Bookreporter.com - Author Profile: Greg Mitchell

Greg Mitchell

BIO

Greg Mitchell is the author of six nonfiction books, including TRICKY DICK AND THE PINK LADY: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas; THE CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURY: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California (winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize); and with Robert Jay Lifton, HIROSHIMA IN AMERICA. His articles --- including many on baseball --- have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, TV Guide, Mother Jones, Sport magazine, Quest, and other publications. Mitchell was a senior editor at Crawdaddy for many years. He lives in Nyack, New York.

INTERVIEW

May 19, 2000

Greg Mitchell is a serious author of nonfiction books, including a new one coming out in the Fall about capital punishment. But his passion in life is baseball, the sport that has punctuated much of life. In his new book, JOY IN MUDVILLE, which is part-memoir, part baseball commentary, Mitchell walks readers through his winning seasons as a Little League manager, taking moments to reminisce about his own baseball experiences as well his thoughts on youth baseball today. Bookreporter.com's founder, Carol Fitzgerald, fell in love with MUDVILLE, appreciating Mitchell's self-deprecating humor about his role as a coach as well as the way he wraps a bigger baseball story around the tales from this special season. Join us as he reveals insight on being a coach and an author, as he debates the pros and cons of wooden bats versus aluminum, and as he confesses his favorite parts of the book and the game --- the moments he shares with his son.

TBR: How long did you think about writing JOY IN MUDVILLE before you started it?

GM: I began warming up in the bull pen when I wrote my book about Nixon a few years ago: you know, dirty tricks, cursing, threats and violence --- just like Little League.  Still, MUDVILLE was a fun book after Nixon. What wouldn't be?

TBR: Did you scrawl notes for it along the way, write in sequence, or go back after the season to write the book?

GM: The funny thing is, I had hoped to write a book about the previous season and kept detailed notes that year. Naturally, that season proved disastrous. We not only lost all the time, we didn’t even do it in a comical or profoundly inept way. We were the Bad News Bores. So the following season I threw away the diary and, of course, it turned out to be a season to remember --- if I could!  To re-create it, I had to interview all of the players, their parents and other observers. Thanks to that, I didn’t have to make up anything, probably a first for a baseball book.

TBR: As this is a true story, what kind of feedback have you gotten from the people --- both adults and kids --- portrayed in the book?

GM: I was afraid I’d Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, but I’m relieved to say the response has been very positive. One character in the book I worried about was our local Manager from Hell. I haven’t run into him yet, but a couple of other coaches asked  him whether he’d read the book. His response was, "I’ve only bought four books in my  life, and two of them were on sale." So I guess I don’t have much to worry about --- until the movie comes out. The kids on my team seem to like the book, even if they haven’t read it. Of course, they all expect that kid from "The Sixth Sense" to play them in the movie. You know,  "I see dead…pitchers.…"

TBR: Will we, indeed, see JOY IN MUDVILLE as a movie? If so, can you tell us anything about this?

GM: It has been optioned by Universal Pictures for a movie for Tom Hanks. Keep an eye out for the action figures --- or, since this is baseball, the no-action figures. We don’t know if Tom will want to produce, direct or star in it. After his portrayal of a bitter, drunken manager in  A League of Their Own, I suppose I should be wary of him playing me --- although I do have a Forrest Gump quality on the ball field (not really knowing what I am doing but winning in the end).

TBR: I am not a baseball aficionado, but found myself wrapped around this book. I enjoyed the quotes you interjected from famous baseball fans, as much as I enjoyed the anecdotes about your players.

GM: I actually managed to find some fresh quotes from authors not often associated with the game, like one from John Cheever: "The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain, but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball." This led the reviewer from Publishers Weekly to suggest that I was "as likely to quote John Cheever as Yogi Berra." Actually that's not quite true: I quote Yogi four times in the book and Cheever only twice. Then there's a great Robert Frost quote:  "Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things." And Don DeLillo: "The game doesn't change the way you sleep or wash your face or chew your food. It changes nothing but your life." And so on.

TBR: Tell us a bit more about the father and son relationship that is at the heart of the book. I take it Andy is nowhere near as obsessed with baseball as you were at this age?

GM: No, he's a typical Y2K American kid --- he'd rather watch girls in their underwear on MTV than go out and throw the ball around, and who can blame him? No one ever took off their dress on "American Bandstand." But he loves to play in games. He's just not a baseball fanatic. But I've been learning to deal with it, and JOY IN MUDVILLE in one sense chronicles my struggle with that.

TBR: Can you tell us a couple of your favorite parts of the book?

GM: I guess some of my favorite parts are when I intersect with my son beyond the Little League field --- for example, when we make religious pilgrimages to Cooperstown,  Williamsport and Shea Stadium. Or when I serve as roadie for his rock' n roll band (with the wonderful name, We Don't Suck). The scenes on the field kind of wrote themselves, since the craziness of the kids --- and the suspense of the games --- needed little embroidery. So I like my little riffs on such things as picking out, and trying to get my son to wear his first jockstrap. He still won't do it. I never could either. We both lack what Dizzy Dean called "testicular fortitude."

I also like Little League stories told by famous players and other Republicans. George Will played on a team sponsored by a local funeral home so naturally their uniforms were all black! That probably explains a lot. As George says, "I was a born right fielder."

TBR: If you had to choose, how would you like the book remembered...as a memoir, or as a commentary on youth baseball today?

GM: Well, it's basically a tale of one recent season, so the "memoir" aspect really covers the parts of the book --- probably too much of it! --- about my life in baseball before that year. I suppose my story is slightly more interesting (and bizarre) than the average Little League coach. I mean, how many of them ever played against Bruce Springsteen? Or threw Meatloaf out at first base on a single to center, or saw Don Zimmer's last home run, or attended a game at ground zero in Hiroshima?

Still, my favorite parts of the book are humorous exchanges with the kids, especially trying to answer the Question Man's many sensible queries ("why do they call it the bull pen?"), or responding to Cool Taddy Bell's decision to abandon his lucky bat--- after he got a single in the first game --- because he felt "there's only one hit in it."

TBR: My younger son takes swimming lessons and parents are not allowed in to observe until the last day. What do you think Little League baseball would be like without parents on the sidelines?

GM: The director of our league plays the lottery every week and he says if he wins he will build a stadium for Little League and not let anyone over the age of 15 inside. That sounds about right. I am very down on abusive parents around the ball field. Yogi Berra, the philosopher king, once said, "The great thing about Little League is, it keeps the parents off the street." Now the bad news: It places many of them right next to the fence when their kids are playing.

When you think about it, kids never play baseball anymore without an adult around. It's like going to school --- or going out on a date with a chaperone. Kind of cramps your style!

TBR: I once commented to a friend that baseball was too slow for me. He informed me that's because the action in the game is more mental than physical. Do you agree with this? If so, do you think that as a coach you have taught the mental game as well as you might have liked?

GM: My wife --- before she got hooked on Little League --- once compared baseball to "watching paint dry." But I agree with the great announcer Red Barber who said "baseball is dull only to dull minds." I also like Philip Roth's backhand compliment,  when he hailed baseball's "peculiarly hypnotic tedium." But unfortunately, I think many kids today agree with the paint drying analogy, which is one reason the game is in trouble at the lower levels. Deep down, their feelings about baseball are…shallow.

The team I coached, the Aliens (yes, we had one of those ugly, rubber Alien heads as our mascot and we rubbed its bald head for good luck before going to the plate, just like the Yankees do with Don Zimmer) had the mental game down, but it was a game played in another universe. Matt the Bat, for example, was convinced he threw equally hard every game he pitched --- but some nights the ball just took longer getting to the plate!

TBR: As you mentioned, kids are not playing baseball the way they used to. Can you tell us more about your thoughts on this?

GM: There's no sense wringing our hands about it. If they don't want to play, you can't stop them, as Yogi Berra might say. There are so many new,  vastly inferior options, from playing Sega to hanging out at the local megalo-mall. Plus, all the "new"  sports --- but is it a bad thing that so many boys, and girls, can now play soccer and lacrosse and volleyball? Baseball is doing okay, but it will never be what it was.

TBR: Do you have any ideas on how to turn kids back to baseball?

GM: Speed up the game so they might actually enjoy watching it on TV. Put pictures of girl singers in their underwear on the outfield fence. Just kidding!

TBR: Are you a baseball purist? If so, what do you think of the designated hitter rule? How about AstroTurf?

GM: I suppose I am a purist, but also a bit of a hypocrite. For example, I am steadfastly against the wild card --- except when the Mets benefit. I hate all these home runs nowadays --- but would be delighted if Mike Piazza hit 71 cheapo dingers this year. As for the DH and AstroTurf, I see no socially redeeming qualities.

TBR: One of the big controversies in baseball is wooden vs. aluminum bats. Do you think kids should be allowed to play with aluminum bats? Do you think aluminum bats should be allowed in pro ball?

GM: I'm a big fan of wood. In fact, if you were to emulate Barbara Walters and ask me "what kind of tree would you like to be?," my answer would be the Ash tree ---because they get cut into Louisville Sluggers! Modern day aluminum bats are safety hazards. They're so light the kids hit rockets and pitchers can't get out of the way. And you almost have to mortgage your house to afford one. They do not pose as much of a hazard in Little League because the kids aren't that big and strong, but I'm strongly in favor of mandating wood bats (or aluminum bats with wood characteristics) past the age of 12. In fact, I'd urge parents to push for it.

TBR: Are you coaching this year? If so, how is the season going? Is Andy playing on your team?

GM: Of course, I am still managing a team in our league, and I have a couple of the "Mudville" kids on the team --- Little Stevie Wonder and Cool Taddy Bell, and Andy, of course. In our last game Taddy stole second with the pitcher standing on the mound.   Our team is 1-5 so far, but that's fine, as we are improving game by game, and having fun, and that's my bottom line.

TBR: What are your favorite baseball sites online?

GM: Well, as Brando said in "The Wild One" --- whatcha got? You name 'em, I've been there: the Heckle Depot, Baseball on Postage Stamps, The Baseball Fiction Guide, Whatever Happened to Wedo Martini?, Youth Sports Club, The Mendoza Line…. Go to Skilton's Links to find, oh, five or six thousand sites. And, eBay is always good for a few laughs. Just check out some of the wacky auction items, such as a jailhouse menu signed by several members of the Kansas City Royals after they were arrested for drugs. Or Mark McGwire's jockstrap --- autographed. What are you gonna do with that? Carry groceries home in it?

TBR: What is your favorite piece of baseball memorabilia?

GM: Besides the ball signed by all the Aliens? That's a toughie. I have some neat old baseball cards from almost 100 years ago --- a Christy Mathewson is a favorite. But I suppose the answer is: the ball Andy pitched to get the last out in his first Little League win at age 9.

TBR: When did you decide to become a writer?

GM: I was a huge Superman fan growing up in the 1950s, and I think I wanted to grow up to be --- Clark Kent, the reporter.  He wore glasses, was shy and didn't like girls, just like me.  And secretly he could hit the ball a long way.

TBR: Can you tell us about some of the other books you have written?

GM: My "masterwork" (as I call it) is my book about Upton Sinclair's race for governor of California in 1934. It had everything close to my heart: movies; political campaigning; wonderful and funny writers such as Will Rogers, H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker and Westbrook Pegler; grassroots activism --- it even had baseball (Ty Cobb and Dizzy Dean play bit roles). Here's the giveaway on this book:  It has been optioned for a Broadway musical. "Don't Cry for Me, California"?

TBR: What are you reading now?

GM: I've been so busy writing about, managing, and following baseball I've had little time for reading other stuff lately. Right now, I seem to be into books that inspired movies. I'm reading  HIGH FIDELITY --- it reminds me of my days as editor at the legendary Crawdaddy in the 1970s (though Nick Hornby didn't get to play against Springsteen). Before that it was Graham Greene's THE END OF THE AFFAIR. Maybe if Tom Hanks makes JOY IN MUDVILLE, it will inspire me to reread my own book.

TBR: Can you tell us a little about your next project?

GM: I have a book coming out this November from William Morrow, as I put my "serious" face back on --- it's a fresh look at current controversies surrounding capital punishment in America; my second collaboration with Robert Jay Lifton. But I hope to follow that up with a kind of sequel to JOY IN MUDVILLE, another father and son story --- this time about my son and I both learning to play guitar, forty years apart in age! It's kind of a guitar chronicle of "our" time (1950s to 2000s). And that little bugger Andy got to play an electric Dylan song in public before I did. If any editors out there are interested, let me know!

TBR: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

GM: If you're going to write a book about managing in Little League make sure you draft a few kids who are real characters, in every sense of the word. And, as Casey Stengel said, you got to get someone to play catcher --- or you'll get a lot of wild pitches. Finally, keep a diary, every year, in case you get lucky.

TBR: In other parts of the country there is Fall baseball, as well as Spring baseball. Do you wish you had two seasons to coach?

GM: Great question, I suggest you forward it to my wife --- after I catch up on a few (dozen) chores around the house.