literature remains secure. more
Bklyn
Dodgers
The celebration
of the 50th anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers only world championship
(The Marlins have already won two!) also creates an opportunity
to look back at some of the literature surrounding this colorful
franchise. more
Marc
Okkonen
The recent World Series pairing of the Houston Astros and Chicago
White Sox found a lot of columnists and commentators recalling
the strange history of the uniforms worn by the two teams. From
the Astros “Colt 45 revolver” uniforms at their
inception, to the rainbow Cesar Cedeno era jerseys, there was
plenty to smile about. As for the Sox, they were the first team
to wear “throwback” uniforms – and fulltime
at that – when the 1976 team took on the look of the 1902
team. more
Dick
Young
More than a half century ago, A.S. Barnes and Company, a champion
in the publication of baseball books, created an annual series
with biographies of the winners of the MVP Awards. more
Maury
Allen
Maury Allen’s 36th book, Brooklyn Remembered, celebrates
the 50th anniversary of the Dodgers’ only world championship
in Brooklyn. Maury has been so closely identified with the Mets
over the years, that we found it necessary to ask which was
his favorite franchise – the “Bums” or the
“Amazins.” more
John
Durant
I have a feeling we are going to see baggy baseball uniforms
again in my lifetime. Or maybe in yours. Call it the “whatever
goes around” syndrome, but they can only be tight or baggy,
and it just seems to me that the black culture or the Latin
culture are going to bring this to baseball just as Chris Webber
and his teammates at Michigan changed the look of basketball
uniforms in the early ‘90s. more
A
Day in the Bleachers
The Willie Mays catch. No further explanation is really needed,
is it? Any baseball fan who can talk about the great plays in
history knows about that over-the-shoulder, back-to-the-plate
catch Willie made in Game One of the 1954 World Series (not
to mention the throw that followed), and knows it was one for
the ages. more
Bob
Creamer/Babe Ruth
The best
baseball biography ever written, for my money, was BABE: The
Legend Comes to Life, by Robert W. Creamer. more
Ken
Smith
When we
watch the sensational fielding in Major League Baseball today,
perhaps all the more remarkable because of the risk players
throw themselves into despite their guaranteed contracts and
enormous wages, we have to wonder, “Can it get any better?”
more
Growing
Up on Babe, Ty and Lou
I meet
a lot of fans today who tell me the first baseball book they
remember falling in love with was Jim Bouton’s Ball Four.
Those would be fans who are in their 40s now or just about getting
there. more
Only
The Ball Was White
In
the history of baseball literature, few books were able to break
new ground as did “Only the Ball Was White,” written
by Robert Peterson and published by Prentice-Hall in 1970.
more
Great
Players, Great Games
When Willie McCovey broke into the big leagues on July
30, 1959, he smacked two singles and two triples in his debut
game, and by the next day, the whole nation was talking about
Willie McCovey. more
Eight
Men Out
One of the amazing things about the wonderful book “Eight
Men Out” is that it was the first book written about the
1919 Black Sox Scandal, and it took 44 years to get the story
told. more
Who's
Who in ML Baseball
Of all the “classic” early baseball books still
to be found at pricey used book stores and through antiquarian
dealers, an 8 ½ x 11, hardcover volume from 1933 remains
one of the most handsome and informative reference works ever
associated with the game. more
Gene Schoor
It was in fourth grade that I did a book report on Mickey
Mantle of the Yankees by Gene Schoor. more
Glory of Their Times
Two score and two hernias ago, Lawrence Ritter, a professor
of economics and finance at NYU, set forth on a 75,000-mile
journey that would lead to the publication of what is arguably
the finest baseball book ever written. more
Putnam Team Histories
Shortly after Lou Gehrig’s tragic death in 1941,
sportswriter Frank Graham approached G.P. Putnam’s Sons,
a New York-based publisher, with an idea for a Gehrig biography.
The result, “A Quiet Hero,” was one of their major
successes for the next two decades, went to more than 20 printings,
and was practically required reading for schoolboys. more
Ray Robinson's Baseball Stars series
One of the best series of baseball paperbacks was the long-running
“Baseball Stars” books, which began in 1950 and
ended in 1975. more
Harold Seymour
A few months ago we did a column on the late Gene Schoor,
the prolific author of sports biographies. In the article, we
cited a similar author of the times, Milton Shapiro, and made
note of a lawsuit involving his biography of Warren Spahn, which
seemed to bring an end to the Messner biographies many of us
enjoyed in the ‘50s and ‘60s. more
Collective Works of Babe, Lou, Joe & Mickey
It sounds like a joke, right?“ The Collective Works
of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.”
more
Don Honig and David Voigt
We recently caught up with the man who may be the most
prolific of all baseball authors, Donald Honig. more
Evolution of Baseball Encyclopedias
Long before lovers of baseball stats fell in love with
Total Baseball and before that, The Baseball Encyclopedia (“Big
Mac,” after MacMillan, the publisher), there were three
important works that preceded it. And although they are long
out of date and as such, not especially important anymore, they
were the roots from which Big Mac and Total Baseball emerged.
It is worth remembering them. more
Bob Feller and Stan Musial
The sad passing of Ted Williams reduces to just two, the
last of the ‘immortals of baseball’, players who
were already stars before Jackie Robinson integrated pro baseball
and took us into the post-war, modern era. more
Robert Smith and Jack Rosenberg
This is a little column about two baseball pictorial history
books I always liked. There is a lot of repetition between them,
but you can only tell the story in so many ways. The best part
for me, certainly, were the wonderful photos – hundreds
of them, all black and white – that defined early baseball
for me. more
Joe Garagiola: Baseball is a Funny Game
As best as I can determine, the first baseball book to
ever hit the New York Times best seller list was “Baseball
is a Funny Game” by Joe Garagiola, published in 1960.
more
Saddest of Possible Words: Tinker to Evers to Chance
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the appearance
in a Cubs box score of a double play marked 6-4-3, “Tinker
to Evers to Chance.” It would be six years before Franklin
P. Adams immortalized the three by writing a poem about them
in the New York World under the title “Baseball’s
Sad Lexicon.” more
Fireside Books of Baseball
The recent publication of “Baseball: A Literary Anthology”
by the Library of America (edited by Nicholas Dawidoff) has
been hailed as one of the best new baseball books of the year,
but to many, it really recalls those wonderful “Fireside
Books” edited by Charles Einstein beginning almost half
a century ago. What fun they were! more
Branch Rickey
Branch Rickey, one of the most influential figures in baseball
history, never wrote his autobiography. We have autobiographies
from Joe Charboneau, Bo Belinsky, and Eldon Auker, but nothing
from the man who integrated baseball, created the farm system,
and allowed 13 runners to steal while catching for the New York
Highlanders in 1907 (still an American League record). more
Bronx Zoo
The Yankees’ Sparky Lyle was the first relief pitcher
to ever win the American League Cy Young Award. A few days after
the award was announced, the Yanks went out and signed Goose
Gossage to take his job. more
Lee Allen
If you haven’t noticed, the classic pitching windup
is a goner. With the exception of Hideo Nomo, there really aren’t
any pitchers who bring their hands over their head prior to
delivery, an act that managed to survive for more than a century
but has quietly all but vanished from the baseball landscape.
more
Meany
Tom Meany was one of the gentleman writers of baseball
in the mid-section of the 20th century, whose books and magazine
articles were a staple of what the nation’s fans of the
time seemed to demand: good reporting, nothing too controversial,
writing designed to harbor baseball as the National Pastime.
None of this is to suggest criticism at all; it was a time when
the game mattered dearly to millions, and men like Meany satisfied
the thirst for information. more
World
of Baseball
Almost 15 years ago, a beautiful set of baseball books
was introduced, intended to be sold as a continuing series,
to number 20 volumes when complete, and to take its place among
the more handsomely designed books on the game ever issued.
more
Books
on Commissioners
Memoirs by baseball’s handful of commissioners are
important volumes for students of baseball history, but they
have generally been a mixed bag in terms of satisfying our curiosities.
more
Sporting
News Baseball Guides
Quietly, like the passing of Oldsmobiles, Hydrox cookies and sports cartoonists, the Sporting News Official Baseball Guides passed from the scene this year.
more
Book
of Baseball
It's been 96 years since baseball had its first "coffee table" book, a term that didn't even exist during the Taft administration. Today, coffee table books about baseball are turned out all the time, but it was a breakthrough then and it was called "The Book of Baseball: From the Earliest Day to the Present Season."
more
Hornsby
Who was grumpy about baseball way back in 1962?
The answer is Rogers Hornsby, that ol' .358 lifetime hitter, 7-time batting champion, two-time MVP, and probably the best second baseman in the game's history, who by then had put 48 years in as a player, manager, coach and scout.
more
Bowie
Kuhn
Memoirs by baseball’s handful of commissioners are
important volumes for students of baseball history, but they
have generally been a mixed bag in terms of satisfying our curiosities.
more
Ross
Newhan
Because Major League Baseball first developed in the nation's northeast corner, the great historic lore of the game, and its great baseball writing, originated from that sector as well.
more
False
Spring
We lovers of baseball books grew up clinging to every word in Jim Brosnan's two diaries and to Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," but in 1975 came a different sort of first person account, one that might have been titled, "Portrait of a Baseball Failure."
more
Pepe
Phil Pepe has averaged almost a book a year wrapped around a journalism and broadcasting career that goes back to 1954 when he began working part-time for the New York World Telegram & Sun.
more
Sol
White
So King Solomon White is in the Baseball Hall of Fame!
What do you know! I was thinking of doing a column on Sol White's
"History of Colored Baseball" one of these days, and bang, he
becomes one of the 17 with Negro League roots to go into the
Hall of Fame! more
Israel Bronx
I had the pleasure of being part of two rather extraordinary events within days of each other recently, with both getting a lot of interest from baseball fans.
First, I was on a public relations assignment to Israel for the launch of the first pro baseball league in the Middle East - the Israel Baseball League.
more
back
to the top
As
appeared in the book, What Baseball Means to Me
What
Baseball Means to Me
What can we say about a game in which spring training begins
every winter and the Winter Meetings are held every fall?! For
one thing, you can set your watch to it, and if you are lucky,
you can set your life to it. more
back
to the top
As
appeared in Yankees Magazine
Pinstripes - Rizzuto
When Phil Rizzuto broke in with the Yankees in 1941, the year of the great 56-game hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio, among the pitchers he faced were 41-year old Lefty Grove of Boston and 40-year old Ted Lyons of Detroit. Among the managers in opposing dugouts were Connie Mack in Philadelphia, Bucky Harris in Washington, Roger Peckinpaugh in Cleveland and Jimmy Dykes in Chicago. more
Halper,
Yanks limited partner, passes
Barry Halper, a limited partner in the New York Yankees and
one of the pioneers of baseball memorabilia collecting, died
Dec. 18 in Livingston, N.J., following a long illness due to
complications from diabetes.
"Barry was a dear friend, a valued partner for many years,
and a decent, genuine person," said Yankees principal owner
George Steinbrenner. "What a great baseball fan he was.
I'll miss him dearly." more
Yankee
Stadium Story
Although
a handful of college football arenas were called “stadiums”
in the first two decades of the 20th century, (plus, believe
it or not, little Rice Stadium in Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx),
Yankee Stadium would be the first baseball field designed to
bear the name 'stadium'. (Washington's Griffith Stadium had
been so renamed in 1920). more
Elston
Howard
It was
the last of the seventh inning on Opening Day at Fenway Park
– Thursday, April 14, 1955. A sunny sky warmed the 22,246
Bosox faithful who had turned out to see Arthur Fiedler lead
the Boston Pops in the National Anthem and to see Willard Nixon
duel Bob Grim in what would be the second game of the season
for the Yankees. more
You
Can Go Home Again -- 44 Yankees Have Served Two Playing Stints
in Their Careers
When Jeff Nelson took the mound at Yankee Stadium on August
7 to begin his second stint with the Yankees, he admitted to
being swept up by emotion. more
1978
Season
For a long period in 1978, as spring wound into summer,
Yankee fans were beginning to accept the fact that ’78
was going to be a Red Sox year. A lot of baseball writers were
saying that the ’78 Bosox, under Don Zimmer, were one
of the elite teams of all times, certainly of Boston history,
and that the defending world champion Yankees just weren’t
their equal that year. more
1940
- The One That Got Away
Two games. And it all had much to do with lemon slices,
a lost tarpaulin, missing taxis, firecrackers, and one costly
error at first. What a difference, in the course of history,
they would make. more
Bill Virdon's Excellent Adventure
When one recalls the general lack of enthusiasm that surrounded
the hiring of Joe Torre a few years ago – only to find
him going on to win Manager of the Year honors and turning all
skeptics around – one can’t help but turn back the
clock a quarter century to the day Bill Virdon faced a similar
reception upon his hiring. more
Joe DiMaggio's Post-Playing Career
When Joe DiMaggio turned down another $100,000 contract
for the 1952 season, feeling he could no longer play the game
at a Joe DiMaggio level, he began the phase of his life in which
he would be, simply, Joe DiMaggio, American Icon. more
Frank Crosetti
To say Frankie Crosetti was “old school” is
putting it mildly. Trained in the corporate efficiency of Joe
McCarthy, he joined the team in 1932, in time to be there for
Babe Ruth’s last Yankee pennant and his “Called
Shot Home Run” in the World Series. By the time young
Cro became “The Old Cro,” he had witnessed Lou Gehrig’s
retirement, Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak, Roger Maris’
61st home run and Mickey Mantle’s last game. And about
1,000 other memorable moments in between. more
Old Timers Days
Since the Yankees are credited with so many innovations
over the years – from numbers on uniforms to triple-decked
ballparks – it has become somewhat fashionable to think
they invented the concept of Old Timers Day back on July 4,
1939. more
Scouting Story
As with so many elements of the Yankees organization, you
go back to the roots of the “Team of the Century”
to see where it all came from. As much as the current team invites
comparisons with the 1961, the 1939 and the 1927 Yankees, so
too does the current state of the team’s scouting operation.
more
Spring training
Maybe it’s the palm trees. There’s just something
about spring training. more
Catfish Hunter Tribute
You’ve spent your whole life depending on your arms
and your hands. You grew up, the youngest of nine, bonding with
your dad and your brothers by hunting and fishing. You were
given a gift of being able to hold a baseball and throw it just
about as good as anyone who ever lived. You retired to farm
life and the inner peace of working your land and driving your
tractor, while taking your own boys hunting and fishing. more
Yankees Seek 5th Straight Pennant
Wasn’t it just yesterday that everyone was saying
“oh, there will never be another dynasty in baseball;
too many teams, too many rounds of playoffs. The dynasty days
are over.” more
Yankees in the '60s
The expression goes, “If you remember the ‘60s,
you weren’t there.” Well, for Yankee fans, there
was much to remember and much to forget. The decade began with
the arrival of Roger Maris and ended with the arrival of Thurman
Munson. more
Yankees
in the '70s
For Yankee fans, there was no lower point than the team’s
entry into the 1970s. Long accustomed to winning regularly,
the fans had now been forced to accept mediocrity as the norm.
more
back
to the top
As
appeared in 2002, 2003 & 2004 Yankees Yearbook
Thurman
Munson #15
Thurman Munson was a fan’s player. But
it took a special breed of fan to see it – a New York
fan – and it was Thurman’s good fortune to play
before such a knowledgeable bunch of devotees. more
The
Birth of the Yankees
A hundred seasons ago, the New York Yankees were born.
To see the international recognition of the franchise’s
storied name today, it is hard to imagine how humble the origins
were. Like the majesty of Yankee Stadium vs. the wood and nails
of Hilltop Park, it has been, like New York City itself, a remarkable
hundred years of growth. more
back to the top
As
appeared as a foreword in N.Y. Yankees Collectibles, published
by Beckett
Yankee
Memorabilia
With the two world championship trophies earned by the
New York Yankees in the last three years, the nation has been
reminded again that for better or worse, love them or hate them,
this truly has been America’s Team, the national franchise.
more
back
to the top
As
appeared in New York Post, August 16, 2000
A
tribute to Whitey Ford
There was no truth to the oft-repeated story that after
clinching the Eastern League pennant for Binghamton in 1949,
20-year-old Whitey Ford wrote to Casey Stengel and said, “Bring
me up and I’ll win the pennant for you too.” more
back to the top
As
appeared in New York Daily News April 2002 Yankee Centennial Section
Bobby
Murcer's tribute to Thurman Munson
Thurman Munson’s death on August 2, 1979, shook us
all. It was a genuine “where were you when you heard the
news” moment. The misty night at Yankee Stadium after
his death, when we observed the lengthy period of silence and
the catcher’s position stood empty, was haunting. But
the game played against Baltimore on the night of his funeral,
August 6, was the most memorable of all. more
back to the top
As
appeared in Pinstripes -- New York Yankees Alumni News
Ever
Get Summoned to See the Boss in His Office?
If
you were a Yankee player, it was highly unlikely. Player visits
to Yankee executive offices were quite rare, especially prior
to 1968, when the offices were finally centralized in Yankee
Stadium. But it took 65 years for that to happen! For the better
part of seven decades, the Yankee offices were in Manhattan,
removed from the field of play. more
Frank
Messer
"Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a pleasure."
That was Frank Messer's signoff when he held the mike at the
end of a game, and the words could easily be volleyed back to
him by listeners. more
DiMaggio,
Mantle Passed the Torch in 1951
Astronomers and astrologers like to talk about planets
aligning, heavenly bodies appearing to overlap, and eclipses
caused by the positions of the sun and moon. more
1973 - Yankee Stadium's 50th Anniversary
1973 – thirty years ago - represented a remarkable
anniversary for Yankee Stadium. Not only was the ballpark turning
50, but it would be the last season in the original structure,
“The House that Ruth Built,” which had opened in
1923. more
Teresa Wright
Any Yankee fan worth his (or her) salt who hasn’t
seen Gary Cooper in Pride of the Yankees at least 15 times hasn’t
really passed the test of true belief. Sure, the dialogue seems
primitive, and yes, it doesn’t run on TV that much anymore,
but you still weep when Coop does his Lou Gehrig farewell speech,
and you still feel good for the big lug when he finds romance
with a fast Chicago girl named Eleanor Twitchell. more
back
to the top
As
appeared in Sports Cards Magazine
Joe
DiMaggio Farewell
Since we baseball fans like to live by the numbers, how
about this one – Joe DiMaggio attended 47 of the 48 Old
Timers Days held by the Yankees after his retirement, missing
only in 1987 when he was having a pacemaker installed. more
As
appeared in the 1999 World Series Official Program
Yogi
Berra Today
It wasn’t very long after Joe DiMaggio’s passing
that someone first used the term “greatest living Yankee”
in Yogi Berra’s presence. His reaction was very typical
of this proud and honest man. “Oh, geez, you got Rizzuto,
and you got Whitey…..I don’t know.” more
As
appeared in the Auction Catalog, Lelands.com
Evolution
of the Single Season Home Run Record
Can you set a single season home record before a season
is over? If the answer is yes, the first to hold baseball’s
most glamorous record was Ross Barnes of the Chicago White Stockings,
who hit the first home in National League history (his only
one that season), on May 2, 1876. If you want to be picky and
wait for the season to end, you would have to look to the long-forgotten
George Hall of Philadelphia, who clubbed five that season and
actually held the record for four years! more
As
appeared in The Jewish Press
Jewish Press
I should have paid more attention in Hebrew School.
I never knew I'd really be going to Israel.
But then again, while I was daydreaming about baseball when I should have been paying attention, I was preparing myself for a career in sports public relations, and that's what sent me to Israel, so I'm sure there are some Talmudic scholars out there who would see some biblical reason for this all coming together.
more
|
