Curt Smith - What Baseball Means to Me: A Celebration of Our National Pastime

Copyright 2002 by Curt Smith and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc.

Published in co-operation with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Hachette Book Group

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New York, NY 10017

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First eBook Edition: April 2002

ISBN: 978-0-446-55698-9

Dave Barrys essay is copyrighted and reprinted by permission of the author.

Jack Cavanaughs essay is copyrighted and reprinted by permission of the author.

Doris Kearns Goodwins essay From Father, With Love is copyrighted and reprinted by permission of The Boston Globe.

Marvin Hamlischs essay is copyrighted and reprinted by permission of the author and Charles Scribners sons from The Way I Was.

Ernie Harwells essay The Game for All America is copyrighted and reprinted by permission of the author.

Essays by the following contributors have appeared, some in a slightly different version, in the book Baseball Days

(Contemporary Books, 2000, copyright by Garret Mathews): Dave Barry, Julian Bond, Bill Bradley, Patrick J. Buchanan, Clive Cussler, Mike Ditka, Thomas Eagleton, Marlin Fitzwater, Bud Greenspan, Frankie Laine, Johnny Majors, Billy Mills, Ty Murray, Rick Reilly, Dick Schaap, Mickey Spillane, Eli Wallach, Tom Watson, and Fuzzy Zoeller.

The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

TO COOPERSTOWN

Here all was unchanged; the river still rushed

through its bower of trees the mountains stood in their

native dress, dark, rich, and mysterious; while the

sheet glistened in its solitude, a beautiful gem of the forest.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER,
The Deerslayer

T he actor Desi Arnaz was once asked how televisions I Love Lucy had changed his life. Thats a silly question, he replied. Ask what it hasnt changed. It is silly to ask what baseball doesnt mean. What it does is more gainfulthus, the title of this book.

Plato said, Before we talk, let us first define our terms. What tastes like chocolate to you may seem vanilla to me. Baseball is individualhence, its lure, especial. What Baseball Means to Me explores what so manyhere, over 170 essayistslove so much about Americas oldest and greatest game.

Paradise: Safe at home.

This book airs the largest group of household namesactors, politicians, writers, and athletes; an entrepreneur here, an ambassador thereto fill a funhouse of baseball memory.

Each was asked to write about the sport. They replied as vividly as your first visit to a parka blur of caps and hose and emblem across the chest of heaving, billowy woollies, yet indelible: the vendor, police, and skim of smoke across the yard; sunlight of early summer or darkness of early fall; timeless tableau of fielder crouched, batter cocked, the pitcher draped against the grandstandabove all, the surety that there was no place on earth that you would rather be.

Bud Selig writes of visiting Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field, and the Polo Grounds, at fifteen, in 1949. Muses Rudolph Giuliani: Sitting next to my father at Yankee Stadium during my first baseball game, I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Rick Reilly are less ooh-ah: respectively, touting Strutz Field, Buffalo Stadium, and Prairie Dog Field. George W. Bush hails Nolan Ryan. His dad recalls Lou Gebrig, averring, Baseball has it all. Another ex-President etches game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series. Says Jimmy Carter: You can still hear the noise.

What does baseball mean? To composer Marvin Hamlisch, a Yankee fantasy camp; actor David Birney, a poem to his son; writer David Maraniss, his father listening to Harvey Haddixs 12-inning perfect game. Jack LarsonTVs Jimmy Olsonsalutes his baseball-loving father. Corbin Bernsen recounts a fight in Little League: Two players mothers, a catfight, straight out of the WWF. Faith, hope and charity: Dave Barry prayed that no one would hit to him.

Baseball means: Donna Shalala, throwing out the first ball at Camden Yards. Marlin Fitzwater, hurling a no-hitter, walking 21, and losing, 130. John Havlicek, bird-dogged by five big league clubs. Clive Cusslers gloveless catch. Cal Ripken plays his 2,131st straight game: Tim Russert rejoices. Roger Maris smacks homer 61: Sean Wilentz exults. Reg Murphy watches Henry Aarons 715th. Bucky Dents homer mimes Mike Dukakiss bid for Massachusetts Governor. I can imagine a world without baseball, writes Leonard Koppett, but cant imagine wanting to live in one.

What Baseball Means: The next pitch.

Baseball can mean odd plays, lost cards, an Oh-my-God, can-you-believe-it, how-about-that lilt. Football is an eventthe greyhound you thrill to. Baseball is a fact of lifethe cocker spaniel who steals your loyalty and love. One is showbizTVs Simpsons. The other mimes the Waltonsreligion passed from one generation to the next. It is a game of fathers and sons, adds Frank Deford, and his link to the broader community.

To Charley Steiner, baseball gives running home new connotation. To James Symington, it means hitching a pants elasticand raising a coachs ire. Teresa Wrightfilms Eleanor Gehrigdiscovers our rite of spring. Ann Richards jokes about changing batting orders. Julius LaRosa recalls Brooklyns 1940s and 1950s Dodgers.

Ask Christine Brennan. Baseball means love: the Toledo Mud Hens. John Updike: courage to face big league smoke. Lisa Fernandez: intellectual. Martin Sheen: befriending a boy in Cooperstown. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes that baseball is the most timeless of all sports. This book shows why.

Y ou will recognize the vast majority of contributors. The less big-wigged deserve kudos, too. The wife of a newly inducted official once told visitors, Youre all invited to our house. No more big shots! Her husband amended the gibe. Of course, all of our visitors are big shots! Ibid. What Baseball Means to Me.

Madelyn Pilkington, 100, etches TV baseball and the elderly; Evan Roberts, eighteen, Americas youngest sports talk host, the 2000 Subway Series; Frank Capparelli, longtime Wrigley Field groundskeeper, tending Americas prettiest lawn; Mike Brito, the Dodgers Radar Man, his hope to be buried at home plate in Chavez Ravine.

Yankee Stadium, 1955 World Series: The Bombers bat against Brooklyn.

You cant describe baseball, Bob Costas once said, without noting folks who constitute baseball. Thus, clubhouse man Jim Schmakel compares Tiger Stadium to Comerica Park. Bob Allen, an old-school players agent, tells why he liked it better, well, back then. John Franzen has seen more than 1,200 straight Brewers games. Tom Burgoynethe Phillie Phanaticremains the only baseball celebrity [Phillie fans] never boo.