Baseball Lives by Mike Bryan
This was a nice find. Baseball Lives was
published in 1989, but it reads like an "internet wormhole"
where you just keep going deeper into obscure tangents of the original
subject. The entirety of baseball, as a game, as a business, as a way
of life, is told by the people who live it: Owners, managers, scouts, trainers,
PR people, bus drivers, equipment managers, bat makers, groundskeepers,
statisticians, ushers, beer vendors, broadcasters, gamblers— ANYONE you could
think of. (And yes, some players as
well—Dennis Eckersley, Andre Dawson, and Bruce Bennedict all
get to tell their story).
Baseball Lives is full of minutia, and for the most part the details are
behind-the-scenes, rather than typical baseball trivia. There was a
grounds crew guy who had to facilitate the burying of ashes in left field where
Enos Slaughter played. There was a scout who traveled to see how
well Ty Gainey fielded the ball, only to have the pitcher pitch a
perfect game and Gainey didn't touch the ball once. Fun anecdotes like
these help one appreciate the game a bit more.
You get a lot of different perspectives on the game.
The director of marketing for the Padres didn't want to talk about his job at
all. He wanted to tell the story of his childhood and being a Yankee
Stadium rat and how he befriended Roger Maris. The director of
media relations for the Twins was quite busy in 1987. So busy that he
didn't even see his team win the World Series. He was right there, but he
was working his job, not watching the game. Those that work directly
within the MLB organization obviously love/fear for their jobs, others can
afford to keep things interesting and spill a little dirt.
With over fifty mini-chapters it's a great book for subway
rides or plain old bathroom lit. Some might find it ultimately
skimmable/surfable, others might dive into the abyss.
Mark
Hughson lives
in Syracuse, NY and (still) roots for the Oakland Athletics. His favorite
headline about Pat Venditte is "Amphibious Pitcher Makes
Debut."
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