So last Sunday, JD and Slyde invited me over to Rick's house for the weekly meeting of The Lords of SB Nation Book Club and let me tell you- the absinthe was a-flowin'! After a while it didn't matter that I'd never even heard of The Room. I was definitely the square peg of the group but still... Good times, good times...
JD: "Sure, Selby tore at me in all the right places but he simultaneously left me so numb that I guess I just didn't feel torn."
Rick: "I don't know, JD. Didn't the mirrors throughout give you pause?"
JD (rolls eyes): "I got it. I got it. Just didn't feel it."
Slyde: "You girls have been over this and over this. It really starts to leave me numb after awhile."
[Laughter from all.]
[Except me.]
Slyde: "Howabout something just a tad more pedestrian this time around."
JD (rolls eyes): "hrrrmmm..."
Slyde: "Just a tad!"
JD (with disdain): "Let me guess- something not so dark as well? More Burroughs?"
Slyde (emphatic but restrained): "I said: Just. A. Tad."
Rick: "No wait! I know! Why not something completely pedestrian?"
JD (smugly): "Alan?.."
[Chuckling from Rick and Slyde]
Me: "Umm...hmm.. maybe a baseball book that everyone at Red Reporter would also enjoy reading?"
[Laughter from all.]
[Except me.]
And just like that, they put me to work launching this idea on the site. I know it sounds like it might be a joke. (And we fully expect to have just opened the door to many many many jokes.) But we tossed this idea around and pretty quickly we all got excited about it and we're hoping that at least a few of you do too. So in all seriousness, please join us as we read and discuss (and whatever) The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America by Joe Posnanski.
We all have our copies ordered (or already on hand) and we're hoping that some/many of you will do the same (That's the hardcover edition for only six bucks!? Whoa, get in on this action!) and come along on this (we think) rather innovative yet (we admit) exceptionally nerdy endeavor. We don't yet know exactly what we're gonna do- other than read and discuss a book. And we don't yet know exactly how we're gonna do it- other than posting a thread next Thursday for anyone who has finished the first twenty-four pages. And we don't yet know how we're going to inform our friends and loved ones that we're reading and discussing a baseball book with our internet baseball friends- other than my patent response to my wife: "Some of us just don't give a fuck about American Idol, okay?"
But here's what we do know:
- We want at least one or two of you clowns to join us so that the first ever Red Reporter Book Club doesn't end up looking like some look-at-me-look-at-me vanity project. {coughcoughRaconteurscough}
- We have what we think are some pretty cool ideas about what we might do with the discussions of this first book in particular.
- If you join us in the reading of the first book you will be asked to suggest a book for the next go-round.
- None of us have ever actually read any Hubert Selby, Jr. so if you're worried about what kind of internet book club you'd be joining, you'd be joining an internet book club of and by and for average bears.
- Drinkin' is permitted and encouraged.
If you're not familiar with The Soul of Baseball, here are some favorable things said about it by some generally favorable people. (And the president.) Also, I'll try to provide some more information (and perhaps a little synopsis) in the comments below. (Right now this post is starting to look a little bit wordy, even by book club invitaion standards.)
If you're not familiar with Joe Posnanski, check out his blog. And if for whatever reason you don't trust Wikipedia and/or don't like blogs, just know that Joe is presently finishing up a book about The Big Red Machine. So you know he's cool.