Category: Sports

McFarland is pleased to announce that Don Jensen is the new editor of Base Ball.  A longtime SABR member, Jensen is the author of The Timeline History of Baseball, as well as a number of articles on early baseball, including “A Base Ball Krank’s Guide to Madison Square,” from Base Ball‘s newest number, Volume 9.  He is a regular lecturer at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and recently received the Chairman’s Award from SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee.

In addition to being a baseball historian, Jensen, a former diplomat, is a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, and a senior adjunct fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.  He has published extensively on US-Russian relations and holds a PhD in government from Harvard.

Jensen will oversee Base Ball‘s transition from journal to annual book, a move intended to harness the publication to McFarland’s strengths—namely its book-oriented production expertise and sales-and-marketing experience—and expose contributor research to a broader audience.  The first volume in what is now a series picks up with number 10 and is scheduled for fall 2017, with pre-order availability by late spring or summer.

Jensen replaces John Thorn, who guided Base Ball through its first nine years and now becomes Founding Editor.   Thorn, who is also Major League  Baseball’s official historian, plans to remain actively involved as an advisor and sometime contributor.  

Stay tuned for more information on Volume 10. 

David Krell  and John Thorn recently appeared on the MLB Network. Krell, the author of Our Bums: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory and Popular Culture, joined MLB Now host Brian Kenny to discuss his book, which was recently reviewed in the Brooklyn Eagle and the New York Post. Thorn, MLB’s official historian and the editor of Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, was on Hot Stove to comment on the Pre-Integration Era Committee’s voting results. Both videos are embedded below—check them out!

Oakland Athletics pitcher Pat Venditte is an ambidextrous, not amphibious, throwing sensation who made his debut last Friday against the Boston Red Sox. Venditte was responsible for a rule change in baseball and is the first true switch-pitcher at the major league level since the 19th century, a feat first recorded by Tony Mullane  in 1882.

It’s Major League Baseball’s opening day, and we’re condensing our usual Weekly Deal into a one-day-only mega-sale on ALL of our baseball books! That’s 20% off the list price of each of our nearly 600 baseball books in print! Use the coupon code MLB at checkout, but hurry, because the sale ends tonight!

Kudos to Robert Kuhn McGregor, whose A Calculus of Color: The Integration of Baseball’s American League not only cracked the starting lineup for Library Journal’s annual Baseball Roundup but received the only starred review among the seven books featured.  The article, which reviews the best new and forthcoming baseball titles for the year ahead, hailed A Calculus of Color as “a best sports book of 2015, and one that will stand the test of time,” adding that McGregor “slams a home run in dealing with racism in baseball and the larger picture of American life.”  

Like many baseball fans throughout the country, we mourn the passing of Ernie Banks, who died last Friday.   Banks, who started his career in the Negro Leagues, became the first black player in Cubs history, and he went on to become one of the franchise’s greatest.  He was also one of the team’s most beloved figures, in part because of his boundless optimism in the face of a decades-long tradition of losing.  Whatever the record or the attendance, Chicago was his kind of town.  He was our kind of Cub. 

Ohio State defeated Oregon in the inaugural CFP National Championship, marking an official end to the college football season. It wasn’t an especially memorable game, but it did feature multiple award-winning  Marcus Mariota (Heisman Trophy, Davey O’Brien Award, etc., etc.) at quarterback, albeit in a losing effort. The Buckeyes claimed their eighth national title, but not to worry Michigan fans—you have Jim Harbaugh and his khakis to look forward to. And who knows, he could be the next Bump Elliot.

Senior acquisitions editor Gary Mitchem has signed up a new manuscript to the baseball line titled Taking Care of Business: The Mark Grace Story in 12 Volumes.  Grace (a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, native) played first base for the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks and owns the 148th best career on-base percentage in the majors.

“While all details are not yet set, we plan for one volume to exhaustively cover Grace’s doubles, another to do the same for his sac flies, and another volume to be completely dedicated to his relief pitching career,” said Mitchem.

Adam Phillips in the sales department is particularly optimistic about the book’s prospects. “With Mark Grace, the glass is always at least half-full,” said Phillips.

A lettered, limited edition for left-handed readers will hit the market Summer 2014, with the library edition following late in the year.

Author Robert G. “Hank” Utley passed away Wednesday, March 19.  Hank was a gifted storyteller with an incredible heart, and was very passionate about his community.  McFarland has been a big fan of Hank’s ever since he and coauthor Scott Verner first shared their manuscript about the independent Carolina League.  Through his own books and his research contributions to others, Hank introduced us to the mill town institution of outlaw ball.  Well, Hank Utley is also a mill town institution.  Hank’s books were not just about baseball; they were about the people.  Whether he was covering intense rivalries like that of the Kannapolis Towelers and the Concord Weavers, or relating the many facets of mill town life, Hank did an incredible job with his research and preservation.  Thanks to Hank, we will always remember this fascinating slice of history.  Hank, too, will always be remembered.

Links:

Obituary in the Independent-Tribune

Article about his work with the Boys & Girls Club

Author’s Personal Website

The Independent Carolina Baseball League, 1936–1938: Baseball Outlaws by R.G. (Hank) Utley and Scott Verner

Outlaw Ballplayers: Interviews and Profiles from the Independent Carolina Baseball League  by R.G. (Hank) Utley , and Tim Peeler with Aaron Peeler

The Easter Monday Baseball Game: North Carolina State and Wake Forest on the Diamond, 1899–1956 by Tim Peeler

Baseball in the Carolinas: 25 Essays on the States’ Hardball Heritage edited by Chris Holaday

Tim Peeler’s two most recent McFarland books are baseball histories, but to some of us here he remains a poet first, albeit one who in writing prose sometimes hits from the other side of the plate.  It’s been more than a decade since we published his first volume, Touching All the Bases: Poems from Baseball, and wider recognition has come his way in recent years—not long ago, he was named a finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award for Poetry—but we congratulate ourselves for being among his early admirers.

Credit the Boston Red Sox, too, for recognizing a fine poet when they see one.  On Friday, August 16, Peeler will read from Waiting for Godot’s First Pitch as part of the Great Fenway Park Writers Series: www.fenwayparkwriters.org.