| 2009-08-13 13:00:00 | Which Hitchcock? Alex Rios's contract was the largest to ever go through a waiver claim, but I wonder how much it could compare to the selling off of players (most famously Ruth, but also the Connie Mack tear-downs) during periods of economic instability between the wars? Are those precedents in some way for what we saw this week?
(Asinwreck from Chicago, IL) | All of the Hitchcock, actually. I have most of his catalog ripped to my computer and just clicked "play all." The current tune is "The Man With the Light Bulb Head," so I guess we're on "Fegmania!" Your parallels to the Rios sale are correct in part, but slightly different in that Frazee and Mack were saying, "These are really good players, worth the money, and I regret parting with them, but I just can't afford to pay them right now." The Rios sale was Ricciardi saying, "This guy ISN'T worth the money, I just thought he was at one point, so please take him away from me." (Steven Goldman) |
| 2009-03-16 13:00:00 | Can you tell me why baseball managers still wear uniforms? I look ridiculous.
(Lou Piniella from Arizona) | Tradition. I wouldn't mind seeing some manager go Connie Mack/Jack Del Rio and stop wearing the uniform in favor of a suit. Problem is all the time spent on the field would be hell on a nice pair of shoes. (Joe Sheehan) |
| 2009-03-13 13:00:00 | Connie Mack's '29 Triumph : The Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia by William Kashatus... I loved this book.
(Toni from Oakland, CA) | To Everything a Season by Bruce Kuklick is also excellent on the A's and their interaction with the city of Philadelphia. (Steven Goldman) |
| 2009-02-10 14:00:00 | Reading anything good right now? Baseball division, or non-baseball division...
(BL from Bozeman) | I just finished Kashatus' "Connie Mack's '29 Triumph," which was nice, and especially effective in portraying the city and the period, and Peter Cozzens' interesting revisionist account of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign, which I would highly recommend. Right now, I'm dipping into a bit of Kafka for palate-cleansing and Andelman's "A Shattered Peace" (on Versailles), before moving on to Lee Lowenfish's bio of Branch Rickey. I'm supposed to get the new novels by Dan Simmons (on Dickens' London) and Richard K. Morgan (featuring his latest strange blend of antiheroism) shortly, and figuring those will make light flight reading next month during the book tour. (Christina Kahrl) |
| 2008-06-27 14:00:00 | Christina, what figure from baseball history was most similar to Napolean? (You may select your own criteria of similarity.)
(collins from greenville nc) | It would be easy to draw a comparison to almost anybody who was seen as brilliant in his heyday, and who then tried one comeback too many. Earl Weaver has his equivalent to the 100 days, for example, and I suppose we could say the same of Casey Stengel. In contrast, you'd have to compare Connie Mack to Kaiser Franz Josef, in terms of far outliving his useful career. (Christina Kahrl) |
| 2008-05-28 13:00:00 | Hey Steven,
The wife's doing OK, but the cats are PO'd. Dusty and I are not on speaking terms.
In any case, you seem to have quite a bit of vitriol for Connie Mack (your most recent YCLIU, for example). I'm curious, what did you think of the Macht book, which tended to a kinder, gentler portrayal of the old Ath-a-letic?
(josher464 from NYC) | I love Connie Mack in some ways. He was a unique figure in baseball. Clark Griffith did what Mack did for awhile, but not for nearly as long. I also think that he killed American League baseball in Philadelphia through a combination of short-sightedness and senility. He never embraced the farm system and he was part of the racist cabal that held to a perverse "principal" at the expense of winning or even making money. Welcome to the Darwinism of Bad Ideas. That the Phillies would outlast him in Philadelphia should have been impossible, and if you quizzed anyone on that topic up through 1949 ("Survey: Say Philadelphia has only one team in ten years. Which team will it be?") I would guess you would get A's as your answer nine times out of ten. That said, I admire his weirdly Victorian bearing, so unusual for the more rough and tumble style of his times, the fact that he was generally humane to his players, also unusual, and his ability to scout up two great teams pretty much on his own... I just think he was inherently dishonest about what he was up to after the 1930s. I haven't read the Macht book. Maybe it will convince me otherwise. (Steven Goldman) |
| 2008-03-14 13:00:00 | I'm reading the Connie Mack book now and it makes me wish I had a time machine... but I just put a certain Casey Stengel bio into my cart on Amazon (gotta read BP '08 after Connie).
(lpiklor from Dills) | I thank you for that, and hope you enjoy it. It's a cliche to say that something is a labor of love, but that was a labor of love. I have to read the Connie Mack book myself, but first I'm going to tackle Dan "Paths of Glory" Levitt's forthcoming tome on Ed Barrow, a book that really needed to be written. (Steven Goldman) |
| 2008-01-22 19:00:00 | "And, if you won’t take my word on it, here’s what the Poet Laureate of Baseball, Jim Baker has to say… “After only about 10 pages, I am already blown away by the research he did.” - John Shiffert on Norman Macht's “Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball.”
How good is this book?
(Amos Strunk from Under PA) | Thanks for quoting me being quoted. It does my ego good! Yes, Macht's bio of Connie Mack is as good as all that. I learn several new things on every page -- not only about baseball but about life and business in the late 19th Century. Macht is a tireless researcher and it's all on the page. I had the privelege of seeing him speak on Saturday and he related three stories that didn't make the book because they turned out to be bogus. They were all from legit sources (TSN and daily papers) of the time, but they did not pass the scrutiny of further research. All stories and anecdotes in the book were double- and triple-checked, he said.
The information in the book carries quite a bit of integrity. As Norman said, "This is why it took 22 years to finish." (Jim Baker) |
| 2008-01-17 14:00:00 | Have you started the Norman Macht book on Connie Mack?
(Nathaniel from Madison) | I have indeed, and I'm digging it. (Christina Kahrl) |
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