Hopefully you’re all aware that I’m currently working on a book for McFarland Publishers about the history of the Hall of Fame’s recognition of the Negro Leagues. First draft is scheduled to be handed in to them in January, and everything is trending well. Updates will be provided here as they are available.
One of those updates is that Joe Posnanski was kind enough to let me interview him for the book earlier this week. He sits in sort of an interesting spot, being a BBWAA member who has also been involved with both the Hall of Fame and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and that places him at the nexus of three organizations that have been principle players in having the Negro Leagues properly recognized. He was very gracious with his time, and even took something from our conversation about former baseball commissioner Ford Frick and used it in his most recent post on his blog. It’s always nice to be recognized as one of Joe’s brilliant readers. Here’s the link:
There are also a few other book projects that I’ve been involved in.
When I used to write a ton about Jim Rice’s case to be elected to the Hall of Fame, I’d be cited by a lot of folks online. That also happened with the SABR folks, who included some of my stuff in their official biography of Rice. Many of SABR’s book publications will draw on those biographies, and Rice’s is no exception. As a result, you can see me cited in two different SABR books:
1986 Boston Red Sox: There Was More Than Game Six.
Biographies of all the players and coaches from the 1986 team that lost to the Mets in the World Series, along with some other essays about the season.
‘75: The Red Sox Team That Saved Baseball.
More biographies of all the players and coaches from the 1975 team that went to the World Series before losing to the Big Red Machine, along with some other essays about the season.
Coming Soon!
Two different SABR book projects are currently in the works, and I’m writing pieces for each of them.
One-Win Wonders
These will be biographies of pitchers who managed to win just one game in their major league careers. They will have at least one pitcher per team, and I was privileges to write the one for the Kansas City Royals. I won’t reveal who I picked for that, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it. Scheduled for release in the November-December, 2023 timeframe. One fun part of this project was that I also got to write the game story of the game this pitcher won, and that will be part of the SABR Games Project once everything is published.
Sandy Koufax
I can’t say much about this one, but SABR periodically does book projects on individual players. They’ve had books on:
And so on. The latest they’ve chosen is Koufax, and I get to write a pretty cool essay about his final season. This one is scheduled for release sometime in the Spring of 2024.