One of the finest aspects of baseball is being able to read about it.
Watching games is sublime. Then we get to experience them again by reading the accounts in our newspapers. The sports section is the first thing I read. We have had many gifted baseball scribes. The late Red Smith was one the greatest baseball writers ever.
"American Pastimes: The Very Best of Red Smith" brings together his best columns. Smith covered baseball for almost 50 years. The book opens with his column from September 30, 1934. The headline was "Dizzy Dean's Day — Cards trounce Reds for National League Pennant."
He describes how Dean closed out the Reds that day in St. Louis: "Dizzy was going to handle the last three batters himself. Methodically, unhurriedly, he rifled three blinding strikes past pinch hitter Petoskey. Was that a faint grin on Dizzy's face? The roar from the stands had become rolling thunder. They started in from their positions as Dizzy began pitching to Sparky Adams. They were almost on the field when Adams, in hopeless desperation, swung at a pitch too fast for him to judge …"
Smith once declared "that people go to spectator sports to have fun then grab the paper to read about it and have fun again." This collection could make a lovely Father's Day gift for those baseball fan dads.
"Class A-Baseball in the Middle of Nowhere" by Lucas Mann (Pantheon, 315 pages, $26.95)
Ballplayers who make it to the big leagues will make a lot of dough.
But first they have to get there. Minor league players are following their dreams, surviving on low salaries, often a long way from home. In "Class A-Baseball in the Middle of Nowhere" Lucas Mann explores this world.
Mann followed the Clinton Lumberkings, a team in the low minors based in the Iowa factory town of Clinton. This book will resonate with those hardcore baseball fans who truly appreciate and understand the game.
"Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race" by Larry Colton (Grand Central, 319 pages, $28)
In Alabama in 1964 the Birmingham Barons were a minor league baseball club with the distinction that they were the first racially integrated team in any sport in that state. That team had some players that eventually went on to become stars in the big leagues. But first they had to get out of the minors.
"Southern League" is the gripping story of how this team made a run for the league championship while enduring serious distractions.
Antagonisms engendered by racial tensions makes their focus on playing championship baseball even more striking.
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