The Baseball 100

Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100. NY: Avid Reader, 2021.

Near the end of the book, I took an informal poll of coworkers: Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, and Satchel Paige got votes as the best ever; they rank 2, 1, 4, and 10 in Joe's estimation, suggesting that, Family Feud style, he's got a good list. But what is this really about?

The Baseball 100 isn't a history, in the usual sense, though it is Posnanski's story of the sport. It's a list, obviously, purportedly ranking players from all eras against one another (though that's admittedly subjective, almost intended to start arguments). What's it about?  The players -- each essay is a short biography and discussion of the career, a little bit of amazing. Yet each is so much more: the book is a discussion of greatness: what is it, what does it require? It's about relationships, fathers and sons, players and fans, social roles. It's about memory and myth, too, because too many of the best players were excluded from competition, so we have no way to really know how Negro Leaguers compared except what comes down as legend, and the very real loss this unjustified exclusion caused for us all.

And it is, before I've even finished, one of my favorite books.

Foucault's Proof of the Soul

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. NY: Vintage, 1979.

This title used to be a staple of graduate programs in the humanities, although it now seems to have been largely replaced by Edward Said. In it, Foucault discusses the historical and philosophical rise of the modern prison system. It is, undeniably, one of the major works of twentieth century inquiry. More interestingly, in if Foucault proves that the soul exists.

Of course, Foucault requires an inference to make this proof, and it is immediately eviscerated by Occam’s razor, but it is nonetheless the best (perhaps only) logical proof available.

The soul, Foucault explains, must exist because prison creates it. Prison exists to punish, but also to correct the offender. What, then, is being affected by this change? This correction, this changed state, is exhibited in behavior, yes; what cause behavior to change? Well, the soul is changed--that, Foucault says, is the assumption upon which our philosophy of judicial discipline is built.

Never mind that simple learning is a better explanation for behavioral change in an offender. The soul exists, precisely because we require ti to exist as justification for our judicial approach. The soul is necessary to fulfill a function; that function is fulfilled; ergo, the soul exists.

Starting from Scratch

Rita Mae Brown, Starting from Scratch. NY: Bantam, 1988.

Subtitled “A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual,” it is definitely different. The first fifth is an admonition to be healthy, because that allows productivity: work requires food, sleep, and exercise! Oh, and learn Latin.

Now to writing. On plots: you’ll want one. Plot comes from character and conflict, e.g. self v self, another, the state, or nature. Those are your choices.

On to the subjunctive. You need it to explore emotions, the connections between character and characters, &c. Well, no, according to the noir authors. That’s (quite literally) immaterial, unobservable, and ultimately unknowable. It can only be “made up”, and thus calls attention to the fiction as fiction and, in effect, destroys the fiction. But it’s also generally the most interesting stuff, where we see the author exposed and learn how others might think. Oh, the conflict (and now we have a plot!).

That Latin mentioned earlier comes in handy for the section on symbolism, because you'll need you some of that, too. Maybe you need the symbols to express the (or a) painful truth honestly. Remember, its not art if you don’t.

Really, what Brown says is all important -- important background training for the trade, right down to her extensive reading list. More useful for one (who feels) ready to write are the exercises, and the short discussions of particular genre approaches for articles, stories, screenplays, and novels. Today’s publishing environment may be even more difficult to enter than what Brown faced, although the Internet does allow some writers to develop the critical audience mass necessary for publisher investment. Yet the book, now nearly twenty years old, is probably most important for autobiographical insight into an interesting author. For Brown, writing is just a (really good) job -- so get to work!

Oral Histories

Lawrence Ritter, The Glory of Their Times. NY: Macmillan, 1966.
Danny Peary, We Played the Game. NY: Tess, 1994.
John Carmichael, My Greatest Day in Baseball. Lincoln: U.Nebraska, 1996.
Michael Fedo, One Shining Season. NY: Pharos, 1991.
Mike Bryan, Baseball Lives. NY: Pantheon, 1989.

Oral history is about collecting a record of events from the participants, about passing on the important stories, and about creating a shared tradition. Famous examples include Beowulf, The Iliad, and The Odyssey -- the “prehistoric” basis of Western literature. These titles don’t go back quite that far, but they are an important part of what creates baseball’s common memory.

The Glory of Their Times is one of my five most important baseball books (the entire list is below). Somehow it wasn’t baseball’s first collection of oral histories; that might have been Carmichael, originally published in 1945. Yet Ritter’s dedication to tracking down the stars of his youth and recording their stories -- largely transcribed as spoken -- struck a chord with the public. In sessions with twenty-two men, all of whom played between 1899, when Wahoo Sam Crawford’s big-league career began, and 1945, when Paul Waner’s ended, he captured stories spanning the game’s history, from before the American League existed through the replacement players of the Second World War. These are the memories of a life in the game, the great plays, players, games, and characters that make the sport so fascinating, as told by the players themselves. Even better, an audio edition is also available, collected from Ritter’s original reel-to-reel recordings, allowing us to actually hear Fred Snodgrass laugh while remembering Victory Faust.

We Played the Game picks up where Ritter left off, with sixty-five players from between 1947 and 1964. This was the period of racial integration and Westward expansion, featuring the Baby Boomers and their heroes: Brooks Robinson, Ralph Kiner, and Don Newcombe are among the stars Peary sought out for interviews.

The eleven men in One Shining Season, however, were not stars: each only had one season in the Major Leagues. Their stories are no less interesting for the short stays, though, and the men perhaps remember more vividly what they did see.

The speakers in Baseball Lives are even more obscure, providing the view from baseball’s back stage. Bryan talks to everyone from the owner to the bus driver; from pitching instructor to orthopedist; player agent, grounds crew, and bat factory employee. This book creates a deep and vibrant backdrop for the game by foregrounding the support that makes our on-field entertainment possible.

These books are My Greatest Day’s legacy. Published in 1945 by collecting columns from among the Chicago Daily News archives, it is full of Hall of Famers remembering their greatest exploits. This one has an “as told to” approach, so it is doubtless heavily edited, but Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Hans Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson -- the entire first Hall of Fame class -- are among the forty-seven stars sharing stories here, describing some of the most famous moments from the game’s early history.

What is most appealing about these books? Each is preserving an individual, personal piece of history and introducing us to a real human who took part in what is, for most of us, as foreign and fantastic an experience as ancient Greece. These stories bring us closer to the game and help us remember that history goes beyond the record of numbers.


Everett's five most important Baseball Books (in alphabetical order)
  Ball Four
  Baseball Before We Knew It
  Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
  The Glory of Their Times
  Maybe I'll Pitch Forever


Honorable Mentions to the Seymours, The Babe Ruth Story, and Moneyball

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Marie Kondo, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up Berkeley, Ten Speed Press, 2014.

What gives you joy? That is what you should do, and what you should have. It determines what you should buy. Keeping tidy is easy: eliminate that which does not give you joy (an excellent argument for divorce, as well). Books are among the most difficult items to let go, because they 1) retain function and 2) contain information, giving them long shelf-life. They retain ‘value’, and the potential for joy, very well. But do you love this individual volume enough to keep it forever?

Among more than fifty paperbacks that didn’t make it are Tolkien, Steinbeck, Conrad, Kipling, Freud, Herman Hesse, D.H. Lawrence, and Henry James: cheap classics, most of which can be had from Project Gutenberg if ever wanted again. That leaves only 1200 or so to disappear en route to Kondo’s ideal collection size of between thirty and one hundred volumes.

Yeah, books are hard to let go.

The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball

David Nemec, The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball. NY: Donald I Fine, 1997.

Encyclopedia (from the Greek for ‘general education’): a work that treats comprehensively all the various branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles arranged alphabetically (emphasis added); also, such a work treating only a particular branch of knowledge -- Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

This is an amazing book, but it is not a encyclopedia. While it presents a comprehensive view of Major League baseball -- that is, the National Association, National League, American Association, Union Association, and Players’ League -- from its founding to 1900, after which the American League gave the game its current shape, it is not arranged as a ready reference resource. It is, instead, arranged chronologically -- and instead of breaking its subject down to the atomic level and leaving us to reassemble the story from our choice of pieces, it presents a clear prose narrative.

Nemec, in a precise but personal voice, summarizes each season. These formative years are often discussed, but solid information -- even a basic as complete, team-by-team and season-by-season rosters -- was scattered among various sources or even uncollected before Nemec brought together rosters; team hitting, pitching, and fielding records; standings; and league leader boards compiled over a lifetime of research. It may be the best single volume for quick understanding of pro ball’s early development. But we can’t turn to “A” and find Cap Anson, so let’s call it The Great Book of 19th Century Major League Baseball.

Peter Morris, Base Ball Founders and Base Ball Pioneers

Peter Morris, et al, Base Ball Founders. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013.
                   _____, Base Ball Pioneers, 1850 - 1870. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.

Base Ball Founders is the second volume of a project exploring the early development and spread of baseball in the late nineteenth century, when it went form a New England variant of a traditional children’s game to the National Pastime in only fifty years.

The “et al” above is a top-notch team of baseball historians, led by Morris, an inaugural winner of the Henry Chadwick award for lifetime achievement. He and William Ryczek, Jan Finkel, Leonard Levin, and Richard Malatzky, with occasional others, take turns penning chapters about important teams of the time. In Founders, they focus on the Boston to Philadelphia corridor where the New York derivative of rounders developed into what we now call baseball. New York City, Brooklyn, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Massachusetts are each represented by six to ten teams. Each team record gives a club history, and some have player biographies or accounts of significant games. Each also includes a list of resources consulted.

Base Ball Pioneers, the companion volume, explores the game’s dispersal. Following the same format, Pioneers covers teams in ten outlying areas, from Maine and Connecticut, to San Francisco. Each volume is nicely indexed, and this set is a valuable reference. It works especially well when paired with David Block’s Baseball Before We Knew It and John Thorn’s Base Ball in the Garden of Eden, by providing a human face for the history told in those titles.

Joan Kaplowitz, Transforming information literacy instruction using Learner-Centered Teaching. NY: Neal-Schuman, 2012.

Joan Kaplowitz, Transforming information literacy instruction using Learner-Centered Teaching. NY: Neal-Schuman, 2012.

Kaplowitz brings an evangelical focus to bibliographic instruction, and in so doing, delivers a message that is more widely applicable than her chosen audience. She believes that we learn best when actively participating in the process, and uses the example of a typical library-based research class to show a wide variety of methods for giving CPR to our teaching.

CPR actually describes the student’s role in her education: Collaboration, Practice, and Responsibility. Kaplowitz shows how working in groups--collaboration--reinforces learning, how practice makes the skills more permanent, and that responsibility for one’s learning leads to better outcomes. One of these is not like the other, though, and a more appropriate R would be Reflection--another technique she discusses, and an act, rather than an attitude, thus more in keeping with the other two legs of her acronym.

But that is picking nits. The message is well supported by both research and anecdotal experience, and the methods for moving from an information-transfer approach to an information application approach begin with small steps. Kaplowitz argues convincingly that we can, and should, make the move to more active classrooms.

Jackie Robinson & Alfred Duckett, I Never Had It Made

Jackie Robinson & Alfred Duckett, I Never Had It Made. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972.

Robinson is good enough to credit his long-time ghost-writer conspicuously; otherwise, we might wonder why a twentieth-century Black activist sounds like an Edwardian gentleman.

Most people will pick up an autobiography from a Hall of Fame baseball star expecting to read about baseball. People picking up Robinson’s book are already familiar with his role as the first Black man in organized ball since the 1800s, and would also expect to read about is struggle to integrate the game. And we do get that, for 134 of 287 pages. It isn’t how Robinson defines himself, and he doesn’t dwell on what is already well documented.

No, Robinson is writing to point out that he was a civil rights leader even after, outside of, baseball. We get a bit about family--nothing in the book is more personal or more moving than a frank assessment of his relationship with Jackie Jr. We get business and politics, fields into which his fame allowed entry, where he did seem to work diligently to change the culture and create opportunity for the disenfranchised. We also see inside disagreements with Malcolm X and fundraising for Martin Luther King. Overall, the book is a reminder that life goes on after the game is over, and that what comes next can--and should--be even more important.

Percentage Baseball

Earnshaw Cook, Percentage Baseball. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966.

Percentage Baseball is a landmark in baseball writing: by applying the methods of statistical analysis and probability to the corpus of Major League statistics, Cook opened a new field to research. Bill James and all who have followed can only be thankful. However, like the Ypsilanti watertower, this landmark has certain obvious faults.

First among these is an over-reliance on statistical method. This would seem an odd complaint about a book of statistical analysis, but Cook's inability to connect the dots must be real if he consistently confuses a Phi Beta Kappa. Part of this may be his relegation of reams to appendixes, but part is also his frequent, seemingly arbitrary, substitution of values in his various equations
.
As an arts major, though, one becomes accustomed to skipping over impenetrable equations. Cook asserts that his numbers work, and we choose to believe him. When he fails to apply their results consistently, however, he immediately loses credibility. His constant ranting against the sacrifice bunt, when compared to his charts of scoring probability for each base and out situation, lead one to question whether he has read his own material.

In spite of these faults, and in spite of reading more like a textbook than the usual baseball fare, Cook's opus is worth the time necessary to quickly skim the text. His ideas are revolutionary, if not all sound, and his passion is apparent even through the turgid prose of a mid-century academic. Even if the only benefit is to provide context for Philip Roth and Rob Neyer, Percentage Baseball is a book every baseball fan should know (if not fully understand).

The Accidental Law Librarian

Anthony Aycock, The Accidental Law Librarian.  Medford, NJ: 2013, Information Today.

The Accidental Librarian series is intended to provide working professionals with an introduction to new areas of practice, be they technologies or subjects.  In this volume, Aycock—who has worked in academic, court, and corporate law libraries—covers the basics: types of law, types of questions, and types of materials and sources.  It is a nice, easily-readable primer, and combined with something like West’s Legal Research in a Nutshell, would be an adequate foundation for a librarian to confidently step into a law library with tools enough to begin.

Of course, it is only an introduction, and Aycock provides plenty of pointers to additional resources.  While far from everything one needs to know, having spent several years in the field, I can say it would have been helpful to have this available when I started.  Recommended for both mid-career professionals entering a new field and new librarians just choosing their paths.

Hit by Pitch

Molly Lawless, Hit by Pitch.  Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.

This graphic novelization tracks the weirdly parallel lives of Ray Chapman and Carl Mays from their childhoods in Kentucky, thought the fatal collision of Mays' pitch with Chapman's head, and--for Mays, at least, beyond.  The well-researched story is told though vignettes about the main characters, from varying perspectives, and illustrated with figures reminiscent of Eward Gory.  While the story is a bit dark, telling as it does of the only on-field death during a Major League baseball game, it isn't gruesome or violent, and is an important piece of baseball history, presented in a way that is appropriate and enjoyable for anyone eight or older.

Thomas Healy, The Great Dissent

Thomas Healy, The Great Dissent.  NY: Metropolitan, 2013.

Legislative history--the process of determining what a law was intended to mean--is generally very dull stuff: reading memos, committee reports, and testimony transcripts is only fun for the first few hours.  Healy, though, teaches law (at Seton Hall University), so he both knows how to do that sort of research, and how to make the work engaging.

Which is fortunate, because his subject is one of our most important laws: the first amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees our rights of expression, religion, and peaceable assembly.  While this law has been on the books since 1791, it was only in 1919 that we began to understand it as actually limiting the government's ability to prosecute people for what they say.  That we can now disagree openly about government policy or protest against its actions is directly due to a change in the way Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, interpreted the words.

This book, unfortunately, comes too late.  By recounting one judge's evolution, occurring during the high communist paranoia after World War I, Healy shows the importance of this debate--and the importance of standing against governmental tyranny, something sorely lacking in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when fear of terrorism and the resulting Patriot Act chilled discourse; something we still struggle with as the NSA vacuums us every scrap of electronic data; something we traded for a false feeling of security.  Holmes' courage--to change his mind, to stand against the majority, and to support freedom over fear--should stand as an inspiration for us all, and Healy presents it as a readable political thriller.  This should be required reading in high school civics classes.

Larry Lester, Rube Foster in His Time. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.


Not a standard biography, but a documentary history like Dean Sullivan’s Early-Middle-Late-Final Innings series, this portrait of the Negro National League’s founder is not an easy read. While material is presented in an orderly fashion and nicely tied together with clear narrative text, much of it still consists of stilted prose from over a hundred years ago—items transcribed as found in obscure newspapers, court documents, and the other historical source material from which biography is derived.

This approach, while not as easy to read as a pre-digested retelling of a life, has the advantage of showing Andrew Foster as he was seen by his contemporaries—as a truly great pitcher, who threw seven no-hitters (a number equaled by only Nolan Ryan at the Major League level), and an organizational genius who, during a period of intense racial inequality, built and controlled a nation-wide entertainment enterprise through sheer will and perseverance. Lester, editor of the scholarly Negro-Leagues journal Black Ball and CEO of NoirTech Research, has done both us and Foster a service by compiling this material and making possible a fuller understanding of this giant figure in baseball’s development.

The Neyer / James Guide to Pitchers

Bill James and Rob Neyer, The Neyer / James Guide to Pitchers. NY: Fireside, 2004.
This volume fills a gaping hole in the baseball reference library. The bulk of it is an encyclopedic compendium of (almost) all Major League pitchers, listing not their statistical records, but, as can best be determined, what each actually threw—something that had never before been aggregated, or in some cases, even recorded.
Additionally, the authors provide detailed discussion of the various pitches, looking at the historical development, alternative names, and most successful practitioners of each; a debate about pitcher abuse; and short biographies of several outstanding but under-appreciated former stars.

John Tortes “Chief” Meyers: A Baseball Biography

William A. Young, John Tortes “Chief” Meyers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.

“Chief” is the head man; it is a title of diffidence. As applied to John Tortes Meyers, All-Star catcher for John McGraw’s New York Giants, it is a fitting title: the Dartmouth-educated Meyers was an outstanding hitter and well-regarded field general who might have made the Hall of Fame if his career had been a bit longer. Yet during his playing days, “Chief” was used as an insult, not a compliment, because Meyers was a Native American, from the Cahuilla tribe.

This well-documented, yet readable, biography naturally focuses on Meyers’ playing career, but also explores his youth in California, the racial insensitivity he and other Natives faced, and his life and career after baseball. While the challenges Jackie Robinson faced in breaking baseball’s color line are well-known, Meyers (and other Natives, like Albert Bender, Jim Thorpe, and Allie Reynolds) faced similar abuse—yet were never excluded from the game, as Blacks were. This volume gives new appreciation for their struggle, while giving one of the Deadball-era’s best catchers much-overdue recognition.

Tom Reiss, The Black Count.

Tom Reiss, The Black Count. NY: Crown, 2012.


This detailed biography of Alex Dumas, father to the author of (and inspiration for the title character in) The Count of Monte Cristo, is the first such effort based on documentary evidence. It recounts the tale of a black man from the Caribbean who rose through the Revolutionary French Army to command three armies before running afoul of Napoleon, in the process relating a now-forgotten ugly aspect of The Little Emperor’s reign: reversing the first anti-slavery laws, which had allowed Dumas to show is skills.

With index, notes, and a detailed bibliography, The Black Count is a thorough and scholarly work, yet Reiss has a very readable, almost conversational tone. The book should be enjoyable for all ages—the story is nearly as exciting as a Dumas-pere novel, and should be a good addition to any public library collection.

Lowell L Blaisdell, Carl Hubbell: A biography of the Screwball King. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011.

This is an overdue biography of the National League’s best left-handed pitcher of the 1930s—only his American League contemporary Lefty Grove matched his 200 wins in ten years, and Hubbell was elected to the Hall of Fame for his 253 wins over a fifteen year career. Unfortunately, it is also an arm-chair history, based entirely on previously published material. The author did make an effort to contact Hubbell’s descendants, he was unable to speak with anyone from the family, and apparently did not try contacting others who may have known Hubbell personally. While the extensive references Blaisdell provides are appreciated, this leaves him with a one-dimensional portrait of the pitcher; combined with the academic tone of a former history professor, the result is less than easily readable. The book does, however, reminder the aspiring author that passive voice is to be avoided.

Jim Abbott and Tim Brown, Imperfect: An improbable life. NY: Ballantine, 2012.

Jim Abbott spent ten years as a left-handed pitcher in the Major Leagues, earning nearly $13,000,000 (and an Olympic gold medal), in spite of being born without a right hand.

Interspersing inning-by-inning reports of the no-hitter he threw in 1993, and drawing parallels between that game and him personal development, gives this memoir focus and momentum generally lacking in sports (auto)biographies. Very thoughtful and well-written, this volume will be inspirational for any audience.

Andrew Finkbeiner, Mopar B-Body Performance Upgrades 1962-79. New York: S-A Design, 2012


My neighbor collects the Plymouth Fury: she has a ’66, a ’73, and a tattoo on her shoulder. While the Fury isn’t exactly a muscle car—it was a C-body, while the models discussed here are B-bodies—it has enough common components to make her comments valuable.

She tells me this book is nicely organized; each chapter is sufficiently self-contained to explain a project, but builds on explanations for those previous. Illustrations are crisp, well-captioned, and useful. The text provides both general background explanation and specific pointers or techniques; Finkbeiner, also an attorney, clearly knows how to organize information and write well, making this volume much easier to follow than the old Chilton manuals. And while those volumes are still necessary for detailed reference (Finkbeiner does not get to the wiring-diagram level of detail), this book provides the theory to make those diagrams understandable.