Each week (give or take one or two here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1. Pitchers and Catchers Report
When the last solo cup and paper plate are stuffed in trash bags and deposited by the curb and the last bacon-wrapped-whatever is consumed thus signaling Super Bowl festivities are at an end, it portends something new: baseball season. And that commences with the pregnant promise of pitchers and catchers reporting. What does this mean? It means that a fraction of America’s professional baseball players will make their way to warmer climes, don shorts and logoed t-shirts, stretch, and play catch. It is mundane and relatively boring. It is a bit like having your name on the waiting list at a restaurant: you are there, but not there. More than this, though, it evidences that the earth is still orbiting the sun, that spring is near(ish), and that soon the crack of bats and pop of mitts and wheeze of organs and calls of vendors will again waft across living rooms as the ambience of summer. It means that parks will be filled with tiny bat-toting, eye-blacked aspiring Ronald Acunas and Juan Sotos (and their overbearing parents). And it means that in a couple short months I will get to take my son to his first ever baseball game which he won’t remember, but I will.
Joe Posnanski is the best living baseball writer, and I will brook no arguments. He loves the stories of baseball, not just the numbers or rankings. What is more, he understands that the stories of baseball most widely known are not the whole story. Posnanski came up as a writer for a Kansas City newspaper when newspapers mattered. KC is the home of the Negro League museum, but more importantly the home of one of the greatest Negro League teams, the Kansas City Monarchs. Through this connection, he met Buck O’Neil, a great ball player who never made the major leagues and an even greater ambassador for the game and its history. Through the pages of this book you will be unable not to love Buck’s character, charm, courage, resilience, grace, and wit. He was a man worthy of respect and someone you’d want to watch a game with or share a drink with. Baseball is the context for this book, but it’s not really a baseball book. It’s a book about America, about courage, about change, about forgiveness, about finding satisfaction, and more.
3. Gary Sheffield’s Stance and Swing
If you were a child of the 90s who paid any attention to baseball there is a 100% chance you imitated this legendary stance and swing with your wiffle bat or empty wrapping paper roll. It was and is iconic.
