Southern Bookman

Early days of baseball come alive in Lawrence S. Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times"

Lawrence S. Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It" is the former National Pastime's Old Testament or Illiad.

First published in 1966, the book collects first-person interviews of players from the early days of major league baseball, when each small town in America had its own team. The collection has been reprinted several times, the latest in 2010.

Ritter traveled around the country to track down baseball's pioneers from the early 20th century through the Depression era, when baseball was by far the national sport, drawing big crowds and intense interest across the country. 

Players like Rube Marquard, Sam Crawford, Fred Snodgrass, Chief Meyers, Babe Herman, Lefty O'Doul, Goose Goslin, Hank Greenberg and Paul Waner recall their brief years of stardom.

Their stories trace the game's progress from the dead ball era through the rise of the home run. In the early days, pitchers threw spitters and altered baseballs. Scuffed and misshapened balls remained in play.

Powerhouse teams like the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox drew large numbers of fans who were allowed to sit along the foul lines or in the outfield.

Several famous incidents receive repeated attention. Two involved the Giants: Fred Merkle's failure to touch second base in a game against the Chicago Cubs in 1908 that led to the Cubs winning the pennant over the Giants and Fred Snodgrass's dropping a fly ball in the 1912 World Series, a factor in the Red Sox' win over the Giants.

Bill Wambsganns entertainingly explains his unassisted triple play for the Cleveland Indians against the Brooklyn Robins, aka as the Dodgers, in the 1920 World Series.

The Indians won the American League pennant and World Series after the death of popular shortstop Ray Chapman, who died after a pitch struck him in the head. Wambsganns expresses his sorrow over his teammate, the only player who ever died from an injury received during a game.

Mythical heroes like Honus Wagner, John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb,  Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth, Frank Chance and Joe Tinker keep recurring throughout the book.

"The Glory of Their Times" started the baseball nostalgia movement, leading to the appearance of later classics like Roger Kahn's "The Boys of Summer" and renewed interest in the Negro Leagues.

The book's photos show the old-timers as young men. Their voices sparkle with the energy of an era when baseball and America shared the same story.

 

Nikola Jokic and the art of passing

The pass is to basketball what the bunt is to baseball, a special skill of precision and beauty.

The Denver Nuggets' unicorn wonder Nikola Jokic's shooting reminds me of a master organ player commanding a full range of notes. He's a prodigious rebounder. But I'm most amazed by Jokic's virtuoso passing.

Jokic Monday night led the Nuggets to a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals with his eighth triple double of the playoffs, breaking Wilt Chamberlain's record. He scored 30 points on a variety of inside and outside shots, and pulled down 14 rebounds. But Jokic reached a higher level with his passing, totaling 13 assists.

The 6-11 Serbian pulls off unbelievable baskets like the three-pointer he hit late in the game with the shot clock running down. From about 40 feet, Jokic shot from behind his head with the Lakers' hapless Anthony Davis bearing down. Somehow, the ball rose on a rainbow arc, watched in unison by the Lakers' disbelieving fans, and plummeted through the net.

Despite some late game efforts by Davis and the intrepid LeBron James, the Nuggets prevailed over the Lakers and their house full of Hollywood stars to reach the NBA finals for the first time in team history. 

Jokic's passing thrilled me the most. Like the NFL's Patrick Mahomes, Jokic stirs wonder at how he creates such magic. The big guy steers the ball through tiny spaces in a crunch of bodies. Jokic's cross-court laser beams dart like a great outfielder's throws to home plate, revealing sports' breath-taking beauty. .

Like opera lovers rating tenors, NBA connoisseurs will compare Jokic to passing masters like Bob Cousy, Pete Maravich, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird and Bill Walton.

Don't call Jokic the Joker. Call him maestro.

Farewell Vida Blue, Oakland A's dazzling pitching comet

Vida Blue came out of North Louisiana with a lightning bolt arm.

The region's shabby small towns produce a disproportionate share of NFL quarterbacks and major league pitchers.

Like another North Louisiana native, the Houston Astros' J.R. Richard, Blue dazzled baseball for a few brief seasons with a nearly unhittable fast ball.

Blue, who died May 6 at age 73, burst upon the major leagues with the Oakland Athletics' great team that won three straight World Series championships from 1972-74. He pitched for 17 years in the major leagues, winning 209 games, yet his career seems less than it might have been.

The year before the A's began their championship run, Blue registered an astounding season, winning the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards, with a 24-9 record, 1.82 era and 24 complete games.

Yet the Oakland's despicable owner Charlie Finley refused to give Blue a new contract, limiting him to a 6-12 record in the 1972 championship season. He pitched from the bullpen during the World Series.

Blue, who had made about $20,000 in his breakthrough season, wanted $93,000. He eventually signed for about $60,000. Today's pitchers who find it difficult to complete six innings make millions.

As Washington Post columnist Candace Buckner related in a poignant tribute to Blue, he like Richard was a victim of white exploitation. Like another shooting star who burned out, the Mets' Dwight "Doc" Gooden, Blue was plagued by cocaine and alcohol addiction.

One of the many black men unfairly punished by the country's "drug war," Blue was incarcerated late in his career, serving three months in prison for attempting to buy the seductive white powder. 

Blue had two more seasons winning 20 games during the A's championship run. The penurious Finley broke up his magnificent team, shipping out Reggie Jackson, Blue Moon Odom, Catfish Hunter and Blue, who traveled across the bay to pitch for the San Francisco Giants. He had several all-star seasons, but never came close to the astounding heights of his 1971 season.

Richard, who died in 2021, was accused by white sportswriters of malingering after he suffered a career-ending stroke. Following his meteoric baseball career, Richard descended into homelessness, eventually recovering to do community outreach work.

Blue like Richard and Gooden will be remembered for an amazing career that still fell short of his magical talent.  

New York Times' Joe Drape ready for another Kentucky Derby run for the roses

New York Times horse-racing reporter Joe Drape keeps alive a newspaper tradition.

"I’m saying this bittersweetly: I’m one of the last ones to stand,” the Times' "turf writer" told colleague Terence McGinley in a "Times Insider"  interview Friday.

Once newspaper columnists like the Herald Tribune and Times' Red Smith religiously covered horse racing, a sport that has declined in popularity, although the Kentucky Derby and other "Triple Crown" races still attract fans for at least a day.

Drape, who succeeded Times reporters Steve Cady and Joe Druoso on the horse racing beat, has been covering the Derby since 1998, only missing the run for the roses in Louisville for his son's first communion.

In the "Times Insider" column, Drape recalls going to horse races as a child with his family, and the intellectual pleasures of reading the racing form, which gives fans at the race track detailed information on each horse running that day.

Each year, I love reading Drape's Derby coverage. On Saturday morning of the race, I can't wait to peruse his "tout sheet" of the Derby field, listing the odds for each horse and its chances of making the winner's circle. Times editor Melissa Hoppert also comments on each ccontender.

Along with the "Times Insider" interview, Drape wrote an expansive front-page article about how championship horses make millions as breeders, cutting short their racing careers.

Drape, while loving the romance of horse racing, has covered the sport's doping scandals and horse deaths. This year, four horses have died at Churchill Downs before the race.

Along with horse racing, Drape covers football, e-sports and the gambling industry for the Times. He has also written several well-received books on horse racing, high school football and Catholicism.

On a personal note, I fondly remember Joe from when he was one of my colleagues at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Joe was always an encouraging presence in the newsroom, quick with a smile and a word of praise.

I've enjoyed following Joe's career at the Times. On Saturday morning, I'll again drink my coffee and read which horses he and Hoppert think "can do."

Midnight strikes again watching the NFL Draft

OK, I like the NFL draft.

Once again, I succumbed to watching the pro football spectacle Thursday night.

Grown men wearing ridiculous costumes. Cheerleaders and girlfriends. Mamas and daddies, brothers and sisters. Nick Saban in a pink sportcoat. Roger Goodell lifted off his feet by a burly lineman. Tears, hugs, kisses.

You know you're in deep when you find yourself contemplating Mel Kiper Jr.'s rule against drafting running backs in the first round and Booger McFarland's rhapsodies about obscure Big 10 defensive ends.

The young men parade across the stage, wearing hip-hop suits and hair. In interviews with the ebullient Suzy Kolber, they thank God and family. The new recruits will soon face the reality of the NFL meat grinder, receiving millions to risk permanent injury or death.

Some of them will fail, others achieve stardom. They will be analyzed on ESPN talk shows. From July through February, they will crash against each other, warriors like ancient knights transported to our TV screens.

Each team is like a small medieval kingdom. The Lions. The Packers. The Bears. The Eagles. The Giants. The Cowboys. The Bucs. The Saints. The Falcons. We know their histories, their personalities, their uniforms, their players.

Once again, I can't resist the NFL's hype machine.

 

Trip to Athens brings memories of football games past

On our annual visit to Athens, the home of the University of Georgia, I again reflect upon my long history with this hip old college town.

I first came to "the classic city" with my parents for a game between Charlie McClendon's LSU Tigers and Vince Dooley's Dawgs.

A young man then, I'd recently moved from my native Louisiana to Columbus, Ga., to work for the morning newspaper the Enquirer. The Ledger was the mill town's afternoon paper.

Later, after marrying and moving to Atlanta, I attended a series of intermittent LSU-Georgia games at Sanford Stadium.

I witnessed one of LSU's rare victories with childhood friends who drove up from Baton Rouge. In subsequent years, I drove over to Athens from Atlanta with my son, who followed in my family's footsteps and graduated from LSU.

Over the years, I've grown fond of UGA's beautiful campus, and Athens' historic downtown area. Generations of students have come and gone over the years.

Walking the old part of the campus, I saw students already taking photos in their graduation caps and gowns. I silently gave them my best wishes for the future.

Joe Biden chooses declining Chicago over prosperous Atlanta for 2024 Democratic Convention

"Say It Ain't So, Joe," said The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's headline after Joe Biden selected Chicago over Atlanta for the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

The clever headline echoed a young fan's despairing cry to star outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson over one of Chicago's darkest moments, the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal.

This time, it was Atlanta repeating the slugger's reputed reply outside of a Chicago courtroom, "I'm afraid it is, kid, I'm afraid it is."

Biden and the Democratic Party's decision shocked Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Atlanta boosters who thought the Georgia capital had won the political extravaganza.

Long maligned for rising murders, political dysfunction, fleeing companies and declining population, Chicago with its heavy union presence will host next year's Democratic Convention, its second since the disastrous 1968 DNC ended in police violence against leftist protesters.

Biden cited Chicago's union power, reflecting his program to remake the American economy "from the ground up."

That struck a discordant note with reports that Illinois' billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker pledged to cover convention expenses. Pritzker's offer smacks of top-down economics, sounding like the bribes that gamblers allegedly made to Shoeless Joe and his teammates, who were acquitted of  charges they fixed the 1919 World Series but banned from the game.

Atlanta, the capital of a reputed "battleground" state, lost out to declining Chicago although the Sunbelt metropolis is booming with new jobs and a soaring population. Unlike with Chicago, Atlanta's hotels and businesses are not heavily unionized.

Political pundits said Biden made his decision to shore up Democratic power in the Midwest's "blue wall." Outside of Georgia, the Democrats have pretty much written off the South.

Chicago is one of the GOP conservatives' favorite targets as a disastrously run Democratic city.

Biden, expected to run again at age 82, has turned to an aging, battered city desperate for rejuvenation as the Democratic Party's standard bearer.

 

 

 

 

 

LSU women from different backgrounds give Louisiana a national basketball title

They came from Baltimore, Beaumont, Australia, Savannah and the Bronx, winning the NCAA women's basketball championship Sunday for Louisiana State University.

Baton Rouge's Semoine Augustus, whose statue stands outside LSU's Pete Maravich Assembly Center, joined the postgame celebration along with Tickfaw and Hammond's Kim Mulkey.

The flashy and combative coach first burst onto the national scene as the star point guard for Louisiana Tech, leading the North Louisiana school to the first NCAA women's championship. The year before, the Bulldogs won a national women's association title, before the NCAA allowed women to compete. 

Augustus starred for LSU when homegrown talent dominated Tigers rosters. Mulkey's championship team, LSU's first in men's and women's basketball after numerous Final Four appearances through the years, was built through the transfer portal.

Baltimore native Angel Reese came to LSU from Maryland, building her NIL wealth with the Bayou Barbie brand. Budding rapper Flau'Jae Johnson was one of the few players signed as a true freshman.

The team's closest starter to a Louisiana native was splendid point guard Alexis Morris, who grew up in Beaumont, known by Louisianians as the first stop in Texas on I-10 on the way to Houston.

Morris, thrown off Mulkey's Baylor team after legal problems, migrated to Rutgers and Texas A&M before reuniting with Mulkey in Baton Rouge.

The only player from Mulkey's first LSU team last year, Morris harassed Iowa star Caitlin Clark Sunday before a sellout crowd in Dallas and led the Tigers to their victory with 19 second half points.

Jasmine Carson, a graduate student transfer who came South from West Virginia to join Mulkey's vagabond squad, shocked Iowa by scoring 21 points in the first half, hitting all seven of her three-point shots.

Reese and Morris cheered Carson's outburst from the bench after receiving two fouls each from the bizarre officiating crew, which handcuffed Clark with a horrible technical foul call in the second half.

With four fouls, Clark rarely attempted drives toward the basket, which tormented South Carolina in the Hawkeyes' upset win over the Gamecocks in the Final Four semifinals.

Afraid of  leaving the game with an offensive foul call, Clark resorted to increasingly ineffective three-point attempts. After two 40-point outbursts, Clark managed to score 30 against LSU.

Reese, Morris, Johnson, Carson and the other migrant Tigers accomplished what LSU basketball greats Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, Maria Fernandez, Shaquille O'Neal, Bob Petit, Joe Dean, Chris Jackson and  Rudy Macklin couldn't: a national championship.

In the game's last seconds, Mulkey burst into tears. She'd blended her players from different places into a cohesive team, Louisiana's own. In the post-game ceremony, the state's proud daughter shouted amid the confetti, "L.S.U.: Louisiana State University."

Her players didn't grow up in the state. But they're true Tigers.

 

 

 

A Braves sonnet for Opening Day

Here's a poem for the Braves' opening day.

Let’s give a cheer for Ronald Acuna
from Stockbridge to Lake Allatoona.
Brandon Gaudin, welcome aboard,
we will savor every word.
Kevin Kraus will announce the name
of each player at each home game.
May Spencer, Charlie and Max
enjoy the pitch clock to the max.
Austin, Ozzie, Orlando and Matt
will bring power to each at bat.
Michael's stellar play in center
will let us forget the long, cold winter.
Let Sean Murphy emulate Dale,
bringing joy from Dacula to Austell.
To Brian Snitker, raise a glass
for leading the Braves with such class.
On Opening Day, again we dream
of another championship team.

John Feinstein's return to Washington Post a gain for NCAA basketball fans

It's been an entertaining NCAA tournament, marked by upsets, dramatic three-point shots and play-making excellence. 

And John Feinstein is back writing about March Madness for The Washington Post.

Feinstein in his tournament columns shows why he's one of our most entertaining story-tellers. He's written about Tennessee coach Rick Barnes saving a lost dog, a pioneering black referee's retirement, Howard University's appearance in the tournament and the tarnished career of Iona and now St. John's coach Rick Pitino.

After the death this week of NBA great Willis Reed, Feinstein recalled going to Madison Square Garden as a student to watch Reed and the New York Knicks play in the years they won two championships. Feinstein said that he never lost his hero worship of Reed, even as a sportswriter covering Reed when he was a Knicks executive.

Feinstein was one of the legendary Post sportswriters who left the newspaper for TV and radio. Unlike fellow alums Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, Feinstein didn't find permanent success with broadcast media and was even fired by CBS Radio. Along with appearances on ESPN's sadly gone "The Sports Reporters," Feinstein gave commentary for the Golf Channel.

While continuing to publish best-selling sports books and popular novels for young readers, Feinstein recently returned to the Post, restoring some of the luster lost when Thomas Boswell retired. Feinstein and Sally Jenkins give the newspaper a dynamic one-two sportswriting punch.

Like legendary columnists Red Smith and W.C. Heinz, Feinstein knows that stories are the heartbeat of sports.