Month: December 2017

‘Baseball, Boys, and Bad Words,’ by Andy Andrews

December 31, 2017

I came across this book while browsing the library yesterday.  Baseball, Boys, and Bad Words is a small book, and I found the title intriguing, so I decided to go ahead and check it out.  It would be a nice, fast, easy read, and it was about baseball.andrews

The story takes place in 1970, when the author, Andy Andrews, was eleven years old.  He and his friends were returning for another season of Little League baseball.  This year, they were getting a new coach who was “new to the area.”  The new coach’s manner of speech at first confuses the boys, but then leads to some amusing moments throughout their season.  We hear about themes familiar to anyone who’s ever played Little League: the worst player is in right field, the coach’s son is automatically the pitcher, etc.

It’s a very short story, so I don’t think I can say much more about it without giving the whole thing away.  If it were typed in a straight text format, I can’t imagine this tale would take up more than a couple of pages.  Obviously the text is broken up to allow for conversion into book format.  Besides the story itself, the book is littered with a variety of pictures and baseball-related quotes, which, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you would know is something I enjoy.

Though I enjoyed the story (I literally laughed out loud a couple times) as well as the quotes and the photography, if you are curious about this book, I would encourage you to look for it at the library.  It might make for a fun gift for a young ballplayer’s birthday, but outside of that, I honestly can’t say it’s worth the money you’d spend on it.  It might have been better published in a magazine or other periodical, to be read and enjoyed once, but not something truly worth taking up space on your bookshelves.

“Progeny,” by John Lambremont, Sr.

December 29, 2017

Here’s a piece by John Lambremont, Sr. published by Spitball Magazine in February 2010. I enjoy pieces like this one where baseball metaphors aren’t necessarily overt, but they’re definitely there.

*

Age-old Southern faces,
tight-lipped and grim,
in their batting helmets,
their chins tucked in,
raise their steel barrels
and dig in again.

Remnants of their ancestry,
descendants of their kin,
that stared down steel barrels
and charged again,
knowing that their chances
to survive were slim.

The batteries of the enemy
are usually going to win.

Baseball 101: Baseball Basics

December 27, 2017

I have a handful of friends whom I’ve converted into baseball fans just by talking about the game.  Fortunately for me, they all already had some familiarity with how the game works, so it was really just a matter of conveying my excitement.  However, I know there are some folks out there who are completely unfamiliar with baseball, and I was pretty happy to come across this video.  I’ll have to keep it in my back pocket for the day I meet someone who might be interested, but doesn’t know anything about this wonderful pastime.

Quote of the day

December 23, 2017

When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing. I told him I wanted to be a real Major League baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he’d like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.

~Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States

 

Eisenhower_official
stateoftheunionhistory.com

 

Ted Williams’s Hall of Fame induction speech

December 20, 2017

One of the many things mentioned in the Eighth Inning of Ken Burns’s documentary Baseball was the induction of Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.  I was curious about his induction speech and decided to try and look it up.  His speech is surprisingly short (though I think most speeches were shorter back then than they are now), but it seems to fit what I know about Williams rather well.

This day in baseball: Eddie Mayo

December 19, 2017

On December 19, 1936, the Boston Braves purchased second baseman Eddie Mayo from the Giants.  Mayo, however, would not see a lot of playing time with the Braves, hitting only .216 in the time he did get to play.  After leaving Boston in 1938, Mayo would not appear in a major league game for five years, playing instead for the Los Angeles Angels in the Pacific Coast League.  When World War II broke out, however, and the league was depleted of players, Mayo became a productive player for the Tigers, being named the Most Valuable Player by The Sporting News in 1945.

mayo