Baseball Season!

Mike Urban has mad photo skillz!

Ah, the first pitches have been thrown, the first swings have been taken, and the season starts. How could April be the cruelest month, when baseball is here? In Seattle, Safeco Field had the roof closed for the Mariner opener; outside there was snow, then hail, followed by bursts of sunshine, as if the game were being played in the Midwest in early spring.

There is an adage when it comes to sports writing that the smaller the ball, the better the writing. I’m not familiar with great writing on golf or tennis, so I guess that leaves me to recommend some new baseball books.

Jim Reisler’s The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees October 13, 1960 (Carroll and Graf $26.00) is fine baseball writing. After years of cellar dwelling, the Pittsburgh Pirates had slowly rebuilt their team during the 1950’s, signing good pitchers such as Vernon Law and Bob Friend, as well as position players like Dick Groat and the great Roberto Clemente. In 1960, the Pirates put it all together and won the National League pennant. In the Series that year they faced the Yankee juggernaut, a team that included Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Yogi Berra. In the seven game series, the Yankees proved very dominant indeed in the games they won, beating the Pirates by scores of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0. But the Pirates hung tough and won three games of their own, going into game seven.

Reisler weaves his account of this game around each inning with deft social history and biography of the people involved. Pittsburgh was still ‘steel town’, a working class city that at that time ranked 16th highest in US city population. (It is now 51st). The players did not belong to a union, and though they were well-paid for that time, they were certainly not rich, and most held off-season jobs. 1960 was also an election year, and both Kennedy and Nixon campaigned heavily in Pennsylvania.

The game itself was a see-saw affair, with the Pirates taking the early lead, only to lose it to the Yanks. Pittsburgh came back to lead again, only to see the Bronx Bombers tie it up in the top of the ninth, setting up Bill Mazeroski’s at bat against Ralph Terry in the bottom of the ninth. As Reisler reminds us, no one who was alive in Pittsburgh on that day will ever forget where and when they heard on the radio Maz’s shot over the left field wall of old Forbes Field to provide the only walk-off home run to end a seven game World Series.


Another fun book is from the group at Baseball Prospectus and edited by Steve Goldman, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over (Basic Books $25.95), which examines some of the classic Pennant races over the years. It looks at such teams as the 1967 ‘miraculous’ Red Sox, the 1964 Cardinals that won over a Phillies team that had lead most of the way, the 1944 St. Louis Browns in the only year that franchise won a pennant, and, my favorite, the 1959 LA Dodgers who blended an old team of the “Boys of Summer” with new players like Sandy Koufax and Maury Wills. (My favorite because I was a nine-year old lad who was fortunate enough to have his grandpa take him the third game of the World Series that year; the Dodgers beat the White Sox 3-1.) This book is geared to statheads, but isn’t limited to them. The races are well-narrated so that even those fans who don’t like stats will enjoy the book.

Both of these books are available at Jackson Street Books and fine Independent Bookstores everywhere!

Well, I’m off to my fantasy baseball draft. Wish me luck.

Jackson Street Books at Moondust

Jackson Street Books is now open on Second LifeThe blue tree in the backyard.
Front door looking over at Birdland, a jazz club devoted to Coltrane!
One of the reading rooms.

Upstairs, I have a photo gallery of historic Jackson Street, to show Second Life our hood.
Jackson Street Books is now virtual!

Welcome to our world

Sebastian Q Felber!


The sweater is in the mail.

Finnish Tango! with Tractors!

Our virtual pal Skal, from Second Life points this out to us.

Thanks Paul!

the Book Report!

Joseph Wheelan has provided us a fine account of the Mexican War with his Invading Mexico: America’s Continental Dream and the Mexican War 1846-1848 (Carrol & Graf $27.95), the first of the wars fought by the U.S. on a dubious pretext.

James Polk, the first ‘Dark Horse’ nominee, was elected President in 1844, pledging to serve only one term (a pledge he kept), and with an ambitious agenda: the annexation of the Texas Republic; the settlement of the Northwest boundary with Great Britain; and the acquisition of the Mexican states known as the New Mexico and California, thus pushing the lands of the American republic to the Pacific Ocean. The annexation of Texas was actually accomplished on the last day of Polk’s predecessors’, John Tyler, administration. The Oregon territory boundary was settled by treaty, but not before a certain amount of saber-rattling, with the slogan 54-40 or Fight! 54-40 being the northern point of what is now British Columbia. But Mexico was unwilling to negotiate anything like the sale of New Mexico and California to the U.S, although the area was beyond what Mexico City could actually govern. Mexico had already been provoked by the annexation of Texas; and felt little tired of being pushed around by their Northern neighbors.

Not a problem for Polk! A border incident involving Zachary Taylor’s troops being attacked by Mexican soldiers was enough to get a declaration of war. Despite protests from European nations that the U.S. was engaged in war for national aggrandizement, and the incipient opposition to the war from U.S. citizens, the fight was on. Opponents of the war were castigated as traitors who did not support our troops.

Wheelan’s narrative is good reading. He weaves both U.S. and Mexican internal politics, the personalities, the military commanders, and the actual conduct of the campaign into a highly readable history. There were many luminaries involved. The U.S. snuck exiled General Santa Anna back into Mexico in hope that he would negotiate an end to the conflict. Instead, he led the fight against the encroaching Americans. Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Franklin Pierce and U.S. Grant all were combat heroes. John C. Fremont and Kit Carson appear in California, set to seize the area. Abraham Lincoln opposes the war in his one and only term in Congress. The battles are well described, and even in the fog of war, easy to follow with good maps. The smaller historical incidents, such as the St. Patrick Brigade, the San Patricos, an artillery battalion comprised of American deserters, mostly Irish Catholic immigrants who had been sorely abused by their commanders, and fought for the Mexicans at an ultimate high cost, are discussed with sympathy.

In the end, although Mexican troops always outnumbered the Americans, and the Mexican soldiers fought both bravely and fiercely, the Mexican Army faced what Wheelan tells us we’re the best equipped and trained field artillery in the world. The Mexican Generals were poor and/or indifferent planners, who provided the kind of leadership that cost them a good chunk of what had been Mexico.

Manifest Destiny could be a bitch, though. The annexed new territories sparked more debate on slavery and the states. It would be only a short twelve years following the Mexican War that slavery issue would be decided on battlefields all over our Republic.

Race in America

Today, Barack gave the most amazing speech. Eloquent, Lincolnesque, JFK and MLK ring here. This is a speech for the ages and you need to listen to it entirely.Peace Love and Understanding, my friends!

Don't taze me, Peep!

Our local paper has an annual contest this time of the year to use up the excesses of Springtime. Here's some sugar-y goodness that even the Great Lobster and FSM would approve of!


Elsewhere, they report on the Traveling Peep Show