Gotta have heart: Gifts to soothe the disillusioned baseball fan
It strikes me that disillusioned baseball fans can use a little extra TLC this Christmas, so have I got a gift idea for them.
It got scant attention when it was released earlier this year, but James T. Farrell's long-lost Black Sox novel has been published at $28 by Kent State University Press under its Writing Sports Series. It deals poignantly (as usual with Farrell, sometimes overly so) with the disillusionment following the 1919 World Series, yet it retains an abiding love for the game. In that, it couldn't be timed more perfectly to follow the Mitchell Report, even if it arrives 50 years after Farrell began it.
"Dreaming Baseball," as it's now called, was one of two baseball books Farrell committed himself to write when he switched publishers from Vanguard to A.S. Barnes in the mid-'50s. The non-fiction "My Baseball Diary" was the first, but even as someone who respects and admires "The Studs Lonigan Trilogy," I have to admit it's fairly dry as a baseball testimonial. Farrell could be a wooden stylist, and that afflicts "Dreaming Baseball," too. But, as Chandler wrote about Hemingway's "Across the River and Into the Trees," even a great writer's bad books have heart, and that goes double for Farrell's Black Sox novel.
It's narrated by Mickey Donovan, a fictional utility infielder on the 1919 Sox who would go on to have a fine career in the wake of the banishment of the infamous eight Sox players. He writes evocatively of their skills, as Farrell was a huge fan who knew the Sox and witnessed "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's "Say it ain't so" moment. (Although Farrell always insisted the shouts were, "It ain't true, Joe!")
It's all recalled following Buck Weaver's 1956 death, and Donovan takes the players to task for disgracing themselves and the game, while Weaver becomes a tragic figure with no proper way to turn. (He knew of the plot, and while he didn't take part in any way he also didn't reveal it, which is why Commissioner Landis banned him with the rest.)
Still, the book begins and ends with Donovan in the mid-'50s present, working as a scout and devoted to the game. It's a delicate balancing act, and the book was originally rejected. Farrell reworked it but lost interest, although he shared it with Eliot Asinof when he was researching "Eight Men Out." (Asinof writes the introduction for this edition.)
It languished for years, especially after Farrell's death in 1979, but it was rediscovered in three manuscripts, edited for Kent State by Ron Briley, Margaret Davidson and James Barbour. It's highly recommended for all baseball aficionados.
On the local front, so is "Harry Caray: Voice of the Fans" ($22), the new companion book for Pat Hughes' CD compilation of Caray's work, which of course is included. Hughes got help on the text from the Daily Herald's own Bruce Miles, and along with the photos it makes a wonderful appreciation.
Sports Publishing L.L.C. also put out a new "Game of My Life" collection on the Cubs this year for $25. Sox fans can return to Kent State Press for "The Chicago White Sox" ($18), a new edition of Warren Brown's 1952 franchise history, with a foreword by Sox historian Richard Lindberg.
And for looking to the season ahead, there's still no beating "The Bill James Handbook 2008" ($22), which as usual is the first of the annual previews to hit the stands. It includes his usual statistical projections but also a new piece on the top young talent in baseball, although nothing on Kosuke Fukudome. For that, you'll just have to wait for "Baseball Prospectus."
On that note, if you're desperate for a present for a baseball fan, you could do a lot worse than a gift subscription to BP's online Premium content, a reasonable $40. And you just know the confirmation E-mail will be there by Christmas morning.