Daily Archives: January 23, 2003

My Favorite Things of 2002

III. Books…

I started reading baseball books seriously again after the Yankees beat the Mets in the Subway Serious in 2000. I felt compelled to try and put the Yankees run into some sort of perspective, and that led me back to the bookshelf. For the past few years I’ve enjoyed digging into the subculture of baseball literature, and last year was no different. Perhaps the most significant discovery I made was when I acquired my cousin Gabe’s collection of Bill James Abstracts. His mother was selling the house he grew up in, and when he went to clear his things out, I told him to give me any and all of his baseball books if he was going to throw them out. Well Gabe came back with a treasure chest, complete with Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts 1984-88, and The Bill James Baseball Book: 1990-92.

I was familiar with James in name and reputation only, but had never sit down and read any of his work. Needless to say, perusing the Abstracts has been a rewarding experience. I’m not a science of math guy by nature, but I found it hard to resist James’ irreverent and authoratative prose. I especially liked the biograhical information, and James’ even-handed, emperical approach to statistics. I also loved revisiting the 1980’s, and reading about the teams and players I grew up with from an adult perspective.

I don’t think I actually read any of the James books from soup to nuts, but I picked them up and put them down often. Collections of essays are often my favorite books to read, and re-read. I can only assume the Abstracts will be as well used, and invaluable in the coming years as the Roger Angell and Tom Boswell compilations have been and continue to be.

While discovering Bill James was paramount to my baseball education last season, I didn’t stop there. Here is a list of the other baseball books I read:

Favorites:

The Way It Is by Curt Flood and Richard Carter
Inside The Yankees: The Championship Year by Ed Linn
The Curse of the Bambino by Dan Shaugnessy
Beyond the 6th Game by Peter Gammons
Baseball Dynasties by Eddie Epstein and Rob Neyer
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers by Bill James
The Curse of Rocky Colavito by Terry Pluto
Clearing the Bases by Allen Barra
No Cheering in the Press Box by Jerome Holtzman

Honorable Mention:

Why Time Begins on Opening Day by Tom Boswell
What Ever Happened to the Hall of Fame? by Bill James
Baseball’s Great Experiment by Jules Tygiel
Wait Til Next Year by William Goldman and Mike Lupica
Collision at Home Plate by James Reston, Jr
A Whole Different Ballgame by Marvin Miller
The Short Season by David Falkner

Poorly Written But Informative:

Shut Out by Howard Bryant
Talking Baseball: An Oral History of Baseball in the 1970s by Phil Pepe
Baseball, Chicago Style by Jerome Holtman and George Vass

I recently finished Jane Leavy’s acclaimed new biography on Sandy Koufax, and hope to post a review in the coming weeks. I hardly have enough time to keep up with all the promising books I’ve got waiting in the wings. A good problem to have, for sure.

On Deck:

Nice Guys Finish Last by Leo Durocher and Ed Linn
The New Thinking Fan’s Guide to Baseball by Leonard Kopett
1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball by Red Barber
October, 1964 by David Halberstam
Babe: The Legend Comes to Life by Robert Creamer

LIEBER AND PUDGE SIGNED

The Yankees completed a two-year, $3.5 million deal with right-handed pitcher Jon Lieber yesterday according to a report to espn.

The deal, which the Yankees have not yet announced, calls for a signing bonus and the minimum $300,000 salary this year. New York gets an $8 million club option for 2005.

There was noise about the Yankees screwing the Red Sox again, which proved to be exaggerated. According to Joel Sherman in the Post:

As with luring Jose Contreras and steering Bartolo Colon to the White Sox, the Yanks thwarted a Red Sox effort to land a pitcher. But a Boston official said the Red Sox had made no offer to Liever and were not willing to make a serious investmnet in a plyer with considerable health issues. Also, Lieber’s agent, Rex Gary, while acknowledging Boston’s interest, said, “it would be wrong to make this a Yankee vs.Red Sox thing. The Yankees got to the forefront and stayed there weeks ago. This was not a situation in which we were going back and forth between the Yankees and the Red Sox.”

I asked some National League friends what they made of Lieber. Christian Ruzich, who runs The Cub Reporter said:

Lieber is a very good pitcher. Average stuff, yeah, but great control. Great K/BB ratio, sucks up a lot of innings. He’s coming back from surgery, but he’ll only be 33 this year, so it could be a nice pickup for the Yankees. I had really hoped that the Cubs would find a way to bring him back. He’s been one of my favorites, and not only because he’s almost exactly my age (4 days younger).

I also asked my cousin Gabe, the Mets fan, if Lieber was a better version of Steve Traschel, and he replied that Trashcan never won twenty games pitching in Wrigley Field.

I’d say Lieber’s more like Bob Ojeda than Steve Trachsel. He’s a great fourth or fifth starter, and even a decent three guy if you play in a weak division.

As for Pudge Rodriguez, he turned down a 3-year deal from the Orioles and signed a 1-year, $10 million contract to play for the Florida Marlins in his home town, Miami.

According to espn:

Jim Beattie, Baltimore’s executive vice president of baseball operations, had been trying to sign Rodriguez. “I thought Ivan was a very good fit for us, playing in the AL, where he could be a designated hitter when he wasn’t catching,” Beattie said. “But he lives in Miami, and I’m sure those were among his considerations. We spent most of the day talking about a three-year deal, but I guess he wanted to go with more money and a shorter term. I would have been discouraged if we paid more money than we were comfortable with. The offer we made was what we thought was an appropriate amount of money.”

Dave Hyde, columnist for the Miami Sun-Sentinel gives his take on the signing here.

For what it’s worth, the NL East now sports a nifty group of recievers in Pudge, Piazza, Mike Lieberthal, Michael Barrett, and uh-hum, Maddog’s boy, Javey Lopez.

SPOILED JOCKS BETTER THAN LOUSY WRITERS

Michiko Kakutani reviewed Norman Mailer’s new book on writing, “The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing” yesterday in the New York Times. Next time you hear someone killing celebrity jocks, consider the emis* according to Stormin’ Norman:

People are always complaining in sports about how much money these athletes get. At least those athletes can answer, ‘I’m getting that money because I’m the best in my field.’ In literature it’s exactly the oppostie. It’s the mediocrities who make the mega-sums. That was always true to a degree, but it’s intensified considerably.

Yeah, just ask Mike Hampton.

* Emis is the Yiddish word for “the truth.”