By James Bailey The concept of “Top of the Order” is a good one: “25 writers pick their favorite baseball players of all time.” Original, never-before-published essays on 25 baseball heroes. How can you go wrong? Well, for starters, any anthology like this is only as strong as its writers. Half of the names here [...]
From the category archives:
Nonfiction
By James Bailey For those who never got to see him play—an ever-growing segment that now includes a couple of generations of fans—the legend of Willie Mays is built on grainy film of “The Catch” in the 1954 World Series, maybe a shot or two of him zipping around the bases, and numbers like 660 [...]
By James Bailey It’s early yet, and there’s a long time to go and plenty more books to read in 2010. But I feel fairly confident that when I compile my Best Baseball Books of 2010 list in December there will be a spot somewhere for Edward Achorn’s “Fifty-nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded [...]
By James Bailey In 2006, Josh Wilker began blogging about his baseball card collection, card by card, reaching into the box to stir up memories. In the early days his writing appeared on a site called Baseball Toaster, under the title Cardboard Gods. In time he went solo, moving to www.cardboardgods.net, where he blogs these [...]
By James Bailey What makes a good manager? It’s a lot more than knowing when to bunt or double-switch. Chris Jaffe recognized this well before undertaking what became “Evaluating Baseball’s Managers.” Jaffe, who writes for the Hardball Times, grappled with how to quantify the softer, but essential, skills that fans don’t see every night at [...]
By James Bailey This year marks the 102nd anniversary of the Chicago Cubs’ last World Series championship. Suffice it to say, the game has changed nearly as much as the team’s fortunes since then, when they were the three-time defending National League pennant winners and had just won back-to-back World Series. George R. Matthews recounts [...]
To All My Fans … from Norm Who?, by Norm Miller Double Play Productions, 2009 By James Bailey Baseball readers first met Norm Miller when Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four” shook up both the game and the literary scene in 1970. Miller was something of a cutup–and slightly disgruntled by a lack of playing time–which made [...]
By James Bailey Paul Richards bridged a baseball generation gap, working for managers like Wilbert Robinson and Connie Mack as a young player and passing the torch to current skipper Tony La Russa in his twilight years. His resume included stints as player, manager, general manager, scout and special assistant. He helped several Hall of [...]
By James Bailey The spring of 2009 flooded us with books on steroid users in various stages of outing. Roger Clemens had already fallen to earth. Alex Rodriguez was taken down, thanks in part to Selena Roberts’ book. Manny Ramirez hadn’t yet joined them when “Becoming Manny” hit the shelves. We even had a title [...]
By James Bailey It has been 100 years since the Mills Commission erroneously credited Abner Doubleday with starting what we know as baseball. By the time the Hall of Fame opened in Doubleday’s hometown 30 years later, however, the honor had shifted to Alexander Cartwright, who was enshrined in Cooperstown as a pioneer in 1938. [...]
