Tag Archives: baseball

Short rounds: giant radioactive catfish and Congressional ballgames

Posted on June 27, 2025 by smellincoffee

It’s been a quiet week for reviews, largely because I’m nibbling on several books at once instead of committing to anything. Chernobyl’s Wild Kingdom is, as I discovered upon laying eyes on it at the post office, a junior-level science … Continue reading →

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The Presidents and the Pastime

Posted on June 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

On October 30th, 2001,   President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch of Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. It was a powerful moment, a symbolic step forward in recovering from the trauma of … Continue reading →

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Memories from the Microphone

Posted on May 19, 2025 by smellincoffee

Memories from the Microphone is a history of baseball broadcasting that begins with primitive radio and follows broadcasting into the maturation of radio and television networks. In this, it’s also a partial history of how radio and television developed as … Continue reading →

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Fenway 1912

Posted on May 13, 2025 by smellincoffee

Fenway Park in Boston is the oldest continually operating major-league ballpark in the United States, and has developed into a character or an attraction in its own right for that reason.  Fenway has not lasted as long as it has … Continue reading →

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Baseball Between the Lines

Posted on May 12, 2025 by smellincoffee

Baseball Between the Lines is a direct sequel to Don Honig’s Baseball When the Grass was Real, being an oral history of baseball in the 1940s and 1950s,  recounting interviews with ballplayers of the era.  This was an time of … Continue reading →

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Baseball when the Grass was Real

Posted on May 8, 2025 by smellincoffee

One of my favorite reads from last year was  more of a listen: The Glory of their Times, featuring audio of old-time ballplayers telling stories from the early days of baseball.   Baseball When the Grass was Real is a … Continue reading →

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Ty Cobb

Posted on May 7, 2025 by smellincoffee

I’ve known the name Ty Cobb since I was a kid: baseball is an anomaly in that it’s the only sport I’ve ever cared enough to read about,  both as a boy and now in my dotage. I encountered Cobb … Continue reading →

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Images of America: Fenway Park

Posted on March 25, 2025 by smellincoffee

I’ve read three previous entries in the Images of America cities, but this is the first that takes me out of state, deep into the heart of Yankeedom: Boston’s own Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox. Fenway is the … Continue reading →

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Double play: science-y baseball and Tokyo teenage touristing

Posted on May 1, 2024 by smellincoffee

Diary of a Tokyo Teen is a graphic memoir of a Japanese-American teenager’s visit to her relatives in Japan, after an absence of five years. They live in an area not far from Tokyo, and the memoir covers her visiting … Continue reading →

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Hunting a Detroit Tiger

Posted on March 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

Utility infielder Mickey Rawlings is in a fix. A man trying to organize baseball players into a union has been shot dead, and everyone is saying Mickey did it. In self defense, sure, so the police don’t care: indeed, the … Continue reading →

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