Longing for Baseball Past

When I was young there were few, if any, people I knew who were bigger baseball fans than I was.

By the time I was 7 years old, I knew every player on every team in the major leagues. I went to my first game when I was 8 years old and was a regular at games from that point until about two years ago. It didn’t matter the level, Major League games, Minor League games, high school games or college games.

There was just something about baseball that I enjoyed from childhood right through adulthood. The strategy of the game was always a huge draw for me. In addition, I always enjoyed the numbers of baseball - statistics and records.

But over the last decade or so, baseball hasn’t had the same appeal for me. Maybe I am one of those deemed a traditionalist, but I’ve never been a fan of the designated hitter. I would love to see interleague play go the way of the Dodo bird. And the statistics and records that have always been a huge draw for me have been diminished.

The steroid era made many of the legendary records of baseball meaningless to me. I grew up knowing 714 was the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit and then 755 became Hank Aaron’s magic number. The all-time leader is now Barry Bonds, but I would have to ask a reference librarian to know his final home run total.

In the last few years, baseball has gone out of its way to try to take away my love for the game. A rule change that puts a runner on second base to start extra innings shouldn’t be part of baseball. And the changes to Minor League baseball took away our beloved Trenton Thunder from the professional ranks.

But rather than give up on baseball, I’ve turned to the Mercer County Library System to try and restore my passion for the game. I am now planning to read as many of the baseball books of the past baseball-that-I-grew-up-with in an effort to rekindle that old feeling for the game.

MCLS is full of awesome baseball books. Many I have read before, but feel like it will be worth going back and reading them again. There are also many books that have been suggested to me over the years that I plan to check out and read this summer.

Here are a few suggestions from the MCLS collection if you either want to restore your passion for the game or you are already a fan who just loves to read about baseball.

Where Nobody Knows Your Name by John Feinstein is a great story of eight men at the AAA level of the minor leagues who are on the cusp of reaching their dream of making it to the majors. Five players, two managers and an umpire are featured in this book about being soooo close to the big leagues.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis is a personal favorite of mine. While some of the ideas of the moneyball approach to building a team might factor into my lost interest, the book itself is a gem. It is a great behind-the-scenes look at building a baseball team when the odds and the finances are stacked against you. The book was also made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill and the movie certainly does the book justice.

Only the Ball was White by Robert Peterson is a terrific book about the Negro Leagues. The book tells the story of the great baseball players who were excluded from their chance to play in the majors because of the color of their skin - not their ability to play the game. The book details the time in baseball from after the Civil War and through the signing of Jackie Robinson in 1947.

The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski is a relatively new book that gives the author’s thoughts on the top 100 players to ever play the game. Like most books that list the supposed top players of all time, this one has many choices with which I would not agree. But that’s one of the best things about baseball, debating who is the best or who the top players of an era were. The book has great in-depth looks at all of the chosen top 100 players.

K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches by Tyler Kepner is an awesome look at the history of baseball through the art of pitching. The author breaks down 10 different types of pitches, talking to more than 300 people and 22 Hall of Famers. It’s not only a great book on the details of pitching, but the history of baseball as well.

The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn has always been considered one of the top two or three baseball books of all time. It’s a book I have yet to read but plan to this summer on my road to baseball redemption. The book focuses on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s and the path many of the team’s players took to get to Brooklyn.

The Only Rule Is It Has to Work by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller is a book where the authors are given the chance to run the Sonoma Stompers, an Independent League team in California. They decide to implement a number of different approaches to building a winning team.

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy by Jane Leavy is perhaps the best baseball biography I have read. Jane Levy does a magnificent job looking at one of baseball’s greatest pitchers and much of the mystery that surrounded his career.

Shoeless Joe by W.B. Kinsella is the book that led to the movie Field of Dreams. The book is a work of fiction and over the years I have found it is one of those books that people either love or hate. If you can get yourself to realize that it is fiction, it is an enjoyable read.

A few of the other books that I have yet to read but plan to add to my list are October 1964 by David Halberstam, The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearman, The Summer Game by Roger Angell, and Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

All of these books and hundreds more are available in the MCLS collection. Hopefully they will bring out the baseball fan in everyone.

- Bob Nuse, Hopewell Branch