Peanuts, crackjacks and a good book
By Terri Schlichenmeyer - Special to the Argus Observer
Monday, March 5, 2007 9:24 AM PST
Baseball season is coming up soon, and if you’re a Fantasy Baseball player, you’ve probably already pored over the magazines and checked out the websites.
So, for you … who’s on first?
Not so fast. You don’t want to be hasty. Instead, take a minute to read “Baseball Yesterday & Today” by Josh Leventhal and ponder your choices while you dream about the Boys of Summers current and bygone.
Baseball, like everything in life, has evolved over its history, but Leventhal says that it’s still the same basic game. It’s played on a field. The diamond is made of four bases, each about 90 feet apart. The batter stands on home plate and nine players constitute a fielding team. Hot dogs are still available at the concession stand.
Of course, there are also many changes, starting with the places in which the games are played. In the infancy of baseball, fans stood around in a real field to watch a game. Then, the owners realized that they needed a home for their teams so stadiums were built and named, mostly for those very owners. Viewers back then could buy seats and watch the game right on the ball field but when safety became an issue, fans were moved to bleachers and stands. Stadiums were tinkered with structurally over the years, and in recent times the marriage of financially-strapped teams and deep-pocketed businesses meant that corporate naming — sometimes multiple times in a year — became the norm across the country.
Since 1876, over 16,000 players from almost 50 countries have played major league baseball; in fact, according to Leventhal, each of last years’ major league teams had at least one foreign-born player on the roster.
Over the years, those players have been a patient bunch. Uniforms went from loose woolens to eye-jarringly bright colors to subdued greys, and legendary owner Bill Veeck even once experimented with short pants for his Cubbies. Rules for pitchers, batters, shortstops and in- and outfielders have changed. Bats lengthened and shortened, baseballs were regulated, turf was often artificial, and stats and numbers rose to levels that Babe Ruth would have never imagined.
One of those numbers is the price of a day in the sun: Leventhal quotes baseball historian Harold Seymour who says the average price of admission nearly a hundred years ago was 66 cents.
From why the bullpen is so named to the design of the billboards way in the outfield, “Baseball Yesterday & Today” includes just about everything you can think of involving the game of baseball. Author Josh Leventhal peppers each of his chapters with easy-to-catch history and comparisons to then and now, and the dozens of old-time and modern pictures included inside will make any baseball fan want to step up to the plate (or the cash register) with this book in hand.
If Spring Training is on your radar and heading to the stadium is on your summertime roster, then pick up “Baseball Yesterday & Today.” For a baseball fan, this fun book is definitely worth catching.
“Baseball Yesterday & Today” by Josh Leventhal, c.2006, Voyageur Press, $24.95 / $32.95 Canada, 144 pages, includes index.
