Sports Biblio Digest, 7.26.20: Baseball’s Disembodied Opening Day
News, Views and Reviews About Sports Books, History and Culture
Also In This Issue: No Baseball on Cape Cod; Rereading “The Boys of Summer;” The Pride of Smoketown; A Drive Into the Gap; Rebranding the Redskins; Renaming the Indians; Rehoming the Blue Jays; Wright Thompson; Austria's Wunderteam; Ontario Motor Speedway; Remembering Dick Buerkle
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I’ve been conflicted by competing perspectives on the start of baseball season, and probably will stay feeling that way.
Thomas Boswell’s “baseball is full of risks and I can’t wait” at times seemed a bit too cheery given my often-dour mood these days, as psychological lockdowns are proving to be more formidable to battle than the physical kind.
Jerome Solomon’s gloomy season setup—“instead of giving us what we’ve been missing, the fanless games remind me of what we don’t have”—reflects a sentiment that flows through my veins, but is unrealistic about demanding our old pastime the way we want it.
Then I watched Adam Duvall plunk a cardboard dog in the right field seats at Citi Field. His solo homer was the first run of the season for my Atlanta Braves, in the second game of a shortened 60-game run.
I cracked up at the absurdity of it all. For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed a really good, rip-roaring laugh. The fake pooch took a direct hit, not off the bounce, and no living creatures got hurt.
The propped-up fan cutouts, even in canine form, and canned crowd noise (Vin Scully once did this, many years ago) don’t bother me. Nor do the mish-mash improvised rules that include the designated hitter in the National League, something I’ve long felt should be unconstitutional. It’s okay for now.
The sense of loss I've felt for months was something I could appreciate when baseball fans in Washington were euphoric last fall as the Nationals won the World Series. For some of them, the longing stretched back decades, with the departures of two versions of the Senators.
Maybe I’m mellowing out, or perhaps I’m just really glad that a few familiar rhythms of our old lives are trying to make a comeback. The early TV ratings are a hit, and I figure they will remain high as a sense of lost time fades away, I hope for good.
As I wrote in March, the virtual and social distancing options we were given on the real Opening Day just didn’t cut it. After months of Zoom business calls and Facebook Live church and doing things at home that are designed to be communal, there’s a tinge of relief.
My fear is not keeping this feeling for long, and that the surreal still clouds daily life for far too long. Braves announcers Chip Caray and Tom Glavine were talking about how players aren’t being encouraged to go out on the town on the road. Instead of going out for a bite to eat after a day game, they order room service. That’s got to feel sad and eerie in places like New York, where many restaurants are closed anyway.
The prospect of more players being sidelined with COVID also figures to overshadow the season, especially with a positive test reported for Nationals’ young star Juan Soto the day of the opener.
We’ve dealt with the loss of a lot of baseball before, especially during strike-shortened seasons. I’ve never been angrier than the strike that cancelled the 1994 World Series.
Those were circumstances that could be helped, and I worried baseball leaders would damage the game even more.
It took some years, but the game regained its spark for me, and showed its resilience, during sagas such as the aftermath of Sept. 11.
The game, and all sports, showed signs of unity at the time that were hard to quibble about. This new season started with players expressing support for, and kneeling on behalf of, Black Lives Matter.
Well, not all players, and some for reasons that illustrate the cultural and other divisions in our country. For fans who want to get away from what ails us for just a few hours, this isn’t a welcome development.
Baseball’s social justice gestures are very understated compared to the NFL and NBA, but hey, there aren’t any fans in the stands to boo.
As I wrap this up, one of the experimental rules installed for this season—a runner starting at second base in extra innings—has borne fruit for the Braves, who disappointed the cardboard Mets fan natives for their first win of the season with three runs in the 10th.
It was one of those gimmicky rules that made me grind my teeth when I first heard about it. But like the DH, I’m making my peace with what in normal times would be rightly regarded as a heresy.
Baseball’s back in truncated form, and it doesn’t quite feel completely right. But they’re playing games that matter, and that’s all that matters.
A Few Good Reads
This story has caused me great anguish, about the Cape Cod League being cancelled for the first time since 1945. The summer baseball circuit for college players has been a marvelous reflection of small-town life that was under duress for some time before COVID closures kicked in, and the cost figures to last for some time, even if play resumes next year.
While watching the big-leagues is a blessed relief, communities that are missing all other forms of baseball in their midst and are facing permanent loss with the retraction of the minor leagues are dealing with a terrible new reality.
As Danny Emerman, a student himself at Syracuse University writes:
“With no baseball, there are no ‘celebrities.’ No new tales to pass down. Just empty fields, picturesque signs of the time.”
Youth sports and high school sports in particular are also part of community fabric everywhere, and some states and school districts are already calling off or delaying football seasons. Now at Clay Travis’ Outkick, Jason Whitlock is back writing, and thinks the social fears of adults in response to COVID are robbing kids of their futures:
“We value the old more than the young, the people nearest death over the ones just starting their journey. We used to sacrifice our lives to leave the next generation a better world. We’ve lost that resolve.”
The Washington Redskins announced they’ll be retiring that nickname for one to be determined later, following months (years and decades even) of pressure to do so. But the family of a member of the Blackfeet tribe who designed the Redskins logo has mixed feelings, and they’re deeply skeptical of the motives of owner Dan Snyder in undergoing a rebranding;
Nick Francona, son of Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona, thinks the baseball franchise needs to do much more than drop the Chief Wahoo logo from team uniforms.The next step, he says, should be dropping a nickname that’s been used since 1915, since “nostalgic feelings about baseball shouldn’t come at the expense of the dignity and well-being of others;”
After being denied home games in Toronto by the Canadian government and after efforts to relocate to Pittsburgh were denied by the Pennsylvania governor, the Blue Jays will make their temporary home not far from the Canadian border in Buffalo, home to their top minor-league affiliate. Many players will be familiar to local fans who’ve watched the likes of Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Cavan Biggio—sons of former big-leaguers—come into their own on a “Field of Dreams” of sorts;
Canadian writer Debby Waldman was coming to terms with her father's death when she picked up the copy of "The Boys of Summer" that he had given her many years before. While not being a baseball fan, she “found comfort and a connection I never could have imagined” in a rereading of a book she had often been disinterested in;
More Negro Leagues tributes during its Centennial year include David Von Drehle, columnist at The Washington Post, who talks with Bob Kendrick, head of the Negro Leagues Museum of Kansas City, who’s brought that institution back from the brink of oblivion.
Sports History Files
The online zine These Football Times does some of the best writing on soccer history I’ve seen on the web, and recently delved into the infamous Anschlusspiel match before the 1938 World Cup. Not long after Germany annexed Austria a “friendly” match was set up between their respective national team sides to foster goodwill in the expanded Nazi nation.
Austria’s lauded Wunderteam—regarded as one of the best in Europe—had been forged in the coffeehouse culture of Vienna, and the sport’s development also had strong Jewish influences, including the successful Hakoah Wien club.
Hugo Meisl was one of the originators of the “total football” concept of stylish, attacking play, and his star was center-forward Mattias Sindelar. The lithe scorer nicknamed “Der Papierene” or “The Paperman,” did stand out against the Germans, who in truth were scouting which of the Austrians to take with them to the World Cup.
German coach Sepp Herberger desperately wanted Sindelar, but he refused. Nearly one-third of the team that reached the second round was from Austria, which with Sindelar had finished fourth in the 1934 World Cup, losing the consolation match to Germany.
After an independent Austria and the Wunderteam died, Sindelar died not long after, his body and that of his girlfriend found in his apartment in early 1939 in a case of carbon monoxide poisoning.
His death remains the subject of much speculation, and like so much of a European civilization that was being swept away, he and the Wunderteam serve as haunting symbols more than 80 years later.
Sports Book News and Reviews
From the folks behind the Baseball Time Machine is the newly published “On This Day in Baseball History,” a compendium of the game’s most memorable events and many lesser tales (and an awesome Twitter feed to prove it);
New in e-Book format, to go with an on-demand paperback version, is “The Pride of Smoketown,” a collection of newspaper and other stories and historical photos about the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords, arguably one of the best teams ever in Negro Leagues history, featuring player-manager Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Judy Johnson, and put together by the folks at SABR;
At Book & Film Globe, Jon Hart reviews one of the biggest hits of the new baseball book batch, Brad Balukjian’s “The Wax Pack,” his journey for players included in a pack of baseball trading cards that’s also “a surprisingly intense book with an often-solemn tone.” Balukjian’s part of the Pandemic Baseball Book Club coterie we mentioned here last week.
A Lot to Squawk About
A new sports book and author series is hitting several platforms, suitable for savoring during a pandemic. Patrick Sauer and David Roth have unveiled Squawkin’ Sports, and you can check out previous episodes on YouTube. Upcoming: Next Wednesday, July 29, they’re talking with Mike Birbiglia and J. Hope Stein, authors of “The New One: Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad,” on Birbiglia’s Instagram Live page at 7:30 p.m. ET.
On Aug. 11, the guest is Deborah Riley, co-author of “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice,” about U.S. athletes who fought racial bigotry at home to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. That will be via Zoom at 7:30 p.m.
Now Hear This
At Good Seats Still Available, an interview with Dave Lockton, the first CEO of Ontario Motor Speedway, which opened in 1970 and became known as the “Indianapolis of the West” for such innovations as the International Race of Champions series and sanctioned races of all four racing governing bodies (NASCAR, USAC, drag races and Formula 1) before closing 10 years later;
Kevin Guilfoile is the author of “A Drive Into the Gap,” a 2012 memoir of fathers, sons and the search for the bat that Roberto Clemente used for his 3,000th and final hit. A native of Cooperstown, N.Y., Guilfoile talks with Brendan O’Meara, host of The Creative Nonfiction podcast, about his career and serving as a Pittsburgh Pirates intern when Barry Bonds was a rookie;
Brin-Jonathan Butler’s latest podcast guest is ESPN.com senior writer Wright Thompson, who discusses his profiles of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and others in “The Cost of These Dreams,” his 2019 story collection.
Passings
Dick Buerkle, 72, set a world record of 3:54.93 in the indoor mile run in 1978, a feat that earned him a Sports Illustrated cover story.
He walked on at Villanova, where he became an All-American, qualified for the 5,000-meter run for the 1976 and 1980 Olympics and was a rival of Steve Prefontaine in American middle-distance events in the 1970s.
Buerkle also was a contact lens and copier salesman, journalist and teacher and continued to run in masters events, still fiercely competitive. “Every time he raced he ran to win and, when he did, showed humility and respect for his competitors,” 1972 Olympic marathon gold medalist Frank Shorter said in one of many tributes to Buerkle, who died of multiple system atrophy at his home in Atlanta.
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The Sports Biblio Digest is an e-mail newsletter delivered on Sunday. You can subscribe here and search the archives. This is Digest issue No. 211, published July 26, 2020.
I’d love to hear what you think about the Digest, and Sports Biblio. Send feedback, suggestions, book recommendations, review copies, newsletter items and interview requests to Wendy Parker at sportsbiblio@gmail.com.