5 comments about Stengel: His Life and Times.

1. Picked up this book because I enjoyed Creamer's book on Babe Ruth and Stengel is just as good, maybe better.
   You'd almost expect a book on Stengel to skip the earlier years in favor of his coaching years but this book doesn't. Stengel's early years are entertaining and provide a good look into the teens, 20's and 30's of baseball so if that's what you're after then you'll like this book. You'll probably also be surprised at the life that Stengel lived, there's so much more to this man than I expected - what a full life he lived. He was the Ulysses of baseball....as if the Gods of Baseball decided to pluck this Chaplin-like soul and make him wander through the game for a lifetime. Creamer really delivers.



2. Growing up in NY in the early 1960's I remember Casey vaguely as the manager of the Yankees (really Ralph Houk was manager in my early years) but more as the comic elderly leader of those miserable Mets. While I learned later of his great career as manager of the Yankees, somehow he was always portrayed as the marginal player who excelled as a bench leader. Creamer works hard to dispel this perception (which maybe only I had) and repeatedly stresses Casey's fine playing career. I appreciated gaining this new insight and found it a valuable addition to our understanding of Casey's wonderful career as a manager and ambassador of the game.



3. This is a solid biography of one of baseball's most colorful characters. Charles "Casey" Stengel (1890-1975) spent parts of six decades in the big leagues in a career that lasted from 1912 until 1965. Stengel was a bit clownish and he spoke in a distinctly non-articulate style ("Stengelese"), but he was also an extremely intelligent man. The author details Stengel's youth in Kansas City and early ambitions to become a dentist. We get a descriptive look at his 14-year playing career with several national league teams. We get an equally effective look at his managerial tenure with the mediocre Brooklyn Dodgers (1934-36 )and Boston Braves (1938-1943), the powerhouse Yankee teams from 1949-1960, and the woeful expansion New York Mets from 1962-1965. There are many smiles (and a couple frowns) for readers as these pages examine a complex and colorful man.
   
   Author Robert Creamer uses straightforward readable prose, and the result is a very good and informative biography. Readers should also like his biography on Babe Ruth, and his look at the 1941 baseball seasons.



4. Excellent. Well written, gives a good history yet moves right along.This guy had an amazing career and an amazing record.This is a must read for anyone interested in baseball.



5. Enjoyed reading this book almost as much as Harry Potter.
   It's funny how nowadays you can't get away with jumping up into the stands and punching fans.
   Well written and well told story.

No comments about Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait.

5 comments about Good Enough to Dream.

1. In 1983 Roger Kahn went in search of a minor league baseball team to buy. After his first choices fell through, he ended up owner and president of the Class A Utica Blue Sox in the New York-Penn League. Lacking a major league affiliation, he put together a rag tag group of players who had been dropped by various major league club's minor league affiliates or who were never drafted. This book establishes Kahn's life long love of baseball and then follows the Blue Sox from opening day to the final game of the 1983 season. Many books on baseball have used this inside the clubhouse format. Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" and Pat Jordan's "A False Spring" come readily to mind. "Good Enough to Dream" is different from the others in that it is told from the perspective of the front office.

   The machinations of the front office, the relationships among the players and the manager, the descriptions of the long bus rides, the dreams and hopes of the players, and the hardships that all involved are willing to withstand for the love of the game are all interesting and well told. The one area which failed to hold my attention was the long narrative of the Blue Sox's run for the league title. Kahn attempted to heighten the drama with repeated illustrations of why the team felt that the league office was working against their success and he left no doubt about the strong will to succeed that drove everyone in the organization, but in the final analysis I just couldn't seem to care enough about who won the 1983 New York-Penn League championship to do more than skim through the last one hundred or so pages. That having been stated, this is a very good book about a part of baseball that few fans ever get a chance to see.




2. Though a little paternalistic, this is a baseball book I pick up every few seasons. Roger Kahn follows the fortunes of the Utica Blue Sox and makes you care about the results of the 1983 New York Penn League Class A championship. The relationships in this book work, because they are frankly about work. Anybody who has been forced into tight living, or working quarters with a group who share skills, if not temprament can relate to the players, management and hangers-on who populate this rich story. The life lessons go down easy, the epiphanies are done lightly, the love of the game shines brightly. The title, spoken by a minor member of the minor league team, is another of this sweet stories many hits



3. Roger Kahn's lyrical narrative is not a page turner. Rather it slowly sucks you into the story with wonderful analogies, good charachter description and a flat out good sports story to tell.
   
   It is the story of a baseball dreamer who decides to explore the sport first had running a bankrupt team in habited by an interesting roster of charachters. Whats great is that the author seems to know going in, that the business, money, and personell side of baseball will be a rough ride that might tarnish his school boy image of the sport. But he takes the plunge anyway _ almost as if saying I love this sport so much I want to see it all _ good bad and funny.
   
   It has a happy ending too.



4. Lyrical, hilarious in parts, and true-blue as the sky over central New York in September, Roger Kahn's story of the trials, tribulations and all-around fun of owning a minor league baseball team is a joy to read.
   I've read it twice, and enjoyed it as much the second time as the first.



5. With the explosion of coverage of minor-league baseball over the past several years, it is hard to remember a time the game did not merit a national nod on ESPN and regional-cable outlets.
   
   Roger Kahn takes the reader back to that time in Good Enough to Dream. In 1983, the best-selling author is looking to purchase a minor-league team and ends up with the Utica Blue Sox in the Class A short-season New York-Penn League.
   
   Without an affiliation with a major-league club that can stock the club with up-and-coming rookies and help underwrite other expenses, Kahn builds his team with minor-league cast-offs and undrafted players.
   
   Kahn masterfully chronicles the building of the club and the frustrations & joys that go with a field of dreams for those chasing that one break or who want one final season before hanging up the spikes.
   
   Though the transportation for road games is in an old school bus and the stadiums are hardly modern, Kahn links the reader not only to the child's vision of one day becoming a major leaguer and hitting that homer in the World Series, but importantly shows why we should aim for the stars in the batter's box of life.

5 comments about Rumor in Town: A Grandson's Promise to Right a Wrong.

1. Rumors of Drug Use Have Damaged for Decades
   By MURRAY CHASS
   Barry Bonds may go to jail if a jury believes he lied about using steroids. Many other players could face suspensions next season if George J. Mitchell identifies them in his coming investigative report on steroids in baseball.
   
   But the story of Bonds or any other player doesn't approach the tale of Babe Dahlgren, a major league first baseman from 1935 to 1946, whose career and life were ruined by an unsubstantiated rumor that he smoked marijuana.
   
   Under Major League Baseball's drug-testing program today, players get 50-game suspensions for testing positive for steroid use, 25 games for amphetamine use. Dahlgren, whose career ended nearly 60 years before testing began, merely had his life wrecked.
   
   The first player tested for drug use, in 1943, Dahlgren volunteered to be tested, and he underwent a series of examinations by a doctor in Philadelphia to prove he was not a user of marijuana.
   
   This bizarre and sad, heart-rending story is told in a new book, "Rumor in Town" (Woodlyn Lane), by Matt Dahlgren, the player's 37-year-old grandson, who had promised that he would get to the bottom of the scurrilous talk.
   
   He did, learning that it was started by Joe McCarthy, manager of seven Yankees World Series champions, and propagated by Branch Rickey, father of baseball's farm system and a brilliant executive.
   
   In this engrossing book, Matt Dahlgren also writes that a succession of baseball commissioners did nothing to help Dahlgren clear his name, starting with Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who told him, according to the book, that "castration would be an appropriate punishment for the culprit behind the rumor."
   
   "Babe would write to Landis every time he heard of someone who heard the rumor, but Landis never did anything," Matt Dahlgren said Friday in a telephone interview. "Babe wrote to other commissioners, and none of them did anything."
   
   By the time Fay Vincent took office in 1989, Dahlgren, then 77, had wearied in his pursuit of trying to get a commissioner to help him salvage his reputation.
   
   "It's too bad; I wish I had been involved," Vincent said by telephone from Florida. "I would have tried to fix it."
   
   He added: "People railroaded him for illegitimate reasons. It's a sad story. He was accused of being on drugs when I doubt very much that he was."
   
   Vincent, who lauded the book, said, "It's not one of baseball's prettiest stories, and I regret that it didn't get fixed before he died."
   
   Why did McCarthy start the rumor? With detective-like qualities and using as a guide a manuscript his grandfather wrote, Matt Dahlgren pieced together the story.
   
   It began with a meeting, at the suggestion of James Dawson, who covered the Yankees for The New York Times, between Dahlgren and Lefty O'Doul, an expert hitting instructor, at the wedding of Joe DiMaggio and Dorothy Arnold.
   
   McCarthy, apparently seeing O'Doul as a threat, learned of O'Doul's hitting help and confronted Dahlgren about it. After that season (1940), McCarthy orchestrated Dahlgren's trade to the Boston Braves.
   
   At the time, McCarthy explained the trade by saying that Dahlgren's arms were too short to play first base, even though Dahlgren, who had replaced Lou Gehrig the year before, was widely considered the league's finest first baseman.
   
   But in a subsequent conversation with "baseball insiders," McCarthy offered a different reason for the trade, demonstrating his resentment of Dahlgren at the same time. Dahlgren, his grandson quoted McCarthy as saying, would not have made a game-losing error in a late-season game that hurt the Yankees' pennant chances "if he wasn't a marijuana smoker."
   
   Dahlgren did not become aware of the rumor for a couple of years, but it was responsible for a series of moves in his career. In the next two seasons, 1941 and '42, he played for the Braves, the Cubs, the Browns and the Dodgers. Early in 1943, Dahlgren had an unpleasant salary session with Rickey, a frugal -- cheap -- general manager.
   
   According to the book, Rickey infuriated Dahlgren by asking, "Do you smoke marijuana?"
   
   Rickey traded Dahlgren to Philadelphia before the season, and during a trip to play the Dodgers, Dahlgren and a teammate, Danny Litwhiler, encountered Charlie Dressen, a former Dodgers coach. Dressen said Rickey was asked by his bosses why he traded Dahlgren, and "Rickey told them he traded you because you smoke marijuana."
   
   The trail went further. The Phillies traded Dahlgren, who was an All-Star, to Pittsburgh in December 1943. Matt Dahlgren figured it out.
   
   Ted McGrew had been the Dodgers' chief scout and attended the meeting at which Rickey cited marijuana as the reason he traded Dahlgren. Bill Cox, the Phillies' owner, who was about to be barred for life for betting on their games, hired McGrew in October. Two months later Dahlgren was traded.
   
   It was not his final move. In April 1946, the Pirates sold Dahlgren to the St. Louis Browns, his seventh move in six seasons.
   
   In 1985, 11 years before he died, Dahlgren wrote a letter to an old teammate, Al Lopez, asking the name of a scout who Lopez said was present at dinner when the owner of the Indianapolis minor league club told him that Rickey had "gone to great lengths to damage my reputation by saying I smoked marijuana."
   
   In a handwritten reply, the 77-year-old Lopez told Dahlgren, "The scout's name was Ted McGrew."



2. This book is such a powerful story about the relationship between a Grandfather and Grandson. It absolutely moved me and I couldn't put it down. It was about the rumor that ruined a man's baseball career but it was so much more than that. It will appeal to anyone who has ever had or wanted a close relationship with a Grandparent or adult to teach them life lessons. I enjoy baseball, but this book is not just for baseball fans. I highly recommend this book!



3. What a wonderful read. This book is more about the lessons in life of love, dreams, hard work, heartbreak, success and ultimately failure, than it is about baseball alone. It's a captivating novel between a grandfather and his grandson and the reader becomes engaged in their deepening relationship as the story of the grandfather's illustrious career in Major League Baseball's golden era unfolds. This book is highly recommended.



4. The author has a way of writing that makes the reader
   smell the leather of the glove, hear the crack of the
   bat, share the tears in history as he takes you into
   the Yankee dougout on the date that Lou Gehrig took
   himself out of the game. Of course it ended his
   streak, but along with the members of the Yankees, I
   cried.
   
   The author's promise, getting to the bottom of the
   "rumor" is so touching. There is no doubt in my mind
   that the best firstbaseman in history is now in the
   big show in Heaven. One doesn't need a love for the
   game to appreciate, the talent, frustrations, respect,
   character, and most of all love for the game by Babe
   Dahlgren, as well as well as the love he shared with
   his grandson. An incredibly well written book by a
   new young author.
   
   The way Babe Dahlgren's career was handled was a
   travisty. Nobody with his credentials and ability
   should have in those days been constantly traded,
   demoted and traded.
   
   It is a true testimony to the pettiness of the men
   who are still little boys that own the clubs. They can
   crush the hopes and dreams of a great athelete in what
   is supposed to be a game. Most important, "Rumor in
   Town" A Grandson's Promise to Right a Wrong is not
   just another sports book destined to end up on the
   sale shelf at the book store, it's a true love story
   of a young boy for his Grandpa and the promised that
   he kept.
   
   
   Jim Campbell Benga Lagoon Resort, Fiji



5. Re: Rumor in Town by Matt Dahlgren
   
   I loved this book because it touched me and intrigued me in so many ways. The author's personal story of his relationship with his grandfather evoked for me childhood memories of listening to baseball games on the radio with my father and sharing his delight in baseball newsreels at the local movies. Living in a small town in central Indiana in the late 1940's and the 1950's gave us no other access to these bigger-than-life heroes.
   
   This book also reminds me of why these men were our heroes, what qualities America once revered in the making of our heroes, and how the men who played the game of baseball in the first half of the 20th century represented these values. The tragedy of Babe Dahlgren's story is that he clearly belonged in the pantheon of these heroes; the actions of those who denied him the chances to claim his place reveal the petty politics and personal power plays that mere mortals can bring to a sport.
   
   Although the author doesn't directly speak to this issue, I think the book provides a glimpse of the sport's reflection of American racial prejudices and stereotypes of the time. I also think this may be a relevant piece of the Babe Dahlgren story. Matt Dahlgren provides us with plenty of convincing evidence that Babe's outstanding performance on the field and at the plate was completely inconsistent with the marijuana use rumor. So, the reader begins to wonder, what is behind the power of this particular rumor? The stigma of it that fuels the retelling? One clue, in my opinion, is the comment of one of his contemporaries who scoffed at the rumor saying, " Babe was too classy a guy for that". In the context of white American social attitudes of the time, marijuana use was something done by "negroes" and people who admired their jazz music (which was not regarded as a genre of proper American culture). Perhaps this unspoken tagging was part of the damage to Babe's career that statistics can't tell us.
   
   My dad would have loved this book. I hope someone makes it into a movie.
   
   Rita Milhollin
   Portland, OR

1 comments about Spoke: A Biography of Tris Speaker (Sport in American Life).

1. Baseball biographies of deadball era players are all the rage now. I was really excited to see that Mr. Alexander had written about one of the true early greats- Tris Speaker- as I was a big fan of his Cobb and McGraw biographies. I was a little disappointed though with this bio, for some of the same reasons I was disappointed in his work on Rogers Hornsby. Speaker almost seems like a ghost in this book, as I never could get a feel for him as a person (in contrast, Hornsby just came off as a colorless jerk). Alexander's text at times almost reads like a play-by-play retelling of every major game that Speaker was involved in. So one gets a feel for his greatness as a player, but at times I felt like I was slogging through play-by-play for chapters on end. That got tiring. I think the problem is that there is just not enough written material available to truly justify a biography of Speaker, the person. That's really sad, as he truly was great and simply had the misfortune of playing in Cobb's shadow his entire career. Consequently, when he retired and left baseball, he was largely (and unfairly) forgotten by baseball writers. Lastly, Speaker retired from the major leagues 80 years ago, and that there just aren't any people alive to shed insight into him as a person. So I guess Mr. Alexander did all right, given the limited material available- but I still felt largely unsatisfied after finishing.

1 comments about The Big Z: The Carlos Zambrano Story.

1. I was encouraged to read this biography of Carlos Zambrano. He is a truly humble (if unpredictable!) baseball player who loves the Lord with all his heart. It's exciting to think of where the road will lead for The Big Z.

5 comments about Comeback.

1. Dave Dravecky wrote an inspiring book after his first bout with cancer and amazing comeback to professional baseball. The writing is better than in most athlete-authored books. Most sports fans know that the cancer returned, and Dave lost an arm to it. The follow-up story is revealed in subsequent books authored by Dave Dravecky and his wife Jan Dravecky. I think readers will be uplifted by any of these books.



2. A very uplifting book about Mr Dravecky's battle with cancer. More than just an athlete centered book, this details his struggles and triumphs with this very debilitating disease.



3. A must read for every athlete - both Christian and non-Christian. Dave is an inspriation. I have read the book six times over the years and have never found a book by an athlete better. To top it off, Dave is as nice of a guy in person as he is in his book.



4. I've always been a big Dave Dravecky Fan, and I knew his story from what I read in the news and saw during the events of this time period. Reading about his life, his thoughts and insights on the world around him was inspirational. He loved baseball so much, that he did whatever it took to be the best. Dravecky was a man of great faith-he makes many references to thanking Jesus Christ for the opportunities and never blamed Him for the obstacles. His never say die attitude is one I wish more athletes and general public would adapt as their own.

   This book follows a timeline from his childhood and minor league struggles (briefly) to his major league success and then his battle with cancer in his deltoid muscle, and finally, his return to baseball. It is a very quick read and one of the better athlete autobiographies I have read.




5. In the face of adversity, faith in God will see you through. That's the moral of the story.
   
   Dave Dravecky was a baseball player. A pitcher. That was all he ever wanted to be. And he was good at it. Good enough to pitch in the major leagues. But when a cancerous tumor was found in his pitching arm it looked like his career was over.
   
   Or was it? The Dravecky family had faith in God. They placed their future and Dave's career in His hands. Placing faith in God is always the right thing to do and Dravecky's story is a testimony to that fact. Against all odds, against all expectations, Dave Dravecky overcame the loss of his deltoid muscle and worked his way through the minor leagues back up to the major leagues.
   
   Comeback is a story of triumph over impossible odds. Ronald Reagan said of Dravecky, "The remarkable faith and courage he has shown is an inspiration to us all." So it is. Judging by the cover and the man who wrote it you may think this is a book about baseball. It's not. Comeback is a story about a man and his faith in God. Comeback is a story about God's work in one man's life.
   
   Dave Dravecky's story is deeply inspirational and his book should be found on every Christian bookshelf.

5 comments about The Wrong Stuff.

1. The Wrong Stuff is a book written by former Red Sox and Expos left handed pitcher Bill Lee in 1984, about a year after his career as a major leaguer ended. It is a fairly quick read at 242 pages. What it is NOT, however, is a "typical" autobiography by a retired athlete. Lee, a California native who attended USC and now resides in Craftsbury, Vermont, instead delivers a real gem of a read.
   
   Humor, insight, irreverence, and honesty are the bedrocks of this book, which follows Lee from his childhood in California, through high school and college, and into ranks of organized baseball. Lee is open and honest about drug use, love, sex, and his personal philosophy on life.
   
   Lee was not a big prospect coming out of college, not like guys like Tom Seaver and Dave Kingman, both of whom he played with briefly before being drafted by the Red Sox in the 22nd round of the 1968 rookie draft. While he didn't throw that hard, he managed to get guys out by being crafty, out thinking hitters, and sometimes just by being crazy enough to believe he could do it. He headed off to pro ball without a lot of hope of making the major leagues. He figured he'd become a forest ranger when he grew up. Thankfully for him and baseball, Bill Lee never grew up.
   
   Lee chronicles his moves through the minor leagues. During these years, he tangled with tough minor league managers (Rac Slider), met future Red Sox teammates (Carlton Fisk), and his future first wife (Mary Lou), and made bets with teammates about who could drink a gallon of milk in one sitting without vomiting (nobody). As he does throughout the book, he chronicles some games he pitched in...there's no bravado here, though...he talks about the good and the bad with the same honesty and good humor. Lee's minor league career didn't last that long, as in 1969 he was called up to the Boston Red Sox.
   
   Once he found his way to Fenway Park (an adventure in itself), Lee appeared in 20 games in that first season, including one start. He only performed so-so, but made the team out of spring training in 1970. He only appeared in 11 games, however, because he was called up for military service. Lee has some fun talking about the absurdities of military life, but is also brutally honest about how he got preferential treatment because he was a pro athlete.
   
   Lee pitched for Boston from 1969 to 1978, and the stories of winter ball fights, teammates, pennant races, trades, near trades, and run ins with management and coaches are all classic. He talks about the Red Sox teams from those years....moves they made, didn't make, should have made, and how he and the team did those years. Lee was a 17-game winner three times in a row from 1973-1975. He rails against the DH and talks about friendships, rivalries, and enemies, both on his team and around the league. He writes about his only All-Star selection and racism in baseball. He acquired his nickname, the Spaceman, during this time. He also experimented with drugs and alcohol, all of which he talks about openly and honestly.
   
   The 1975 season had the Red Sox winning the pennant and going on to play the Cincinnati Reds in one of the greatest World Series ever played. Lee chronicles the season, and the run through the playoffs and the World Series. He started two games in that series, including the deciding seventh game, but did not record a win or loss. He had to leave game seven when a blister popped. The Sox bullpen coughed up the lead, and the Sox lost the series. Lee was fairly philosophical about the World Series loss, reasoning that it was great just to be part of such a great series. He spent two weeks that off-season in Red China as a goodwill ambassador, and came away with some interesting insights and stories.
   
   Lee writes a lot about the 1976 season...a season that saw several players Lee saw as key cogs in the 1975 World Series team traded away, a brawl with the Yankees, his painful recovery, more trades in Boston, his thoughts on free agency, and a lot more. The brawl with the Yankees, who Lee and many other Red Sox flat out hated, involved Lee sustaining a major shoulder injury after being body slammed during the brawl by Yankees third baseman Craig Nettles. That year also saw the death of longtime Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey. Between the shoulder injury, the death of Yawkey, and a managerial change from Darrel Johnson to Don Zimmer, Lee feels that this season was a turning point in his time in Boston, and that his days there were now numbered.
   
   During the 1977 season, Lee and several other "renegades" bound together to form the "Royal Order of the Buffalo Heads", named after manager Don Zimmer, who the compared to the buffalo, considered by many to be one of the dumbest animals alive. Lee also pitched the first game of his career under the influence of a controlled substance that year. He got shuffled between the pen, the rotation, and the manager's doghouse. By the beginning of spring training 1978, Lee was one of only two of the five "buffalo heads", who was still around. Both assumed they wouldn't be around for long.
   
   Lee talks about friendships with teammates like Dennis Eckersley and Bernie Carbo, and opponents like George Brett, providing some great stories. The 1978 season started out hot for both the Red Sox (led by slugger Jim Rice) and Lee, although Lee's injured arm would tire as the season progressed. Lee's first major run-in with management happened right after the trading deadline in June. When Carbo, a good friend and solid player, was sold to Cleveland for only $15,000, Lee went on strike for a day. It caused a major uproar, and got Lee into confrontations with team management. The Red Sox began to slip, and the Yankees came on hard. What had been a big division lead evaporated, and the division title came down to a one game playoff between the Yankees and Red Sox. The famous game was decided on a home run by light-hitting Bucky Dent, the Yankees went to the World Series, and the Red Sox went home. Lee, who loved his time in Boston, knew his time there was over. In December, he was traded to the Montreal Expos for Stan Papi, who would appear in only 50 games for Boston, hitting just .188.
   
   Lee began the 1979 season on a new team (the Expos), in a new league (the National), and with a whole new roster of teammates. He was reunited with manager Dick Williams, something he was pleased with. Trouble tended to follow him, though...and in spring training, he admitted to the media that he'd been using marijuana since 1968. This caused quite a stir, including some visits from the FBI, but Lee managed to escape any real trouble. He speaks a bit more at this point in the book on his own drug use, drug use in baseball, and baseball training and the changes that were happening in that area during his career. Again, he hits all topics with humor, honesty, and insight. Lee went on to win 16 games in his first year in Montreal, and the talented team finished in second place. Even success came with its rough spots...Lee was hit by a cab while jogging in mid-season, but only missing two starts. The new teammates in Montreal provide for a whole new batch of amusing stories.
   
   Lee could have become a free agent after the 1979 season, but without an agent, he negotiated himself a new three year deal with Montreal. The contract was probably below market for the time, especially since it included deferred money, but he said he had fallen in love with the city, and that money wasn't that important. He was not a fan of free agency, at all, considering it a bad thing for the game.
   
   Lee had a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the 1980 and 1981 seasons both on and off the field. He hurt himself pretty badly falling from the side a friend's house (he was trying to climb up and tap on the window), and missed a lot of time in 1980. Meanwhile, his marriage was falling apart, and he and his first wife ended up getting a divorce. He had a lousy record in 1980, going 4-6 with a 4.96 ERA in 24 games.
   
   The player strike hit in 1981, and that made for a split season. Lee's personal life continued to be topsy-turvy, with his marriage ending, and him meeting the woman who would become his second wife. Lee pitched pretty well, going 5-6 in 31 games (7 starts) with a nifty 2.94 ERA. Williams was replaced as manager during the season, however, and Lee and the other players soon found his replacement Jim Fanning, wasn't up for the job. The players held a meeting and basically decided to self-manage themselves, so that their new manager didn't cost them a trip to the playoffs. The team did make the playoffs, eventually losing to the Dodgers. Lee was married for the second time after the season.
   
   The 1982 season began with more problems with Fanning. Fanning seemed to have it in for a friend of Lee's, teammate Rodney Scott, who had been the starting second baseman for the previous several seasons. Scott was a good field, not hit player, and Lee felt he was a key to the team's defense. Fanning disagreed, and buried Scott on the roster to begin the 1982 season. Eventually, the team released Scott. Lee again went on strike...skipping the team's game and heading to a bar, where he had three beers while watching the game. When he realized his team might need him to pitch, and not wanting to let down his teammates, he headed back to the park, reaching the clubhouse by the 8th inning.
   
   It would be the last time in a major league uniform, in Montreal or anywhere else. He was released by the Expos on May 9th, 1982. After taking a few weeks off, Lee tried to hook up with another major league team for the rest of the season. Nobody called, and nobody returned his calls. He got more of the same as the 1983 spring training camps began.
   
   Lee believes that he was blacklisted by major league baseball as a troublemaker. A conversation he writes about with Dick Williams seems to lend that theory some credence. Is it true? We may never know for sure...but in 1982, Lee was a 35 year old left handed pitcher who could start and relieve. He was coming off a season with an ERA of 2.94, and had a career ERA of 3.62. In baseball, left handed pitchers who can get people out are always a commodity, regardless of age. The chance that nobody in baseball had a spot for one in 1982 or 1983 seems hard to believe.
   
   Overall, The Wrong Stuff was an excellent read...fun, controversial, enlightening, and thought provoking. Lee is one of the all time great characters in Red Sox, and baseball, history. I consider this book to be one of the top three baseball autobiographies I have read, with Jim Bouton's Ball Four and Ted Williams "My Turn at Bat".
   
   Any fan of the game who wants some insight into the inner workings of major league baseball and one of its wackiest players will enjoy this book. Because of it's blunt discussions about drugs, sex, politics, and other controversial topics, the book is obviously not recommended for young fans of the game.



2. Anyone wishing to escape the blandness of the mass manufactured sports biography should read Bill Lee's "Wrong Stuff." Not your average baseball player but a sharp incisive wit.



3. This book is written in the "I'm a character, ain't I cool" style, and I found it very annoying after about 10 pages. There are the inevitable comparisons to "Ball Four", but before you buy this, remember this: There's a good reason you've heard of "Ball Four", and a good reason you've never heard of this book.



4. Also know the Spaceman. He has been a troubled geek all his life, and socially inept - had few, if any friends growing up, and is still begging for attention. Cheated on all his relationships, which he likes to make a good thing. The baseball stories are true for the most part, but he will publicly state he lies. There are many other baseball memoirs more worthy of the time and expense.



5. Back years ago (more than thirty), Sports Illustrated ran a story on Bill Lee, showing his no-famous picture of pitching with a space suit on. The story was the first I had read about Lee, and my first exposure to Warren Zevon, as Lee called himself an excitable boy. For SI to be somewhere in the vicinity of the cutting edge of pop culture, I am quite grateful, as I became a fan of both. Unfortunately, I am guessing, their careers fell victim to the SI curse. Bill Lee was a talented and prolific winner with the Red Sox in the mid-1970s, an outspoken individual on any number of subjects, and a likable man who has never stopped being a baseball fan. In his best decade, when tell-all books were all the rage, this was his effort, and a fine one it was. But behind the successes and the long decline leading to his continuous unemployment by baseball, I sort of sense that he went from singing "Excitable Boy" or quoting Warren Zevon to being the "Excitable Boy" character, or a character from a Warren Zevon song - going from doing something funny and outrageous occasionally to doing something funny and outrageous continually, because that's what people expect The Spaceman to do. It's an entertaining and fun book about the man, his teams, and the people running baseball in the 1970s, although we may also wonder "what might have been" while the story progresses.

2 comments about Don't Look Back : Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball.

1. After reading this book, I am utterly convinced that Satchel Paige is as much of a baseball legend as a Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth. This book not only entertains but it fascinates, so much that I would'nt be suprised if someone mistook this biography for a peice of baseball folklore or a non fictitious work designed to capture the imaginations of baseball fans. This book portrays the life of Robert Leroy Satchel Paige in a most interesting way. In some cases he stands biggerthan life portrayed as a demi-god in the face of the gods of Major League Baseball and in some cases his mortality is revealed in the very midst of his immortality, and this is what makes this portrayal so unique.



2. Satchel Paige is an enigmatic figure in american histroy. Mention his name, people inevitably think of the negro leagues,or thta terrible bingo long movie.In fact, Paige was ,in many repects, the first modern ballplayer. He played for a percentage of the gate, would only pitch a couple of innings in these contests,had no compuction about jumping from team to team{or country to country}The minstel show,stephifetchit aura that he calculated with the all too eager white press was, of course, a huge ruse. He was a sometimes bitter man{quite understandably so}He knew, instinctively, that he was the best pitcher in the world{although,curiosly, his peers voted Smokey Joe williams better in a 1950 vote in the Pittsburgh Courrier} He despsed the Jim Crow laws, and what he had to do to get around them. HIs civil rights stands were taken in the 20's 30's and 40's, when such things often meant death. He pitched for what might have been the greatest team of all time{the Pittsburgh crawfords of the early 30's] Dimaggio called him ethe toughest pitcher he ever hit against.All of these nuggets are in this book. Mr. Ribowsky did a fine job here. Paige is a figure who should be celebrated for what he was:an american original,a species often sighted but rarely seen. A wonderful book!

4 comments about Joe Rounding Third and Heading for Home.

1. I thought I had pretty much heard all there was to hear about Joe, but I was way wrong. This book never got old because while Joe stated the obvious, he also took care to let us in on other things that happened at the same time. Everyone knows that Joe gave up his high school elgibility to sign with the Reds at the age of 14, but how many know that he later successfully petitioned to have his elgibility returned? That he was an all around athlete at Hamilton High? That he had a sister who died as a toddler? I didn't, but now I do. The minor league stories were the highlight of the book for me, but this is a recommended read for anyone who ever tuned into a Reds game on 700 WLW during one of the stretches where Joe had decided to punctuate the action with a long moment of silence, (Do I have this tuned right, or what?) or tried to figure out what was going on when the action was coming fast. You had to grow up with it to really appreciate it. Great book.



2. I purchased the book for a younger brother, knowing the Hamilton hometown scenes and connection would interest him. However, I couldn't put the book down. It was thrilling to hear of Joe's encounters with the Big League greats of the glory days of baseball. Greg Hoard's writing is clear and descriptive and moves you right along with it. This would be a good story if it were fiction. As a true narrative, it's fun and inspiring. It's easy to like Joe and it's easy to like this book.



3. If you are a true Cincinnati Reds fan or even a Major League Baseball fan you must get this book. It is a biography of a baseball star. The writer didn't just write the book as he saw it he interviewed anyone and everyone that might have had contact with Joe Nuxhall throughout his life and carreer.



4. I grew up watching Joe pitch. Lots of pictures in the book, but it could have been much better written. Not that much about his major league career. Mostly about his life up to making the big leagues. If you're a Reds' fan you may want to read the book, but don't make it a priority or buy the book. If you're not a Reds' fan, don't bother.