Legends: New Baseball Books in 2022
Baseball has been played for almost 200 years. It may be slower than basketball and less popular than football (either kind), but it still attracts millions of fans to both professional and amateur games each year. Moreover, as Alva Noë in Baseball Philosophy notes, baseball is a forensic game. As it is played there is a continuous examination and determination of what just happened? Did the batter get to first base due to a hit, a walk, or an error? Were they hit by a pitch or did something else happen? It is this quality that also makes baseball such a game of data. In our data-conscious age, baseball easily lends itself to new techniques and ideas for thinking about baseball. It also provides a rich source of stories about the players, games, and legends of the past. Happily, this all leads to a constant stream of new books about baseball, and 2022 has been no exception.
Roger Angell and Other Deep Left Field Thinkers
Roger Angell, arguably the finest writer about baseball, died this year, at 102 years. Roger Angell managed to write about baseball in ways that were both specific to the moment, and universal to the joy, humour, and pleasure of the game. All of Angell’s pieces were originally published in The New Yorker. The best of these were published as books, some of which have been collected as the Roger Angell Baseball Collection.
Angell inspired many writers who love baseball to share their ruminations on the game beyond last night’s score. Here are a couple from this past year:
- The Only Way Is the Steady Way: Essays on Baseball, Ichiro, and How We Watch the Game, by Andrew Forbes
- Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark by Alva Noë
African American Players in the Negro Leagues
The Negro Leagues (1920s-late 1940s) were affiliations of teams with African American players. These leagues existed because of Major League Baseball's color barrier, a system that excluded Black people from playing major and minor league baseball. This color line or color barrier was finally broken in 1947 when Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Comeback Season: My Unlikely Story of Friendship with the Greatest Living Negro League Baseball Players is written by Cam Perron. In 2007, at just 12 years, Perron became fascinated and passionate about the Negro Leagues. He began writing to past members of the league who were still alive, men whom history had mostly forgotten. Over time, Perron developed friendships with these players and was instrumental in establishing a second Negro League museum in Birmingham, Alabama. In the process, he also helped them to secure pensions.
Here are some books about the Negro League players themselves that were published recently:
- Beyond Baseball’s Color Barrier: The Story of African Americans in Major League Baseball, Past, Present, and Future by Rocco Constantino
- Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series the Changed Baseball by Luke Epplin
- Cool Papa Bell: Speed, Grace, and the Negro Leagues by Lonnie Wheeler
Current Affairs
Even casual baseball fans probably heard about the sign-stealing scandal of the Houston Astros. To be clear, on-field sign stealing is legal and has been part of the game forever. But the Astros introduced a level of technology and coordination into their cheating that was blatantly and scandalously wrong. Andy Martino provides an entertaining history of sign stealing and a detailed look at what the Astros did and how they did it in Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing.
Other titles covering recent events and trends in baseball include:
- How to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink by Pedro Moura
- The Science of Baseball: The Math, Technology, and Data Behind the Great American Pastime by Will Carroll
Road Trips
Minor league teams tend to be in small towns, with small parks, and cute (some say corny) attractions, with a terrific vibe, local food and suds, and young players hustling to prove their mettle. In addition, the countryside drives between these small towns can make these trips memorable. For some, the baseball road trip is an annual summer event. One could previously put together an all-Canadian baseball road trip, but as Jon C. Stott notes in his Canadian Minor League Baseball: A History Since World War II, there are almost no Canadian minor league teams left. There are, however, still enough in the US to put together a respectable trip.
100 Miles of Baseball by Dale Jacobs and Heidi L. M. Jacobs is a chronicle of one couple’s travels in the southwestern Ontario and Michigan corridor to watch minor league and amateur baseball games. They provide a detailed account of the parks and players, fans and fun they had renewing their love of the game.
For those interested in baseball road trips to major league cities, also check out Baseball Road Trips by Timothy Malcolm, which provides complete information for travelling to every major league city, the ins and outs of each ballpark, the food and drink, nearby sights, etc.
Toronto Blue Jays
For the rabid Blue Jays fan, nothing notable was published on the Blue Jays in 2022 other than an update of Shi Davidi’s The Big 50: The Men and Moments that Made the Toronto Blue Jays. This book is comprised of 50 short essays that cover the top events, personalities, and teams in Blue Jays history, updated through 2021. Should there be a long playoff run in their near future, no doubt a torrent of books will follow.
Other recent Blue Jays books include:
- If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Toronto Blue Jays Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box by Bob Elliott
- Hello, Friends!: Stories from My Life and Blue Jays Baseball by Jerry Howarth
As the fall season arrives, baseball fans can look hopefully forward to an exciting round of playoffs before the winter sets in and the diamonds go still, as we turn to the books that quietly give us hope for the legends of next year.
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