BACKYARDS TO BALLPARKS

Gray collects fans’ favorite memories of America’s pastime in this sports book, the second in a series.

There’s something about baseball that sticks in the memory: the smell of the concession stand, the crack of the bat, the electricity of a hometown crowd. It’s no wonder that those who love the game can recall, almost photographically, their favorite moments, even after the passage of decades. The author’s simple survey question—“what was your favorite game, or moment, relating to baseball?”—has elicited so many responses from fans that he has enough to fill a second volume. Collected here, the answers represent 370 respondents and reference almost every Major League Baseball team (including a few that no longer exist), along with quite a few minor league and college teams. Sam Schiff remembers seeing the very last game the Dodgers ever played for Brooklyn, including the final man ever to pitch for the Brooklyn iteration of the team: Sandy Koufax. Dave Rey remembers an entire crowd of traffic-delayed fans sprinting to AT&T Park so as not to miss Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record. Evan Weiner remembers when the Houston Colt .45s, a new expansion team, pulled themselves out of their losing streak by hosting a “Voodoo Night” and hiring a local shaman to put a hex on the Philadelphia Phillies. Memories of classic rivalries, shattered records, and legendary (and forgotten) stars fill these pages, as do tales of friendship, family bonding, civic pride, and childish wonder. Gray lets the fans speak for themselves, which lends the book a wonderfully polyphonic style. The anecdotes read like well-practiced bar stories (which many of them no doubt are), like this humbling one from Steve Aaronson: “Moose Skowron and Mickey Mantle were in Skowron’s red convertible and, standing at the curb, I said…‘Oooh, Mr. Skowron, may I please have your autograph?’ He replied, ‘Get the hell out of here, you little pisspot.’ Mantle thought this was hilarious.” Baseball fans of every era will enjoy this collection of sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, always heartfelt memories.

A crowdsourced almanac of charming baseball anecdotes.