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Friday, April 13, 2007

The heart of the plate

Sunday is Jackie Robinson Day, a fine excuse to do some baseball reading (when you're not watching the games, of course). Here are three recent books worth checking out:

"Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season" by Jonathan Eig (Simon & Schuster). Eig's last book, "Luckiest Man," was a fine biography of Lou Gehrig; in "Opening Day" he follows Robinson's challenging rookie year, which culminated in the Dodger star winning the first Rookie of the Year award and playing in the World Series -- after surviving a season of catcalls, spikings and worse. Talk about blazing a trail.

"The Gashouse Gang" by John Heidenry (PublicAffairs). The 1934 St. Louis Cardinals were a team of colorful personalities, led by fiery player-manager Frankie Frisch and wacky ace pitcher Dizzy Dean. Heidenry isn't the greatest storyteller, but when you've got such a great story to tell -- Dean alone is worth the price of admission -- it's easy to get sucked into the rough-and-tumble world of 1930s baseball and go along for the ride.

"The Only Game in Town" by Fay Vincent (Simon & Schuster, paperback). Vincent, the former MLB commissioner, follows in the footsteps of Lawrence S. Ritter and Ritter's legendary "The Glory of Their Times" by letting the players of the '30s and '40s -- including Dom DiMaggio, Ralph Kiner, Warren Spahn and Buck O'Neil -- tell their own tales. DiMaggio, who labored in the shadow of his brother Joe, is particularly interesting.

And kudos to ESPN for its "The Perfect Game" ad campaign, which is as close to poetry as an ad campaign has come. (And the commercial about the network's fantasy leagues is hilarious.)

Surely it is the least MLB can do for Jackie Robinson.

I am going to watch the game simply for the tribute.

I can't wait to read these books. However, every true baseball fan needs to read, in my opinion, the greatest baseball book every written, "Ball Four".

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