Back To The Cradle

The complete title of this book is: “Crazy ‘08 – How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History”. That’s kind of a long title. The author is Cait Murphy. It was published in 2007.

I would first like to share with you how this book moved to the head of the line, bypassing all others on my bookshelf. It was all because of the back cover.

The testimonial at the top of the back cover is from George Will:

• “A rollicking tour of that season that will entertain readers interested in social history, will fascinate students of baseball and will cause today’s Cub fans to experience an unaccustomed feeling – pride.”

The next testimonial, from the Washington Times, states:

• “If you’re any kind of fan, you ought to relish and revel in this wonderful book.”

And, at the bottom of the back cover, accompanying a photo of the author, her mini-bio includes the following:

• “Cait Murphy….A former Little League infielder, Murphy played softball at Amherst College, where she received her degree in American Studies. She does not throw like a girl.”

Based upon those three indicators, I decided to read this one next.

Ms. Murphy dedicates the book:

• “To my two biggest fans: my father and mother.”

Among the acknowledgments, the author states:

• “My father, John Cullen Murphy, did not live to see publication, but it is to him I owe the idea behind ‘Crazy ‘08’.”

In the Foreword, Robert W. Creamer observes about the author’s work:

• “She gives you the boisterous City of Chicago…as it was almost a hundred years ago, before the proliferation of radio, television, airplanes, automobiles, computers, cell phones, ATMs, BlackBerrys, and the like.”

Mr. Creamer adds:

• “Her spring training, for example, isn’t the antiseptic, analytical baseball laboratory of today….It’s a rowdy, ramshackle, often badly organized, sometimes dangerous, sometimes hilarious adventure.”

I should point out that, although Ms. Murphy’s dad grew up near Wrigley Field, he moved with his family to New York in 1930 and switched his allegiance to the Giants. Cait herself was born and raised in New York City as a Mets fan. Her bias in this story of the 1908 season (if she has one) might be somewhat New York centric. I mean that in a good way.

I must say that Cait Murphy is fluent in the idioms of baseball and is able to coin an insider’s turn of phrase, for example: “Score it a run-off home run.”

In addition to describing the action on the field, the author includes in the discussion: racism in MLB, suicides associated with MLB, “The Irishness” of MLB, anarchists, coal mining, gambling, hoo-doo, and other related story lines.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• “Baseball never sleeps; instead, it huddles around the metaphorical hot stove to rehash the past and dicker about the future.”

• “The rule of thumb seemed to be that when bosses joined together, that was red-blooded capitalism; when workers tried to do so, that was anti-American socialism.”

• “A young ballplayer looks on his first spring training as a theaterstruck young woman regards the stage,” wrote Christy Mathewson. Veterans see it for what it is: “the hardest five weeks’ grind in the world.”

• “The fans of 1908 would have boggled at that description. Their Cubs are not lovable and they are not losers; the players would have kicked in the teeth of anyone who dared call them the ‘Cubbies’.”

• “They were grizzlies, these Cubs,” a Washington sportswriter would write. “Ursine Colossi who towered high and frowningly and refused to reckon on anything but victory.”

• “Baseball is a sport whose moral boundaries are, to put it diplomatically, ill defined.”

• “The area has one great advantage, being at an intersection for numerous trolley lines, which is how the Brooklyn “Trolley Dodgers” got their name.”

• “I have never been much of an AL fan – the designated hitter and the Yankees being the two main reasons.”

• “There ain’t much to being a ballplayer,” Wagner says, “if you’re a ballplayer.”

Ms. Murphy includes a comprehensive twenty one page bibliography or list of sources which will be referred to in the future.

The edition which I have also includes a ten page Q & A with the author at the back.

So, what can I tell you about “Crazy ‘08”? Well, both of my grandfathers were 13 years old in 1908. One of them was living on the north side of Chicago at that time, and was probably a Cubs fan.

The language of 1908, which Ms. Murphy recalls so well in “Crazy ‘08”, is the language which those grandparents spoke in my lifetime.

I enjoyed reading “Crazy ‘08” for the baseball stories, and for the collateral related topics as well.

I would like to thank the publisher, HarperCollins/Smithsonian Books for providing me with a copy of the book to read and review.

I recommend Cait Murphy’s “Crazy ‘08” very highly, particularly to those with an interest in putting on their history goggles and going for an adventure.

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A Florida Spring Training “Go-By”?

The title of Tim Dorsey’s latest novel is “Gator a-go-go”. It was published in 2010.

All of Tim Dorsey’s novels have been set in Florida, and this one is no exception. The concept is that Serge and Coleman (aka “Captain Florida & Lord of the Binge”) participate in “Spring Break” for the purpose of creating a video documentary of the annual event.

Along the way Serge metes out justice, and Coleman provides comic relief.

A sticker on the book spine says “Mystery”. One of the testimonials on the back cover calls Tim Dorsey “the undisputed king of the comic crime novel”. I think “comic crime novel” is a more accurate description of the genre than “mystery”.

I have to warn everyone that there are plenty of F-Bombs and other potentially offensive words and activities included here, as in all of Tim Dorsey’s novels. I was certainly not offended in the least.

The action occurs in Panama City, Daytona Beach, and Fort Lauderdale with plenty of other locations included. Some of the action takes place at a place called “The Alligator Arms”. Many historical references are presented.

I have been waiting for the release of this book for some months now, and it was well worth the wait. I found myself pleasantly amused by the reading. It brought many smiles.

I recommend this one very highly. It’s a treasure.

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Set The “Wayback Machine” For 1945!!

We were sitting comfortably in the waiting room of my dad’s oncologist. We were there for his one year post-chemo follow up exam.

I took this book, which I intended to start reading, out from my day pack and showed it to him. He read the title: “Wrigley Field’s Last World Series – The Wartime Chicago Cubs And The Pennant Of 1945” by Charles N. Billington, with the photography of George Brace. Foreword by Andy Pafko.

As he read those words and looked at the photos on the cover, his face broke into a big smile, like he was seeing an old friend again, after a long separation.

“1945. Charley Grimm was the manager. I was at Fort Worth, Texas.” he said, handing the book back to me.

“Ft. Worth?” I asked. “What were you doing there?”

The smile was replaced with a sigh of exasperation. The retired schoolteacher was going to have to repeat the lesson one more time. He spoke slowly and deliberately:

“The war ended in August. This was October. They didn’t know what to do with us. They sent me to Mountain Home, Idaho for a while, then to Ft. Worth, Texas. Eventually I made it back home to Chicago.”

Yeah, I guess he did. My mom and dad were married in Chicago on Valentine’s Day, 1946. My sister arrived nine months and two weeks later. I made my grand entrance three years after that, on a Friday night, between sets.

The smile returned. “I lost $5.00 to a guy from Detroit.”

“How’d that happen?” I asked, innocently.

The exasperation returned. “He wanted the Tigers. They won the series.”

“But dad,” I countered. “You know that you never bet on the Cubs after the 4th of July”. CubbieDude logic.

Another big sigh, accompanied this time by an “are you puttin’ me on?” look: “He was from DETROIT!”

End of lesson, grasshopper.

The five paragraph summary on the back cover tells us that, (despite my lovely wife’s opinion to the contrary):

- “On the eve of world War II, baseball truly was America’s national pastime.”

And it continues:

- “One thing is clear: 1945, the last time the Cubs went to the World Series, was a turning point in the team’s fortune. For in the first half of the twentieth century, few teams were as good as Chicago; in the second half, few teams were as bad.”

- “Incorporating statistical analysis, descriptions of key teams, and player biographies, Billington paints an evolving and exciting portrait of the 1945 Cubs and the wider national baseball scene of a war-torn era.”

I enjoyed reading about the effects that World War II had on life in general, and on baseball in specific.

I especially enjoyed reading about life on the Northside for Cubs players as the season began, including interesting dollar amounts.

I also enjoyed reading about the exhibition game on July, 25 between the Cubs and the Great Lakes Naval Station Bluejackets at Constitution Field in North Chicago, Illinois. (The Cubs lost 1-0.)

Mr. Billington (“The Pride of St. Olaf College”) closes the book by listing five reasons the Cubs’ fortunes in the last half of the twentieth century were so different from those of the first half.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

- “Americans’ interest in baseball in the late 1930s was such that roughly 330 cities boasted professional minor league teams.”

- “Lou Boudreau, Phil Cavarretta, Marty Marion, Hal Newhouser, Ernie Lombardi, and Mort Cooper are just a few of the many excellent ballplayers with 4-F classifications.”

- “In 1941 Chicago became the first team to install an organ in their stadium for the enjoyment of the fans;”

- “Helping the team’s bottom line were the tremendous concession sales, $121,145, dwarfing the amounts received by other teams.”

- “While the fans probably heard the national anthem before the opening game on April 17, the song was not sung at every game but was saved for special events. At the time, this was also the practice of the armed forces; the national anthem was performed only on special occasions, such as national holidays. ‘There is a difference between patriotism and commercialization,’ Wrigley would explain.”

- “He also set an unrecorded record that will almost certainly never be broken, striking out only nine times in 636 at bats, an unheard-of ratio for anyone with his power production.”

- “DiMaggio set a new major league record by hitting four grand slam home runs in one season.”

While I was not physically present for the events recounted in this excellent book, I feel like I arrived on the scene soon enough afterward to have been catching fleeting glimpses of shadows and ghosts my whole life. “Wrigley Field’s Last World Series” helped to flesh-out those shadows, to fill in the blanks as it were.

So join me. Set the “Wayback Machine” for 1945. Put on your retrospectoscopes. Travel to a different time, not all that long ago.

I truly enjoyed reading this book. I recommend it very highly, especially to those with an interest in the World War II era.

I want to thank Lake Claremont Press in Chicago for providing me with a copy of this book to read and review.

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What Is He Reading, Now?

The title of this book is “Chicago Cubs Yesterday & Today”, with text by Steve Johnson. It was first published in 2008.

Let’s start with the front cover. The lower photo, which I assume was taken from a luxury box, is of Wrigley Field during a game, with the stands filled, under a clear blue sky.

The upper photo, thanks to modern technology, appears to show a color image of Carlos Zambrano (from 2007) pitching to a black and white image of Joe Tinker (from 1910).

I have to tell you, when I received this book, which was provided to me by Voyageur Press (www.voyageurpress.com), I thought: “WOW !! – Look at these pictures!”

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines “coffee table book” as: “a large, lavishly produced book with many illustrations and, often, an inferior text, especially one regarded as being for ostentatious display, as on a coffee table.”

Make no mistake about it, “Chicago Cubs Yesterday & Today” could sit very well on a coffee table, where it might serve to alleviate boredom and inspire conversation. It is oversized and visually oriented. It contains beautiful (stunning, even) photographs and illustrations. And it is a well constructed, hardcover book.

But “Chicago Cubs Yesterday & Today” does not approach its subject superficially. Steve Johnson’s text is detailed and in depth, worthy of more than just a light read. I learned a lot reading the text in this book. And it was fun.

My dad, (The World’s Greatest Living Cubs Fan), looked the book over and said: “This looks like a good book.” I asked him: “What is it that you like about it?” He replied: “It’s good because it’s modern and old”.

As usual, he hit the nail on the head.

This book is a loving look at almost 140 years of Cubs history. We’re treated to a review of the players, position by position. We also see fans, ball parks, owners and managers, and other topics of interest to members of Cubs Nation.

I enjoyed reading and looking at “Chicago Cubs Yesterday & Today”. I recommend it very highly, especially to Cubs fans of all stripes.

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Chet Coppock’s New Book Is Here

I was browsing the new books shelf at a Chicago Public Library branch when this cover jumped out at me.

We got a chin resting on a hand, an Elvis sneer, shades, beaver fur collar, and the words: “Chet Coppock” staring us in the face.

All I know about Chet Coppock is that he was once one of the models for a character named “Chet Chit-Chat”, and even that memory is pretty vague.

The full title of this book is “Fat Guys Shouldn’t Be Dancin’ At Halftime – An Irreverent Romp Through Chicago Sports”, with Foreword by Mark Giangreco.

There are chapters about football, baseball, basketball and hockey, with an additional three mop ‘em up chapters full of miscellaneous peripheral topics.

Included in the baseball chapter are articles about the following subjects:
- Bartman,
- The Cell vs. Wrigley Field,
- The Marquee at Wrigley,
- Sammy Sosa,
- Bruce Levine,
- Andre Dawson/HOF,
- Cubs vs. Brewers at Miller Park (one of my personal favorites),
- Ron Santo the Broadcaster,
- The Five Inning Quality Start,
- The Cubs Convention,
- Skybox On Sheffield, and
- Talk Show Baseball, among others.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes from former Bears linebacker Doug Buffone:
- “I had an offer to play for San Diego in the old AFL, and it paid more money than the Bears were offering. But I told the Chargers, ‘I was raised in cold weather, I need snow. I’m not gonna play in some town with fu**in’ palm trees.’”

After reading the book, methinks maybe Mr. Coppock spends too much time following professional sports for his own good.

On the other hand, I did enjoy reading some of the short pieces and I recommend the book to fans of Chicago professional sports.

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Breathe Deeply, Exhale Slowly

I can honestly say that when the Cubs signed Milton Bradley (I believe it was during January of 2009), I had never heard of him. I knew nothing about the history of personal problems which have been rehashed ubiquitously since then. Problems with umpires? I knew nothing. Problems with announcers? Ditto. Problems with anger management? Not on my radar.

I didn’t know Milton Bradley from the man in the moon.

I do not think that mental illness is a laughing matter. I don’t think mental illness is something to make fun of, or to joke about. I also don’t think mental illness is something to be overlooked in structuring a long term, multimillion dollar contract.

I was recently reminded of the time when the Cubs traded Lou Brock to the Cardinals for Ernie Broglio. Ernie Broglio, a former multiyear 20 game winner with St. Louis, won less than 20 games total for the Cubs over the next 3 years.

Current reports are that Broglio, prior to the trade, had incurred an injury, a physical infirmity, which might have been identified during a physical exam, had such an exam occurred in conjunction with the trade.

Did the Cardinals know about the preexisting condition? I don’t know. Were they required to disclose the existence of any such condition? I don’t know. Did Ernie Broglio take it upon himself to mention it? I don’t know. Was he required to? I don’t know.

Back then, successful completion of a routine physical exam as a condition of the trade was not commonly required. Now, of course, I cannot imagine a player trade or a free agent signing NOT being contingent upon obtaining a clean bill of physical health.

So, maybe, in the aftermath of Mr. Bradley’s recent situation with the Chicago Cubs, ball clubs will require psychiatric/psychological testing prior to entering into agreements with free agents or with other teams. I expect the player’s union to oppose such a development on the grounds of player confidentiality or some such consideration. But the Cubs/Milton Bradley train wreck demonstrates that the time for universal psychological/psychiatric testing of major league ballplayers has arrived. For the good of the game.

At the very least, the industry standard might evolve to include a clause mandating that player contracts will be voided should a mental illness develop or should a mental disorder become evident during the life of the agreement.

Clearly, there is no upside to the Cubs/Bradley situation. It’s not good for the player. It’s not good for the team. It’s not good for Major League Baseball. It’s not good for the fans. It’s a bad situation. I hope the Chicago Cubs have learned their lesson.

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23 Days In July

I remember that last July, when The View From The Bleachers hosted its political shoot-’em-out about health care reform, I was minding my own business following coverage of the Tour de France.

Here’s a book which looks into the phenomenon of “Le Tour de France”, specifically the Tour of 2004.

The title of this book is “23 Days In July – Inside Lance Armstrong’s Record-Breaking Tour De France Victory”. It is written by John Wilcockson with photographs by Graham Watson.

After his first Tour victory Lance Armstrong said: “I want to be remembered as the first cancer survivor to win the Tour.” At that time, the only other American to have won a Tour was Greg LeMond, who had won three (1986, 1989, 1990).

As the action in this book begins, Lance Armstrong has won five consecutive Tours de France (1999-2003), and is preparing for his unprecedented sixth in a row. There are four men who had won five Tours prior to Lance Armstrong:
- Jacques Anquetil (France) 1957-1964
- Eddy Merckx (Belgium) 1969-1974
- Bernard Hinault (France) 1978-1985
- Miguel Indurain (Spain) 1991-1995

No one had ever won six Tours before Lance did it. He has currently won seven, and he will be back in 2010.

“23 Days In July” is divided into chapter a day installments. The scheduled activities for each day are listed at the beginning of the respective chapter. The author presents a historical perspective of each route, including towns and landmarks along the way. He speaks with Lance and other cyclists, journalists, as well as locals and visitors.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

- “Live high – train low.”

- Although daily drug tests remain a deterrent, they rarely reveal a true cheat. They’re more likely to catch out someone…who unwittingly absorbs a banned drug…”

- “There are still some idiots who dope, but if we made the decision to ban them for life, they wouldn’t be there.”

- “Even riders who don’t cheat run the risk of having a career ruined by a positive drug test for something they didn’t know they ingested. The list of banned drugs in cycling, and other Olympic sports, has become so long that if ordinary citizens were subjected to frequent drug tests they would probably come up positive more often than not.”

- “Until 1910, Tour de France pioneers saw these mountains only from afar. Then, Alphonse Steines, a sportswriter with L’Auto, suggested to his editor, Tour organizer Henri Desgrange, that a stage over the highest passes in the Pyrenees would do wonders for the race’s popularity.”
“…Desgrange and Steines had hit upon the formula that transformed their race from being merely heroic to being truly mythical.”

- “There is no need for Armstrong to win, since he already has a comfortable lead over all his rivals. But he wants to win. He wants to prove he is the best. The best climber . . . the best sprinter . . . the best leader , , , the best time trialist.”

- “Some say it was a miracle that any man could overcome life-threatening cancer, come back to his sport, and win its most prestigious and grueling event six years in a row.”
“Some say there are no miracles, just miracle drugs, and cast aspersions on a man who has always tested clean.”

“23 Days In July” was a very special book for me, because I was already following the Tour back then. I had watched each day of the 2004 Tour on TV, and so I was somewhat familiar with the players and situations described herein.

John Wilcockson (with Graham Watson’s photographs) has written an illuminating history of 23 very special days in July.

I enjoyed reading it. I couldn’t put it down.

I recommend “23 Days In July” to those familiar with bike racing and Le Tour, to those who know nothing about this subject, and to all those in between.

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Baseball, Chicago Style

I enjoyed the previous book I read by Jerome Holtzman, so I decided to try another. This one was written by Jerome Holtzman and George Vass. The full title is “Baseball, Chicago Style – A Tale of Two Teams, One City”. It was published in 2001.

First of all, that title reminded me of the TV comedy show from the 70s: “Love, American Style”, the stupid theme song of which is going through my head right now. And the name of that TV show reminded me of the Marcello Mastroianni movie “Divorce, Italian Style” from the 60s.

And so we have: “Baseball, Chicago Style”. As you might guess, this is a book about the two teams currently known as “The Chicago Cubs” and “The Chicago White Sox”.

I know I’ve said this before, but the White Sox might as well have been playing on the moon for all I know about them. I don’t have anything against them, I just never paid any attention to them.

And since I only followed the Cubs during the 50s and 60s, and again during the past year and a half, there’s a lot I don’t know about them, too.

I enjoyed reading this book. It describes, with 20/20 hindsight, what was happening to these teams simultaneously, since at least as far back as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and up through the 2001 season.

Here are some favorite excerpts:

- “If we cannot be first we care not for second, which is but the anteroom to oblivion,”

- “Times have changed. Today the women don’t shoot. They sue.”

- “He could speak 12 languages, but couldn’t hit in any of them.”

- “According to some people…losing is the worst thing in the world. Well, it isn’t. What’s worse is allowing yourself to be eaten alive by it.”

- “In a perverse way, 1948 was a ‘miracle season’, the White Sox and Cubs accomplishing the unprecedented and uncomfortable feat of both finishing in last place in the same year.”

- “Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko, an ardent, if realistic and hard-bitten, Cub fan, remarked whimsically: ‘Maybe that’s what they should put on his plaque when he goes into the Hall of Fame: ‘Ryne Sandberg, who walked away from one of the biggest paychecks in baseball, because he didn’t think he was earning it’.’”

- “Either a brief burst of hope followed by a period of despair, or a period of despair followed by a brief burst of hope.
It’s been that way since 1946, and the Cubs have always run strictly true to that inconsistent pattern since their last pennant in 1945.”

- “Rather than attract fans with his batting prowess, Belle repelled them with a surly, belligerent attitude.”

- “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Well, I was born great.”

- “Wrigley’s principal concern was maintaining ‘Beautiful Wrigley Field,’ more than the team itself. ‘We can’t guarantee a winning team,’ he said, ‘but we can guarantee the physical properties. We can take care of that’.”

- “To Grimm, baseball was fun, not war.”

- “I’d rather be a lamppost in Chicago than a millionaire in any other city.”

- “a manager must adapt his style to what material he’s got. There’s no other way to do it.”

The front cover proclaims: “Cubs- Sox Pictures, Bios and Anecdotes Capturing the Best and the Most Memorable”. Also: “Untold Stories about the Black Sox Scandal and Cubs Intrigue”

I enjoyed reading “Baseball, Chicago Style”, and I recommend it to any and all with an interest in Chicago baseball history.

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Jerome Holtzman Baseball Reader

The title is: “The Jerome Holtzman Baseball Reader”, a compilation of Jerome Holtzman’s “favorite offerings from five decades of chronicling our national pastime”.

Before I read this book, although I had heard of Mr. Holtzman, I didn’t really know very much about him. Here’s some background:

He was born in Chicago (in 1926) and grew up in an orphanage on the West Side (the Marks Nation Jewish Orphan Home). He spent two years in the marines.

He wrote for Chicago newspapers for over 50 years. Jerome began covering baseball in 1957, following both the Cubs and White Sox. He created the save statistic in 1959, which was adopted as an official statistic for the 1969 season. The save was the first new official statistic in MLB since the RBI was introduced in 1920.

Following his retirement as a newspaper writer in 1999, Mr. Holtzman served as the official historian for Major League Baseball until his death on July 19, 2008.

Here are some excerpts from the book:

- “I contend that any pitcher, win or lose, who pitches nine innings of shutout ball should be given credit for a winning performance.”

In 1946 Bob Feller “led the majors with a one-season record 368 strikeouts. He struck out every regular American League position player with one exception”.

This is all the more remarkable because Mr. Feller spent the previous four years on active duty in the Navy (during WW2). As a matter of fact, Bob Feller spent 34 months aboard the USS Alabama prior to his discharge in August, 1945.

I want to tell you, I’ve been aboard the USS Alabama. (She is a floating museum in Mobile Bay.) It was noisy, hot and uncomfortable. And that was welded to the pier with no one shooting at us.

As an aside, “the Alabama never lost a man in an enemy action, then or later. It was known as the ‘Lucky A’.”

The author quotes Bob Feller: “Every time I went out to pitch I thought about how lucky I was to serve my country and come back with all my limbs,” Feller said. “I did what I thought I should. You’ll never hear me cry about it.”

- “The rules of the game say that the strike zone is between the batter’s armpits and the top of his knees ‘when he assumes his natural stance’.”

The author quotes Ted Williams speaking about Luis Aparicio: “…he was the greatest shortstop of my time….Joe Cronin was a better hitter, and so was Luke Appling. But in that spot, you take a fielder over a hitter.”

On the same subject (Luis Aparicio), the author quotes Lew Fonseca: “There were a lot of good ones, but defensively, Aparicio was the best. And shortstop is a defensive position.”

Speaking about Bill Veeck, who “lost most of his right leg at Bougainville, when he was in the marine corps during World War II”, the author observes: “The only time I recall him mentioning his peg leg, the right leg, was early one morning while he was soaking the stump. It was a daily two hour ritual. Typically, he only saw the benefits, the upside. Because he had to sit, he explained, he had more time to read.”

Speaking further about Bill Veeck, Mr. Holtzman says: “This may be hard for some of the current owners to believe but it was Bill Veeck who came up with the idea that ballplayers should be ‘depreciated’, just like oil wells.”

In a column about Marge Schott, Jerry makes the point: “…I, too, have been fighting the good fight, beginning with two years in the U. S. Marine Corps during the big war: gung-ho for the pursuit of liberty and the freedom of speech, including offensive speech.”

- “Still, the attempt to discipline someone for speech, not conduct, would seem to be a significant danger. Schott didn’t demonstrate and throw eggs or rocks at the police. She did not inflict bodily harm. Nor is she guilty of theft or general dishonesty.”

- “Understand, this isn’t so much a defense of Schott and her privilege of alleged ignorance. Of considerably more importance is the necessity to honor and protect the Bill of Rights against the evils of Big Brother and thought control.”

As you can see from the above examples, this book includes stories about Chicago baseball, and about baseball in general. I’m glad I read it. I recommend it highly.

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Like I Was Sayin’…

This one is by Mike Royko, is titled “Like I was Sayin’…”, and features his likeness on the cover, decked out in Superman garb complete with red cape and boots. I was in a Chicago branch library and it jumped out at me as one I hadn’t read yet, at least not lately. It is a compilation of 100 of his newspaper columns, originally published between 1966 and 1984.

The first conclusion I arrived at while reading this book is that Mike Royko is a helluva good writer. As the Albuquerque Journal is quoted on the inside front jacket cover:

- “Newspaper columnists fall into five general categories. Those categories, in ascending order, are: 1) Bad. 2) Good. 3) Very Good. 4) Outstanding. 5) Mike Royko. And that, as they say, is that. Royko is the best; nobody comes close to Royko; God made only one Royko and that’s too bad.”

The second conclusion I arrived at while enjoying Mr. Royko’s Chicago-centric view of the world is how proud I am to share his Native Chicagoan’s outlook. As Tom Waits once observed: this “allows us a perspective that’s unique”.

Although few of the topics covered in these columns are appropriate for discussion on a sports blog such as this, as couple of them are.

The column originally published on April 5, 1979 concerns opening days at Wrigley Field. With regard to the 1969 season Mr. Royko reminisces:

- “We all remember what happened that season. It was the best Cub team in thirty years. No 4-Fs. No strange mutants. For the first time in three decades, the players were better athletes than the grounds crew.
“It didn’t help. When the crunch came, the Cubs swallowed their tongues, and New York, in its greed, had another championship. Since that season I have made a point of seeing the movie “Fail Safe” every time it is on TV because the movie ends with New York being nuked.”

The January 25, 1980 column concerns the military draft (ie., “Selective Service”). Mr. Royko, speaking for us all, proclaims:

- “If this country has to start the military draft again, I hope that this time we do it right.
“Please, no more professional athletes and sons of politicians being magically jumped to the top of the list for stay-home service in the reserves.
“There was nothing as ludicrous during the Vietnam War as the sight of magnificent physical specimens throwing seventy-five-yard passes while being cheered by people whose own spindly legged sons were slogging through rice paddies.”

- “First of all, a draft should be run as a hundred-percent lottery system…. The lottery should also apply to to the reserves. Let luck decide who will be a weekend warrior. That way a punch-press operator will have as much a chance to sit it out at home as a star quarterback or the sons of a Chicago mayor.”

- “Before anyone writes me any outraged letters, let me say that I’d rather not see the draft restored. I have two sons who will have to register.
“I just want it run fairly.
“If it is done my way, we might some day see Hamilton Jordan, John Travolta, Bob Dylan, and almost the entire Cub team in military uniforms.”

And regarding our currently downtrodden Chicago Bears, Mr. Royko presciently observed in a column published twenty six years ago today, (November 17, 1983):

- “…I’ve never seen any point in sitting in a movie theater or in front of my TV set for two or three hours just to wind up depressed when the hero lies crumpled in the dust or the heroine coughs her fragile life away.
“That’s why I never watch Bears games anymore. The average Bears fan doesn’t realize it, but he’s reducing his life expectancy by the stress and depression brought on by watching these weekly tragedies.”

The Washington Post referred to Mike Royko as “a national treasure”. I’d go along with that.

We miss you, Mike.

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Cancer, anyone?

It’s been just over a year since The World’s Greatest Cubs Fan (my dad) received a cancer diagnosis from his physician. Just over a year since the major surgery to remove that cancerous lesion. And just under a year since the catastrophic chemotherapy which really changed our lives. That’s my justification (weak though it may be) for posting this review.

“Cancer On $5 A Day” is an outstanding book, primarily for two reasons:
1. The author, Robert Schimmel is a stand-up comic, so there’s humor involved, and,
2. His first person descriptions of what chemotherapy was like helped me to understand what my dad went through during this past year.

The complete title is “Cancer on $5 A Day* (*chemo not included) – How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life”, by Robert Schimmel with Alan Eisenstock. It was published in 2008.

The author describes himself as a comedian’s comic who appears regularly on Howard Stern and Conan O’Brien, who’d won the Stand-Up Comic of the Year, whose HBO and Showtime specials were huge hits, who has best-selling CDs, and whose Fox sitcom had just been picked up when his cancer was diagnosed. I never heard of him.

His chemotherapy began within 48 hours of receiving the diagnosis of Stage III non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, triggering a life-altering series of events.

Stories about the doctors, nurses, staff, fellow patients, his extended family, career ramifications, a wig salesman, treatment options (including medical marijuana and prosthetic testicles), personal reactions and first hand recollections are presented humorously.

Here’s a quote from the author’s dedication page: “Take it from me, laughter is the best medicine.”

Upon receiving his cancer diagnosis the author’s attitude parallels that of one-time cancer patient Michael Landon: “If I don’t beat cancer, I’ll die trying.” Unfortunately, Mr. Landon did die trying.

Mr. Schimmel’s treatment phase lasted about 6 months, at the end of which his cancer was officially declared to be “in remission”. It is those 6 months that this book is about.

Here are excerpts from two testimonials on the book’s back cover:
- “Robert Schimmel always made me laugh. Now he makes me laugh and cry at the same time.” Billy Crystal

- “A very important read.” Howie Mandel

It has been said that people would much rather be entertained than educated. What author Robert Schimmel has done here is to have educated me while entertaining me at the same time.

I recommend this book to anyone even peripherally involved in a cancer situation, or to anyone with a casual interest in “What happens next?” when the words “You have cancer!” are spoken.

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A Day In The Bleachers

This is a really good book. Notwithstanding the obvious name similarity to that of THIS website (the book is titled “A Day in the Bleachers”), I recommend it most highly to fans of baseball as it once was. “A Day in the Bleachers” was written by Arnold Hano in 1954, although I read the 50th Anniversary Edition.

Ostensibly, the book is about one ball game, the first game of the 1954 World Series, with the Cleveland Indians visiting the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in Harlem, New York City. But there’s a lot more to it.

Roger Kahn wrote the Introduction to the current edition in 1981, 25 years after the book itself was originally written. I want to quote a few passages from his Introduction, because they describe what is so unique about this book.

- “The first and, I believe, the best of all the baseball books written from the point of view of the man in the stands.”

- “The writing is what amateurs call effortless.”

- “Reading ‘A Day in the Bleachers’, you concentrate on the day, the game, the ball players, the fans…”

- “…this is how it was to go to a ball game once.”

- “Without knowing it, Hano was catching a team at the peak moment of its existence.”

- “Mr. Hano, something of a purist, even expresses quiet contempt for those who brought portable radios into the Polo Grounds.”

- “…television works against the old magic of the World Series. You no longer have to struggle to find a ticket, part with cash, worry about the location of your seat, and hope passionately that it does not rain. Pull a knob and a replica of the game appears in your living room. Children now grow up on electronic baseball.”

- “…it is important to recognize that technological innovation creates not only progress but a kind of loss.”

I’ve read books which break baseball down into one season at a time. Or one game at a time. Even one play at a time. Occasionally one pitch at a time. But this book chronicles one thought at a time. Stream of consciousness. A shared consciousness.

Here are some observations from the book:

- “Keep the curve low and the fast ball high.”

- “I cannot abide stupid Giant fans. Thank goodness there are so few.”

And here are a few quotes from the “Afterword To The 2004 Edition – Extra Innings”:

- “On May 8, 1973, nineteen years after the first game of the 1954 World Series, Chicago Cubs manager Whitey Lockman argued with the plate umpire, who thumbed him from the game. Lockman told coach Ernie Banks to manage the rest of the game. Thus Lockman appointed the first black to manage a major league baseball team.”

- “I can’t field and I’ve got a lousy arm, but I sure love to whack at that ball.”

- “Westrum’s career batting average was .217. Some pitchers hit higher than that.”

- “…a glove once described as ‘the place where triples go to die’.”

And one last quote, this one from the back cover: “I loved this book…anyone who likes baseball will like this one.” -Groucho Marx

For me personally, “A Day in the Bleachers” recreates Cubs baseball with my dad at Wrigley Field. Day games. Bleachers. The community of like minded Cubs fans.

What a great book.

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I Remember Harry Caray

This is the last in my current series of books about Harry Caray. It’s titled “I Remember Harry Caray”. It was published in 1998 (shortly after Harry’s death), and was written by Rich Wolfe and George Castle, with a Foreword by Jack Brickhouse.

By and large, the most interesting observations came not from family and friends, not from baseball people, not from players and not from broadcast partners and coworkers, but rather from other media members, entertainers and sports figures, and fans.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

- “What was the secret to Harry’s unbelievable appeal? He was a guaranteed audience builder. He was his own man. Harry never copied anybody. He was fearless when it came to criticism, when he felt it was required.”

- “Amazingly, through the entire generation-plus of his popularity on both sides of town in Chicago, Caray kept his home phone number listed. He and Bill Veeck were the top baseball people to remain so accessible at a time when celebrities spent untold thousands of bucks on security aids to maintain their privacy.”

- Tony LaRussa is quoted, almost comically, saying nothing for two pages.

- “When you’re hitting .198, you start beginning to think of your next career. And when Bob Uecker, little-used backup catcher of the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals, had show-business thoughts, he started out as a mimic – of Harry Caray.”

- “He loved baseball to the point where he thought fans sometimes might be cheated by lackadaisical play…”

- “I think Harry made a lot of people better people, by either coming out to the ballpark or listening to a broadcast.”

- “Harry Caray was a spellbinder, a dream-weaver. There won’t be another Harry Caray.”

- “He said players come and go, but people come to see the game.”

- “He drew more fans than the players during his two segments here.”

- “Harry entertained people by his rigid belief in how the game of baseball should be played.”

- “Harry was very competitive and almost cunning. He was critical of almost everybody except his boss.”

- “He could make any game better than it was…”

- “I don’t remember a day when he came out to Wrigley Field when he wasn’t in a good mood. That’s what I liked about him.”

- “Harry going to the Cubs made Wrigley Field an event rather than just a game. He made it a happening.”

- “…with Caray, it was, ‘Don’t listen to what I say. Listen to what I mean’.”

I enjoyed reading “I Remember Harry Caray”. In the eleven years since his death, perhaps some of the remembrances have lost a bit of their “Wow” factor, but I enjoyed reading about the guy who was the face of the Chicago Cubs franchise for so many years.

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Baseball for Everyone!

Here’s a book written by Joe DiMaggio, titled “”Baseball for Everyone”. It was first published in 1948, but reissued in 2002.

Let me start with the Bio from the inside back jacket cover:
- “Joe DiMaggio (1914-1999) played for the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, with time out for military service in World War II. In a poll taken in the 1940s he topped George Washington as ‘the greatest American of all time’.”

One remarkable aspect of Joe’s career, as noted in Peter Golenbock’s Foreword:
- “…(Joe DiMaggio) was a lifetime .325 hitter with such remarkable bat control that over his brilliant thirteen-year career he had only eight fewer home runs (361) than strikeouts (369), a feat, when you really think about it, that was even more amazing than his consecutive-game hitting streak.”

Here’s another accurate quote from the Foreword:
- “The book is also a time capsule in a way, because the advice and anecdotes come from long-gone baseball legends… ‘Baseball for Everyone’ is filled with pure baseball. DiMaggio’s knowledge of the game and his reverence for it come through on every page.”

“Baseball for Everyone” is organized as follows: first a general overview of the game, then a discussion about sand lot and semipro baseball. Joe looks at the minors and the majors, then goes over, position by position, how the game is supposed to be played. After that he dives into the subjects of hitting, pitching, base running, coaching and slumps. In so doing, Joe DiMaggio goes into great detail about topics and situations I never even thought about. And that’s what makes this book so instructive.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Joe DiMaggio himself:
- “I believe that the major reason for the greatness of baseball is the blood kinship of its players and its fans in their devotion to the game. One of their chief bonds is their fascination for intimate information about every aspect of baseball. And the more they find out, the keener they become as performers or as fans.”

- “Little can be done to increase a boy’s speed, but there is one very simple means of preventing its reduction. Provide a youngster with comfortable, well-fitting shoes…. See that they fit him.” (CubbieDude note: I got stuck in high school with a pair of baseball cleats which hurt to wear. All season long the coach told me to “play with pain”, etc. My football playing ended prematurely because the danged shoes weren’t right. Joe DiMaggio is spot on here.)

- “Whether a player is a boy in his teens or an adult who has made the majors, he has room for improvement, and his three chief ways of learning better baseball are through good instruction, personal observation, and intelligent questions.” (CubbieDude note: Joe is providing good instruction here by answering his own intelligent questions. It remains for the individual to exercise personal observation.)

- “Once I asked Red Ruffing, a top-flight competitor, why he frequently bore down so hard on the tail end of the batting order.
‘Those are the guys,’ he said, ‘who break your heart when they get a hit off of you, because you figure they’re not entitled to it. So I made up my mind long ago that if any of the weak ones were going to get a hit off of me they were going to have to hit my Sunday stuff…’”

- “The general prescription for a first baseman would be that he is ‘long, lean, and left-handed,’ but the prescription is only occasionally followed.”

- “…in baseball, as an old umpire once put it, ‘There are no ties – either you’re safe or you ain’t’.”

- “He cannot take time to get set – while the second baseman gets set the runner gets safe.”

- “An outfielder who can’t hit around .300 should be a Tris Speaker or a Terry Moore defensively if he isn’t to be a drag on the club. And the days of the outfielder who’s a good hitter but a poor fielder are gone, probably forever.”

- “…crowded stands, with thousands of fans smoking, make game conditions far different from those in the practice period. Before the game the crowd is small, and haze from tobacco smoke is at a minimum. As the game goes on the haze deepens, especially if the day is humid and there is no breeze to carry the smoke from the park.”

- “Perhaps the best cure is a day or two on the bench, but I’ve met few ballplayers who would volunteer to be taken out of the line-up during a slump. Depressed as he is by his slump, there’s always the fear in his mind that he may never get back in again.”

The book closes with a chapter on scoring (“How to Score”) by Red Barber. Red’s system is so redundant, convoluted and confusing to me that, if I didn’t already have a system in place, I think I’d just give up after reading this chapter and never try to keep score again. But that’s just me.

Nowadays, if I had the interest, I suppose I’d keep a video library of games I saw &/or attended, rather than maintaining scorecards. But, once again, that’s just me.

Finally, I noticed that, having been published originally in 1948, some of the names and dollar amounts are not particularly current. The names I will have to familiarize myself with, but the dollar amounts are easily updated. Just add 2 little zeros to each figure and you’re up to date. For instance, Joe talks about the $5,000 major league minimum salary. Adding two little zeros, that number becomes $500,000, a more current minimum salary figure.

I enjoyed reading this book very much. I recommend it in concurrence with the wording from the inside back jacket cover: “Baseball for Everyone is for all who love the game and savor the legends surrounding it.”

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