Hal Bodley - How Baseball Explains America

Praise for Hal Bodley and How Baseball Explains America

Hal Bodley has spent more than half a century chronicling a game he truly loves and understands. Baseballs history is rich, and remarkably, Hal has experienced a good bit of it first-hand.

Bob Costas, NBC Sports and MLB Network

Hal Bodley had the job we all wantedand made the most of it. Covering major league baseball with style, wit, and a deep understanding of the game. Now he shares all those years and all those highlights with his many fans. Its almost like being at the ballpark. Just make sure Hal buys the hot dogs.

Tom Brokaw, former NBC news anchor and author of The Greatest Generation

Hal Bodley loves baseball and Hal Bodley knows baseballhes been reporting it for over 55 years! Hes always had a knack for bringing the games greatest moments to life. How Baseball Explains America is a game-winning home runin the bottom of the ninth!

Tim McCarver, Hall of Fame broadcaster

Hal Bodley is one of the most knowledgeable and respected baseball writers I know. His passion for the game and his expertise in reporting it always shows through his articles and columns. How Baseball Explains America is invaluable and fascinating.

Charlie Manuel, former MLB manager

I can think of no better authority than Hal Bodley, the pre-eminent baseball writer in Americagoing back to the 50s and still going strong!to explain first-hand what baseball has meant to the nation. This will go down as one of the most important books ever written on baseball.

Bill Madden, New York Daily News

For as long as Ive been covering baseball, Hal Bodley has been a friend, a mentor, and one of the pillars of modern baseball writing.

Jayson Stark, ESPN senior writer

In this era of technology, baseball gets caught up in numbers instead of the beauty of the game. In How Baseball Explains America Hal Bodley uses his half-century of experience to paint a portrait of our great game for all to enjoy.

Joe Torre, former All-Star player and Hall of Fame manager

Hal Bodley is the dean of American baseball writers and his over 55 years of experience and insight show in How Baseball Explains America. Few baseball reporters have gained the respect Hal has and his work ethic and love for the game is the reason why.

Don Zimmer, former MLB player and manager

Hal Bodley has done it all in baseball: interviewing, writing, and reporting. His book, How Baseball Explains America, interweaves that baseball knowledge with his love and passion for the game, with an understanding of how important the game of baseball is to the American way of life.

Dallas Green, former MLB executive and manager; author of The Mouth That Roared

The mutual respect that has existed for years between Hal Bodley and baseballs players and coaches, commissioners, and front-office executives makes everything he writes about our game insightful and relevant.

Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Rays manager

For Patricia and Charles V. Williams, mentor extraordinaire

Contents

Foreword by George F. Will

Among the many craftsmen of baseball journalism, few have been able to match the sweep of Hal Bodleys career. Think about this: Baseball has had two eras. The Dead Ball Era ended around 1920. Hals career has encompassed most of the subsequent era, which means he has been on the job for most of what we consider modern baseball.

More than half a century ago, when Hal Bodley began making his considerable contributions to baseball, there were 16 major league teams. Until 1955, the western-most teams had been on the western bank of the Mississippi River. But in 1958, when young Hal Bodley arrived on the scene, the National Pastimethe capital letters are still appropriatebecame truly national by arriving on the West Coast.

In 1958, the National League pennant was won by the Milwaukee Braves who, having come west from Boston six years earlier, would soon be heading south to Atlanta. Baseball was, like the perennially restless nation, on the move, and Hal was going to chronicle the journey.

It has been a wonderful ride for him, and for those of us who have ridden along with him as his readers. Make no mistake about this: Baseball fans are readers. Todays fans can watch Major League Baseball on all those things we refer to as our devicespersonal computers, cell phones, tablets. This is wonderful; it is not, however, sufficient.

Because baseball is a game of distinct episodespitch by pitch, out by outit is a game not just to be seen but also to be savored in the writings about it. Baseball leaves its mark on our mental retinas; it is seen on the replay of our memories.

It has been well said that God gave us memory so we could have roses in winter. I think God gave us Hal Bodley so we could have baseball in winter. And so in 2014 we could have baseball from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

In the 1958 All-Star Game, the American Leaguers managed by Casey Stengel beat the National Leaguers managed by Fred Haney 43and the game lasted just two hours and 13 minutes. The rosters included a slew of future Hall of FamersWillie Mays, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Bill Mazeroski, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, and Richie Ashburn from the National League, and from the American League Nellie Fox, Mickey Mantle, Luis Aparicio, Yogi Berra, Ted Williams, Al Kaline, Whitey Ford, and Early Wynn. But the real fun in revisiting those rosters, back when the world and Hal (and I) were young, is to remember the lesser names. Eddie Mathews did not start at third base for the National League. Frank Thomas did. Ted Williams was not the American Leagues starting left fielder. Bob Cerv was. Gus Triandos was the American Leagues starting catcher while Yogi Berra watched.

When we re-encounter the names of players who burned brightly but briefly, we see the rich weave of baseballs ever-thickening tapestry. Baseballs best writers, of whom Hal Bodley is one, do not just write the games narrative. The best of them become part of the narrative. Imagine baseball without the writers like Hal Bodley who bring us each season as it unfolds, and who enable us to revisit past seasons, keeping them green in memory.

You are holding in your hand a nourishing buffet of baseball treats. So, turn this page and get started. But do not start late in an evening because you will find it wonderfully difficult to stop.

George F. Will

1. The Greatest Decade

Tom Brokaws superb award-winning 1998 book The Greatest Generation talks about the stories of a generation, about what this generation of Americans meant to history.

He said, It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.

I grew up in that generation and some 65 years later as I look back, Toms assessment couldnt be more accurate. That generations greatest time of struggle and triumph was the 1940s, and there is no decade that explains modern baseball in America better than the 1940s. It is the birthplace of the gameand much of the societywe see today.

In 2012 the venerable Baseball Digest the oldest, continuously published baseball magazine in the United Statescelebrated its 70 th anniversary. It honored that occasion by commissioning a group of national baseball writers to chronicle the events of seven decades, each defined by historic events in the sport.