New Baseball Titles Re-examine Old Heroes and Customs

In a baseball era when much of the discussion has centered on who may have taken shortcuts to superstardom, it’s refreshing that 2010 sees several titles harkening back to a simpler time and heroes who won their glory through hard work and, at times, in the face of adversity.

Two biographies bear similar names and consider men who have been paired together through “degrees of separation” with one of the early legends of the game: Babe Ruth.

Tom Clavin and Danny Peary collaborated on ROGER MARIS: BASEBALL’S RELUCTANT HERO. Peary has noted in interviews that Maris, who hailed from a small town in the Midwest, was perhaps the least prepared person to deal with the success/pressure that came when he challenged Ruth’s single season home run record of 61 in 1961.

It was Maris’s misfortune to come along in an era when the schedule had expanded from 154 games to 162, thereby giving haters (including the commissioner of baseball) an opportunity to denigrate the Yankee slugger’s accomplishments. Add to that a new generation of iconoclastic journalists who refused to put athletes on a pedestal as did their predecessors, and you have a confluence of events that turned the loving family man into a taciturn, short-tempered and uncooperative subject as he was besieged on a daily basis by newspapermen looking for a fresh story or an original quote. The authors maintain that the Yankees failed him by not helping him deal with the media crush (these days, all the questions would be addressed in pre- and/or post-game press conferences). Add to that the team’s poor handling of a hand injury Maris suffered, and you have a sad situation that was only alleviated by his trade to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967, a team he helped win two NL pennants and a World Series.

Clavin and Peary do an admirable job of portraying Maris’s human side and status as an athlete whom they believe is worthy of Hall of Fame induction.

Like Maris, Hank Aaron --- who is in the Hall --- also labored in the shadow of The Babe, only he did so with the added burden of death threats and hate mail as he approached the all-time mark of 714 home runs. Howard Bryant, author of SHUT OUT: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, takes a new look at King Henry in THE LAST HERO: A Life of Henry Aaron (which releases on May 11th).

Like James S. Hirsch in WILLIE MAYS: THE LIFE, THE LEGEND, Bryant delves deeply into the progression this Hall of Famer made, beating the bushes in the deep south, laboring under restrictive Jim Crow laws, and pitchers trying to introduce their fastballs to his head and various other body parts. Aaron dealt with his situation with a combination of grace and frustration. Although he was hailed a hero while his Braves called Milwaukee home, he was less enthusiastic at the prospect of returning to the South when the team transferred to Atlanta in 1966.

As it became clear that he would eventually wrest the home run crown from Ruth, the hate mail started pouring in. A lesser man might have cracked under the strain (Maris lost patches of hair towards the end of 1961, and that was without the racial harangues), but Aaron --- supported by his teammates and devoted fan base --- soldiered on.

But as all fans and athletes eventually come to realize, you’re usually an ex-ballplayer much longer than an actual one. Bryant also brings to light Aaron after his days on the playing field came to an end, how he fell out of the limelight, only to resurface when Barry Bonds was challenging his own mark of 755 home runs. Aaron was placed in a no-win situation: to applaud Bonds would appear as condoning the steroids era, but to complain would come off as churlish. Aaron found a middle ground and was praised for taking the higher ground. No doubt Bryant and Hirsch will be vying for top honors when it comes to the baseball book awards issued by the Society for American Baseball Research and other entities.

It’s not just sluggers who won the adoration of fans. Pitchers who can “bring it” are analyzed in Tim Wendel’sHIGH HEAT: The Secret History of the Fastball and the Improbable Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time.

Until fairly recently, reports of high-octane performers were mostly anecdotal. “Rapid Robert” Feller in street clothes, throwing 100+ miles per hour using a speeding police motorcycle as the measuring device? Dizzy Dean killing squirrels with rocks? How quaint.

Wendel, a founding editor of USA Today’s Baseball Weekly and the author of several baseball titles (including CASTRO’S CURVEBALL, a novel that speculates what the world would be like had the Cuban dictator been a pro athlete), divides his latest offering into the components (rotation, footwork, etc.) that goes into what’s been called sport’s most unnatural movement: throwing a baseball hard. In addition to looking at some of the artists on the mound --- the Fellers, the Walter Johnsons, the Koufaxes, and the contemporary “kings of the hill” --- readers learn what happens to the unfortunate batter who can’t get out of the way of a high-velocity spheroid, as well as the studies in the lab and the amazing advances in medical technology that allows the pitcher to return to what would have been a career-ending injury a few decades ago.

Feller, Dean and their contemporaries are the subjects of Timothy M. Gay’s SATCH, DIZZY & RAPID ROBERT: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson. Gay, author of TRIS SPEAKER: The Rough-and-Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend, looks at the days when Major Leaguers would assemble in the off-season to “barnstorm” around the country. These trips served a couple of purposes: putting money in their pockets in the pre-free agency days, and giving folks far removed from the Major Leagues a chance to see these stars in action. What could be bad?

Not everyone was in agreement, however, including many team owners and Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the martinet Commissioner of Baseball. Somehow, they rationalized, allowing such exhibitions “cheapened” their product. How they came to that conclusion is surprising, given that there was no television at the point (which would become a more serious problem in the 1950s) that might have an impact on attendance.

More of an issue was that Landis did not want white players mixing with Negro Leaguers, either as opponents or teammates. While there were plenty of towns that agreed with his notion, others were more interested in seeing quality baseball played, regardless of who was wearing the flannel.

One of Landis’s “progeny,” Fay Vincent, served as commissioner following the untimely death of A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989. Considered less of an “owner’s man,” he resigned in 1992. His stature gave him the access to write three volumes of oral history; IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THE LINES THAT COUNTS: Baseball Stars of the 1970s and 1980s Talk About the Game They Loved is his most recent effort.

Vincent selected 10 figures who seem to have no other connection than the timeline. The roster includes players (Tom Seaver, Willie McIver, Juan Marichal, Ozzie Smith, Don Baylor and Cal Ripken Jr.), managers (Dick Williams and Earl Weaver) and an umpire (Bruce Froemming). Their comments are not especially illuminating, and the format seems somewhat lazy, practically a transcript of the interviews. Still, for those who don’t know much about the era, it’s a good launch point for further reading.

What almost all of these players have in common is that youngsters --- mostly boys, to be specific --- came to know them through baseball cards. These colorful pieces of paper offered a wealth of information in a small space. And like those who had access to those barnstorming exhibitions, the cards served as a way of connecting fans across the country with far-away players and teams.

In MINT CONDITION: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, Dave Jamieson examines the evolution of the industry, which dates back to the mid-19th century, contrary to contemporary belief. In fact, Topps --- the company that produced the iconic sets that became a standard --- wasn’t even the first major company to set up shop. Jamieson goes behind the scenes to report the string-armed tactics used to sign athletes to contracts, paying them practically nothing (prior to Marvin Miller’s role as leader of the players’ union) or what most considered the “privilege” of appearing on a card.

And just as the ballplayers developed more opportunities in recent years, the card community expanded as Topps lost its market exclusivity, competing with brands such as Fleer, Score and Upper Deck, among others. Fortunes could be made as collectors --- which now included grown men --- began “speculating” about the worth of these depictions of promising minor leaguers and established stars, which led to some underhanded tricks (some of which are explained) to make old, battered cards look better.

Josh Wilker, who hosts a blog of the same title and publishedCARDBOARD GODS: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards (With 1 Stick Bubble Gum), takes an even more personal approach as he looks back at his childhood and how the hobby sustained him during a period of family turmoil in the late 1970s in New England. Wilker highlights individual players --- and not just the superstars --- as a connection, an escape from the day-to-day troubles of adolescence, exacerbated by his unusual family dynamic. He reproduces the cards of those years and reminds readers of the feeling you got by going down to the store in early spring and tearing open that first pack of cards, still fragrant, with that thin slab of gum. Both he and Jamieson would like to see a return to that sentiment.

A warning: while the baseball content is plentiful, this is a memoir about more than just a childish fascination with childish things. It’s touching, funny and a bit uncomfortable, but those are things that set it apart from the usual baseball titles.

  --- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan