In honor of opening day, our guest baseball blogger is Professor Michael Ebner.
Join us tomorrow for Michael’s All-Star Team.
Baseball means a great deal to me, enabling me to learn some of life’s basic lessons and perhaps nurturing my inclination for history. As a youngster growing up immediately after the end of the Second World War in northeastern New Jersey, I attached myself–for reasons that today I can only guess at–to the fortunes and misfortunes of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Professor Ebner
When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1957, I regarded their departure with sadness and a sense of loss (even betrayal.) I never considered myself a fan of the Los Angeles version of the Dodgers. Not until after I came to Lake Forest College in 1974, did I allow myself to become emotionally connected to another team (inspired by my son Ian). The ups and downs of the Brooklyn Dodgers, needless to say, had admirably prepared me for what became my impassioned devotion to the Chicago Cubs.
Michael shared his favorite baseball books.
Nicholas Dawidoff (Ed.), Baseball, A Literary Anthology (The Library of America, 2002). This is a wonderful literary anthology – entailing fiction and non-fiction – on baseball as American culture. A favorite selection of mine is John Updike’s essay on Ted Williams. I also learned that Walt Whitman possessed some keen thoughts about baseball’s significance in American culture. This volume belong in the library of every serious baseball fan.
A. Bartlett Giamatti, A Great and Glorious Game, edited by Kenneth S. Robson (Algonquin Books, 1998).Giamatti served as president of Yale University, president of the American League, and all too briefly as Commissioner of Baseball before his untimely death. Trained in the literature and culture of the European Renaissance, his writing about baseball encompasses a wonderful composite of wit, deep knowledge, and keen literary sensibilities. Affirming his noble character, he was a devoted Red Sox fan. As Commissioner of Baseball, Giamatti is remembered for his deftly fielding of the controversy involving Pete Rose.
Stephen J. Gould, Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville, A Lifelong Passion for Baseball, with forward by David Halberstam (W. W. Norton, 2003).Gould was an internationally celebrated scientist at Harvard University. Born in The Bronx and reared as a Yankee fan, he frequently contemplated baseball’s virtues as a composite of chance, art, and science. Near the end of his abbreviated life Gould delicately crossed a seldom-breeched boundary, exchanging his loyalty to the Yankees and replacing them in his heart with the Red Sox.
Peter Schilling, Jr., The End of Baseball (Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2008).
This book is a doubleheader. It is the first novel published by the author, who earns his daily bread as a journalist in Michigan. It also is the first novel published by the well-known Chicago publisher Ivan R. Dee. Schilling’s storyline hews rather close to reality. Real-life figures – set in the year 1944 – are key, among them Bill Veeck, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson. Veeck has purchased the hapless Philadelphia Athletics. Much to the chagrin of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, tyrannical Commissioner or Baseball and defender of the color line, Veeck staffs his roster entirely with African American players. Read The End of Baseball for yourself to find what happens For the record: in real life Veeck sought to purchase the Phillies rather than the Athletics, intending to stack his roster with the very African American players who play ball in this novel. This book is a page turner.
Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey
Recipient of the annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Social Justice, this book encompasses baseball history as well exploring a major shift in American racial sensibilities in the wake of the Second World War. Abetted by Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson broke the color line of major league baseball in 1947. In do doing Rickey and Robinson upended the unwritten rule established in the 1890s that prohibited African Americans from playing professional baseball.
This deeply researched book, written by a valued friend of mine who passed away in 2008, not only encompasses baseball but also examines the end of the color line in other professional sports, most notably basketball and football. A bonus to the expanded edition of Baseball’s Great Experiment is that Professor Tygiel uncovered and answered the long lost fifth question – appropriate to a new baseball season as well as the turn of the lunar calendar – in the ancient narrative of the Israelite exodus.
Nu, vas ist das funk qvedstun?Peterf Schilling ist gut gezuckt.
Michael —
Good list, especially the Tygiel book.
For me, nothing’s better than the 1960 book “The Long Season” by Jim Brosnan and his 1962 follow-up “Pennant Race,” both written when he was a player about the teams he played for. Sweet, sweet.
Also, I’d recommended two about the Brooklyn Dodgers by Michael Shapiro — “The Last Good Season” and “Bottom of the Ninth”
Pat Reardon
I too love baseball, but in its more important version as it is played on the South Side of Chicago. Don’t forget Bernard A. Weisberger’s WHEN CHICAGO RULED BASEBALL:THE CUBS- WHITE SOX WORLD SERIES OF 1906. Oh yea let me remind you the Sox won that one! Have a great season and see you in October at U.S.Cellular!!!
Michael, welcome from an exBrooklyn Dodger, now a suffering Cubs fan.
Like your library choices; I’d add Mark Harris’ first novel about Henry Wiggin, “The Southpaw,” likewise “The Boys of Summer” by Roger Kahn, and also Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four,” the first book to challenge the mythology that all ballplayers were Boy Scouts. Today’s Opening Day for the Cubs–hope springs anew! Bernie
What a nice thing, even for a Yankee fan, to read in far off NJ! Nick Dawidoff is also the author of a wonderful book about Moe Berg: The Catcher Was A Spy and don’t forget Lou Masur’s Autumn Glory. Red Sox beat the Yanks last night, but I still root for the Cubbies from a distance. Doug
Many thanks. As a native New Yorker, I hated but respected the Brooklyn Dodgers, while the Los Angeles version, especially in the LaSorda/Garvey years, are not even worthy of contempt, with the possible exception of Fernando Valenzuela. I’d also recommend the second volume in the Henry Wiggin series, “Bang the Drum Slowly,” and Harris’s use of language generally. Let’s Play Three–Carl
I’m broken hearted over your loss, what, fifty two years ago. The Brooklyn Dodgers drew 5,000 fans a game in their last years. They sucked. Their stadium sucked. Their fans sucked. Face it, the only thing more cliched that academics bemoaning the loss of the beloved Dodgers is academics who are Red Sox fans (a bunch of Harvard wannabes). I don’t make a practice of defending the city of my nativity, but L.A. is, afterall, the second largest city in America, and their ball club has been there a half century, playing in what is now the third oldest stadium in the country. They draw fans, people all over the world listen to Vin Scully’s broadcasts (I know, he went to Fordham, started in Brooklyn, learned from Red Barber–big deal), and the team wins. Get over it, Mike and the rest of you.
Oh come on, Elliott. You get over it. Go Butler!
What about Robert Coover’s “The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. ?”
Is that a baseball book or an obsessive/compulsive one?
Thanks for sharing this great list, Michael. One of my favorite baseball books is “False Spring,” Pat Ford’s memoir of his unsuccessful stint in the minor leagues. -Jim
Sorry — wrong Pat. “False Spring was written by Pat Jordan, not Pat Ford! The pounding that the Cubs are taking from the Braves has me rattled. -Jim
Like Michael Ebner, I grew up as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. But when they moved to Los Angeles in 1957, my affections shifted, even though at that time I had never been within a thousand miles either of Brooklyn or of southern California. In the 1960s, under the influence of my godmother (who died at the age of 95 having never seen her beloved Cubs win a championship) I was enthralled by Wrigley Field and Billy Williams. But after I graduated from the U of Chicago and moved to Ohio in 1965, I embraced the Yankees. I am not even sure why, but it has been a happy 45 years of listening to games from the Bronx. Kenneth T. Jackson
I can’t imagine anyone surprise that the Cubs are losing?? As a die hard White Sox Fan, I urge all despondent Cubs fans to come over from the dark side and jump on the White Sox bandwagon!
I would recommend the trilogy by Mark Harris published way back in the mid 1950′s consisting of “The Southpaw”, “Bang The Drum Slowly” and “A Ticket For A Seamstitch”. My then mother-in-law, a huge Red Sox fan, gave me copies of all three which I have kept to this day. They are easy to read and immensly enjoyable. Michael, you have inspired me to read them for the second time. “GO CUBS”!
Do you guys have TV up there in the far north? The White Sox are the best team in Chicago. I invite all of you former Brooklyn fans to come down to the working-class side of town and see a real ball club. My God Elliott Gorn is a little emotional, I mean beating up on old Dodger fans (the real Dodgers with a B on the cap)! Zambrano or Buehrle — no choice!
— Dominic