i was never really good at baseball but i loved playing it. It was never more apparent than in ninth grade, when i made the team purely because of my scrappiness. I broke my arm in sliding drills before the season and got 1 at-bat at the very end of the season. So I did during the season what I did in tryouts - I worked my ass off. I embarrassed my talented teammates by outhustling them. I embarrassed my fastest teammates in long jaunts by outrunning them. My coach loved me for it, and I was just happy to be a part of the team. I became sort of a mascot, and my thing during games was to run and retrieve foul balls. And I mean run. I even did it on the road, and I embarrassed the other team (they probably thought I should have been embarrassed, but I wasnt) by outrunning their gophers for balls and running past their dugout. The other coaches would say “We need a guy like that.” I know a lot of people laughed, but I was proud to be that guy for my team. I set the tone for hard work, and a lot of my teammates followed my lead - i think I made us better. So I would say that season was my best day in baseball.

And I’m afraid that I won’t get around to it tonight, but I wanted to make sure that I said that if the first 24 pages are any indication, Posnanski has written a beautiful book. I don’t know much about O’Neil’s story, so I’m looking forward to reading more about him, but I am so glad that it is Poz writing it because the guy really know how to paint a story with words.

Quick answers to questions:
1. My greatest baseball memory is actually playing wiffle ball in my backyard just about every day of the summer with my brother and friends from the neighborhood. We used to keep track of home runs throughout the summer for no other reason than bragging rights. I can’t write the prose to describe it like Posnanski, but I can still feel it like I was there yesterday.

2. My only in play ball that I’ve ever caught was a foul ball off of Griffey’s bat a couple of years ago. Two guys slammed into each other trying to get it, but it bounced over their heads and I was seemingly the only person left standing in the area to catch it. I’ve always wanted to be the guy that catches a foul and gives it to a kid in the seat next to me, but it just happened that night that there weren’t any kids in the area, so I kept it for myself and now it’s on my limited memorabilia shelf.

I also caught a ball thrown into the stands by Sammy Sosa. I knocked over my 17-year old nephew to get it, but he wasn’t supposed to be sitting in our section anyway, so I didn’t feel any guilt about that. :)

That’s all I got for now. I’m loving the book!

June 16, 1978

My brand new bride and I left a church in Columbus Ohio following our wedding & reception. Our wedding party had “decorated” the vehicle we were leaving in, complete with (as we found out later) hooking the horn to the brakes. Unknown to anyone else my dad had loaned me a different car to take to the hotel. After we ran to the other get away car, leaving the stunned crowd standing around the wrong car laughing, we jumped in and started it up (the radio was already on WLW meaning my dad and others had been sneaking out listening) and heard the immortal call.. ground ball to Driessen and Tom Seaver has thrown a no hitter.

That was clearly my best day in baseball.

In all of the games I have been to I have never been close to a foul ball. Closest was this season when Ash got her beer dumped at The Game Two outing.

Buck reminds me of a gentleman I worked with for a few years in the 80’s. Carl was a true gentleman and a former Tuskegee Airman. A really class guy with a great sense of humor.

The Zulu Cannibal Giants. What a shame there was even a need for these teams to exist. I would have loved to go watch these guys play. I remember reading a book when I was in Jr High School that I got from the old Sports Illustrated Book Club called “Only the Ball was White”. If you haven’t read it you should.

This Book is going to be a lot of fun to discuss. And if you haven’t finished it read it while listening to some jazz.

I put off reading this book for so long. Every indication was that I would love it—glowing reviews, etc. Joe’s salesmanship on his blog kept it on my mind, but I could never bring myself to it.

It reminds me of trying to get friends to watch The Wire. We don’t think anything of delving into a ‘guilty pleasure’ or shallow piece of pop culture, but quality books, movies, TV shows… people resist them. And the more the book was praised the more recalcitrant to it I became.

This is why I wondered about the title, which I think I remember Joe being unsatisfied with. The Soul of Baseball—it just sounds… good for you. And who wants that?

Anyways thanks to RR for getting me to take the plunge. To me the most memorable parts so far were Buck’s quiet withdrawal when the Zulu Cannibals came up and his efforts to hide the toll his appearances took on him. These were the first hints of a deeper character beyond the good-hearted baseball ambassador.

1. Greatest day in BB – Watching my son drill a long long home run in knot hole BB. 2 men on bottom the 7th and young Madvill Jr. hits the 1st pitch into deep left field…just as he slams the ball his older sisters and a friend come walking down the 3b line and cheer him home…it was his only HR and it is the best HR I’ve ever seen.
2. Same son and I were at a Reds game several years ago. We were seated in the 1st row right at 3b. I don’t know who was a the plate but he hit an extrememely high pop-up which was handled by Pokey Reese about 10 feet from our seats. It was the 3rd out of the inning, Pokey looked at my son and then made eye contact with me and nodded and tossed me the ball. He gave us a great smile and I handed the ball to Mad Jr. who still has many years later.
3. Billy Hatcher. My 2nd oldest daughter A,was an honorary bat girl when she was about 10 years old. We went to the park early and she was wisked away from us along with the honorary bat boy who looked to be about 12. A was a very shy girl and quite intimidated at suddenly finding herself in the dug out and being led onto the field. Some of the players, Paul O’Neil, Reggie Sanders, Joe Oliver came over and started a conversation with the honorary bat boy and I could tell that a was feeling really left out…then came Billy Hatcher, he kneeled down and spoke to a for a long time and got her laughing and spent a few minutes walking her out onto the field and introduced her to a couple of other players and then stood with her at home plate just looking around at Riverfront.. By this time all of the other players were pretty much head into the dug out Billy still took his time and autographed a ball for A and gave it to her. This was her favorite and best day in baseball. Billy Hatcher took the time to see A’s discomfort and in a very unassuming way turned what could have been a disappointment into a great memory. He chose to take an opportunity to make a positive rather than a negative out of a situation. Seem like Buck does this all through the book.
4. Other stuff – I like the never changing always positive always giving side that I’ve seen of Buck O’Neil in this book. although Joe may be showing Buck as a bit of an icon of ‘days gone by’ – ‘back when men were men’ and ‘people made the best of it’; I’ve little doubt that by the end of this book I going to be moved several times over to attempt to emulate Buck’s generous nature and tireless dedication to baseball and just plain giving the other guy the benefit of the doubt. And I don’t doubt that we’ll a deeper and more painful side of Buck before the book ends.

1. My best day in baseball was in 5th grade. In the lovely city of Hamilton, little league baseball is taken very seriously, and the citywide tournament is taken most seriously of all. I was on the Athletics, starting at 2B and batting well down in the order. I was a slick-fielding, speedy, weak-hitting player. I walked a lot and was hit by an inordinate amount of pitches, but had just a single over-the-fences homer in my entire little league career. I was good for some singles and the occasional extra base hit, but my game was getting walked, stealing 2nd, and hoping the people behind me could knock me in.

Now, during the regular season, my Athletics team was pretty average. We were around .500 the whole season, never really flashed anything special even. But somehow, come tourney time, we caught on fire, and soon found ourself in the championship game. And that was my shining moment. My first time up, I was hit by a pitch, stole 2nd, and scored on a single. Second time up, I was walked with the bases loaded, driving in a run. My 3rd time up, I was hit by another pitch and stranded. I managed an outstanding diving grab of a ball to my left, and had another nice defensive play. Despite my stardom, the game went to extra innings. It was soon the bottom of the 8th and I was up to bat again. The bases were loaded, there was 1 out, and the opposing pitcher was wild. I quickly worked a 3-0 count, and my coach was telling me to take. But why would I take when I could hit a walkoff right here? The 3-0 pitch comes down the pike. I swing as mightily as I can.

I whiff. My coach looks at me pissed, but I ignore his piercing stare. I dig in and prepare to launch the next pitch a mile. My shining moment was on the horizon, all I had to do was get a hit. The pitcher prepared, and threw another heater.

Thwack. Right off my side. The Athletics had beaten the Reds and I had gotten the gamewinning, walkoff RBI on my third HBP of the day. Final line? 0-0, BB, 3 HBP, 2 RBI, R. We celebrated the city championship in glorious fashion, and I didn’t recieve nearly enough accolades for being a ball magnet, but oh well.

2. A few years ago I went to a Reds-Phillies game. I got there real early, got a batting practice ball signed by Vicente Padilla and Brandon Claussen, and then caught a Chase Utley foul ball by outjumping three fat guys. I even got a “Fan-tastic catch” thing on the scoreboard.

I found the box scores for the Cubs vs Colts doubleheader mentioned on page 4.

July 15,1962: Cubs 4, Colts 5
July 15, 1962: Cubs 4, Colts 1

Ernie Banks was 2-for-6 with a double, a stolen base and a run scored before being lifted during the bottom of the third of the second game. I guess it was hot that day or something.

(BTW, the Reds won in Milwaukee that day with a ninth inning home run by Vada Pinson.)

I read Soul last year and didn’t review the assignment, but I remember really liking the Jason Lane story in the beginning about Buck’s non-judgmental nature. It’s easy to hate the guy who grabs a souvenir ball in front of a young kid and then spends the next ten minutes bragging loudly to his friends, but you don’t know what his situation is or what he’s really like. I’m going to have to skim the assignments as we progress.

To answer 1 and 4, some of my favorite baseball memories involve the car ride down to Riverfront before games in my parent’s Nova. Just sitting with my friends in the back seat (red vinyl, iirc) all goofy in excitement, blabbering about how many home runs Dave Parker will hit, is a special memory.

as waiting for plumbers in a new house sucks. I’m not going to jump ahead, but this book makes me “feel”. Everyone feels, but this book makes me think about my emotions in a different way. On the other hand, Buck likes scrappy players like Biggio who is an ALS (but an extremely nice guy, I have anectodotal evidence) so take that for what you will. I remember being ridiculously happy when the reds signed Griff and this was back when I lived in KS with dial up and got to watch two reds games a year. I cannot remember my first game and if someone famous hit a HR. I remember being pissed off that one of my classmates was going to a world series game and I could not. My most recent good memory was when I was at my grandmother’s house in Bellevue and turned off the game in the 6th after the reds were down by 6 runs. About 10 mins later I heard the fireworks and turned back on the game and the reds were almost back in it. After those fireworks I knew the reds were going to win it and dunn decided to be clutch with a walk off grand slam

What a life!