Glory Game

On Thursday morning I awoke with hope shining bright in my eyes and my heart beating fast with the sort of unbridled enthusiasm one feels only in early April. I had dreamt of blooming green vines and the mingled fragrances of hot grease and fresh air. My alarm clock came on drowning the echo of a too-soon silenced organ. A stiff breeze cut through the sunny morning and the crack in my window raising goosebumps on my arms. It was an idyllic spring morning; bright and crisp with a high sky and a blazing sun. It was Opening Day once again and I was newly possessed by the fervent unrealistic optimism which courses unbidden in the blood of old Cub fan families. I didn't think this was the year, but I did feel that it was, just as I do every year.

Baseball is a unique and wonderful unifier of people. It makes friends of strangers from across oceans, and across generations, across continents and castes. It draws out the hope in one's heart, the passion in their souls, and the fire in their bellies. It's really no wonder that so many of us can connect so deeply with the American game, and to that end the library offers a wonderful selection of materials to ignite the spark of a new baseball season.

Major League is a classic comedy to which any baseball fan can relate. Hall-of-fame commentator Bob Ueker is a must-see in this story of misfits and underdogs.

One could say that Chad Harbach's debut novel The Art of Fielding is about everything that matters in life. Love, literature, politics, the human condition and, of course, baseball. It's a deep read, and not short, but it's wonderfully written with a beautiful setting, complex characters, and an unexpected plot.

Calico Joe is best-selling author John Grisham's latest novel. Library Journal describes it as a story of "forgiveness and redemption...a classic story filled with human emotion." It recounts the fall-out of a bean-ball thrown in the seventies which partially paralyzed a star rookie. It's told as a series of flashbacks from the perspective of the son of the pitcher who beaned the eponymous Calico Joe.

If you're interested in learning a little more about America's past-time I cannot speak highly enough of Ken Burns' Baseball. It's a nine disc set that dives into the complete origin and history of baseball from the time of the mythical Abner Doubleday up to 2000 which was when the film was produced. After all, nothing important has happened since then, right Sox fans?

My personal favorite way to celebrate baseball season is with A League of Their Own featuring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to play professional women's baseball for $75 a week. The best part? It's coming soon to your library.

Enjoy your baseball season, and when your team starts losing regularly (and they will, because you're a Chicago fan), channel the words of the immortal and hyper-quotable Yogi Berra: "Slump? I ain't in no slump... I just ain't hitting."

Happy New Year!

Many people associate New Year celebrations with champagne, Auld Lang Syne, freezing weather, and blowing noisemakers. For me, the new year kicks off with dollar dogs, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and high-fiving random fellow fans after a home run. The weather? Yes, chilly weather is still an unfortunate factor of April baseball in Chicago). Major League Baseball's Opening Day is a great time to reset: the young season is fresh with unique and surprising possibilities yet to be written. However, if you are in the market for a baseball storyline that has already been written, and you'd like to go beyond The Natural and Shoeless Joe (adapted into the film Field of Dreams), we have them here at the library in our fiction stacks.

The Curse: Cubs Win! Cubs Win! or Do They? by Andy Van Slyke and Rob Rains
Penned by a former major leaguer, this novel has Cubs the in first place around the All-Star break, but even the pursuit of their first pennant since 1945 takes a seat on the bench compared to the swirling mysteries of the owner's shadowy past.

Oh Johnny by Jim Lehrer
A young baseball phenom enlists in the Marines in 1944 and falls in love with a girl en route to deployment. After the war, he pursues both his baseball career and his lost love but encounters results much different than what he expected.

Legend of Mickey Tussler by Frank Nappi
The title character is an autistic teenager with a "plus, plus" fastball who is recruited by the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, Arthur Murphy. While Mickey becomes a star in the major leagues despite adversity from his abusive father and jealous teammates, Murphy embarks on a quest to win the pennant while wooing Mickey's mother.

Season of Gene by Dallas Hudgens
Joe Rice is an owner of a car-detailing service and player/manager of the company's baseball team. When his best friend and business partner, Gene, has a fatal heart attack while sliding into home during on of their games, members of the mob appear looking for a vintage 1932 bat used by Babe Ruth worth $3 million. Joe promptly decides the payoff of locating the bat is worth fighting gangsters and facing down his own past.

In a closing note: just think, a year ago the Cubs still hadn't won a World Series since 1908. Of course, nothing has changed this year, but it was still nice to say. It's got to happen someday, doesn't it? Until then, happy reading!

"I don't believe what I just saw!"

Hall of Fame baseball announcer Jack Buck summed up the magic of baseball with those immortal seven words. At the time, he was describing Kirk Gibson's game-ending (see also:"walk-off") home run that sent the Dodgers to a Game 1 victory over the Oakland Athletics in the 1988 World Series. It is now the height of baseball season: the game's best players and/or fan favorites will all meet each other in St. Louis for the All Star Game next week, and I am actually headed to my first game of the season this weekend (up in Milwaukee!). In my humble opinion there is no better fit for a long summer than the crack of the bat, the thump of catcher's mitt, the search for the next euphoric moment.

My heartstrings have always been tightly wrapped around a rubber ball, covered with a two pieces of leather that have been rubbed with a special mud taken from a secret spot along the Delaware River and hand-stitched 216 times to form a sphere. From the days of being a kid when I would open pack after pack of Topps baseball cards and get a jaw-ache from chewing the accumulation of gum that was included in those packs to the current day where I'm able to watch any ballgame in the country via the internet, baseball has always been my thing.

A major mile marker in my love for baseball occurred when I was 7 years old: the second time I went to see the Natural. My parents, brother, and I attempted to see the Natural one time before, but ended up walking into the wrong theater, where we were treated to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (another moment that altered the course of history for me, but that's a story for another day). The second time around to see the Natural, we managed to find the correct screen and my life was changed (again). For those of you not familiar with the movie, you probably would still know the ending, as it has become deeply interwoven into pop culture. Suffice to say, Roy Hobbs (played by Robert Redford) sends a fly ball into a bank of lights for a home run that wins his team the pennant (I still recommend watching the movie). This piece of cinema is really nothing without Randy Newman's masterfully composed score for that scene: it is the combination of these two that causes my scalp to tingle even 25 years after I first saw it.

What I enjoy about that clip is watching everyone's eyes as they see the one thing they wished for most at that moment come true (well, except maybe the catcher). It is a beautiful thing, a special moment, when someone hits a home run to end the game. I have seen one walk-off home run in my life: it was a minor league game about 15 years ago. Dan Held, the star of the Reading Phillies, cracked a three run homer over the left field fence to end the game in the bottom of the ninth and I was hugging perfect strangers in my excitement. It is a special memory of mine - a Roy Hobbs moment in real life - and its just one in a huge treasure chest of fantastic memories that baseball has already given to me. Every game I watch, every inning, every pitch, I am prepared for the next big play - the passion-filled moment where I put my hands to my head and exclaim, "I don't believe what I just saw!"