Sports

I am a serious sports fan. Baseball is far and away my favorite sport. But I follow football, basketball, hockey, and even tennis, golf, auto racing, soccer and cricket. Most things that make their way here will be about baseball, I am afraid. But a few other things will creep in.

Kareem  Abdul-Jabbar. Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2017.

This is not your ordinary sports book. It is about the life-long friendship of a 7’2″ black from Harlem and a 5’10” white from southern Indiana. Both had Hall of Fame careers in basketball. Kareem (then known as Lew Alcindor) played for Wooden’s UCLA juggernauts during the period when they won 10 national championships in 12 years. But they formed a deep friendship that covered not just basketball but all aspects of life, including religion, race, literature, and many other subjects. They would meet regularly for 50 years, up until Wooden’s death in 2010 at the age of 99, at Wooden’s home, in restaurants, on trips. Abdul-Jabbar talks about all the surprises in their relationship, and all the things he learned from Wooden about life. There is a subtext as well, less well articulated, about how Kareem influenced Wooden. It’s an extraordinary book. That it’s well-written is no surprise, as Abdul-Jabbar has a long career as an excellent writer of both fiction and nonfiction. Judy and I once sat two tables from him at a local restaurant one evening, a memory all the more wonderful given his interesting post-basketball career as a writer.

Gary Adams. Conversations with Coach Wooden: on Baseball, Heroes, and Life. Solana Beach, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2013.

Gary Adams was the head baseball coach at UCLA for thirty years. I was loaned this book by his twin brother, Gene Adams, who is a resident at our retirement community, Reata Glen. Both played baseball at UCLA. After John Wooden retired as head basketball coach at UCLA, when asked by the athletic director if he’d like to share an office in the athletic department, he requested to share an office with Gary Adams, at the time a brand new baseball coach, because he said that baseball was his favorite sport. This in turn led to a lifelong friendship between Adams and Wooden, and this volume recounts their many conversations about, as the title says, baseball, heroes, and life. It shows another side of John Wooden, and along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s book described above, it shows what a remarkable person Wooden was. Adams’ book follows these conversations up to the bottom of the ninth, as he calls it, the days before Wooden died at age 99. Adams learned a lot about how to coach young athletes from Coach, as he called Wooden. Having read this, it will be fun to have conversations with his twin brother Gene.

Roger Angell. The Summer Game. New York: Viking, 1972.

Angell began writing about baseball for The New Yorker in 1962, and this volume gathers together many of the pieces he wrote in the first decade of such articles. It’s an interesting decade, as it is the period where baseballs expansion began. As we was based in New York, he was able to follow closely the Amazing Mets, from their terrible beginnings to winning the World Series in 1969. He covers such strong teams as the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Orioles. For me personally, it includes the 1965 World Series between the Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins. The Dodgers won in seven games. And I recall reading his line about the Twins after they won the first two games of the Series: “I came away with the curious impression that the Twins, after two straight victories, were only slightly behind in the World Series.” He not only has essays written at the end of each season, but he covers spring training, early or mid season reflections, with much commentary about the playes, the owners, and the overall state of the game. It’s great reading.

Jim Bouton. Ball Four: The Final Pitch. North Egremont, MA: Bulldog Publishing, 1970, 1981, 1990, 2000.

This is one of the very best books ever written about baseball, or any sport, for that matter. It caused a sensation when it was first published in 1970. Bowie Kuhn, who was the Commissioner of Baseball at the time, asked Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. He of course refused. He had kept a diary of the 1969 season, when he played for the expansion team the Seattle Pilots (who, by the way, after only one year in Seattle, moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers) before being traded to the Houston Astros late in the season. He tells it like it was, no holds barred. It was the first book that covered the realities of a major professional sport, as opposed to the myths. It is incredibly entertaining reading, even if some of it is neither politically correct nor nice. This edition, published 30 years after the original, contains three long epilogues, each written at 10-year intervals, and entitled Ball Five, Ball Six, and Ball Seven, where he reflects back on the players, the other people of the game, his own life, and the game itself. Ball Seven contains several very poignant entries, including the death of his daughter Laurie, the scare about the possible death of his wife, the end of his playing career, and his ultimately being invited back to the Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium, due to an incredible Father’s Day gift from one of his sons.  Interestingly, the New York Public Library included Ball Four on its list of the 100 most significant books of the 20th century.

Dick Bremer, with Jim Bruton. Game Used: My Life in Stitches with the Minnesota Twins. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2020.

As a longtime fan of the Minnesota Twins, I am always on the lookout for fun reads about their history. This volume, by the long-time TV announcer for the Twins, does not disappoint. He uses the metaphor of a game used baseball, its 108 stitches, and recounts his history with baseball, from his early attempts at becoming a professional player (unsuccessful) to the various stops on the way to becoming the primary television play-by-play announcer for the Twins. Along the way he provides portraits and insights of many of the players, managers, and owners of the Twins and the teams they played. He has especially vivid accounts of the 1987 and 1991 Twins World Series victories. And he takes the stories right up to the 2019 Bomba squad that broke the major league home run mark. It’s all satisfying for a Twins fan.

Wade Davis. Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

Everest is of course the centerpiece of many of the mountain climbing narratives. This terrific account traces the numerous failed attempts that captured much attention and many lives, leading up to the first successful climb by Sir. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. The 1924 unsuccessful attempt by George Mallory and Sandy Irvine was an especially noteworthy attempt, and ended in the mysterious disappearance of the two. But Davis provides very interesting historical, political, and cultural context for this and other early attempts at Everest. The book is as much a social, cultural history of an era as an account of daring mountaineering.

Nicholas Dawidoff (Ed.). Baseball: A Literary Anthology. New York: The Library of America, 2002.

I wouldn’t normally include an anthology on this bookshelf. But two reasons motivate me to do this one. First, I love the Library of America. It is a stunning collection of American literature, done in handsome and affordable volumes. Second, this particular volume includes many of my favorite baseball pieces. I love everything Roger Angell has written about baseball. But the list of other authors is incredible: Carl Sandburg, Heywood Broun, Jim Bouton, Roger Kahn, George Plimpton, A. Bartlett Giamatti, David Remnick, Richard Ford, and Buster Olney are only a few. But my all time favorite piece is here: John Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” about Ted Williams last game. Brilliant.

Ken Dryden. The Game. New York: Wiley, 1983, 1993, 1999, 2003, 2005. 20th Anniversary Edition, with new chapter by the author.

Ken Dryden played goalie for 8 years with the Montreal Canadiens, during which they won the Stanley Cup six times, including four in a row up to and including his last year. These were, obviously, amazing hockey teams, and Dryden was one of their stars. He is a masterful writer — I kept thinking this was being written by John McPhee or Roger Angell. He describes in depth many of the other star Canadien players of those years: Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Mario Tremblay, Serge Savard, and many others, including the coach, Scotty Bowman. He describes games, locker room high jinks, travel, and the life of a professional hockey player. He also describes many of those he played against. His new chapter added to this edition reflects on what’s happened to hockey since he played, with the addition of many new teams, the merger with the World Hockey Association, and the end of Canadien domination. It is certainly the best hockey book I’ve ever read.

Michael Fallon. Dodgerland: Decadent Los Angeles and the 1977-78 Dodgers. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016.

This book is a mixture of baseball, cultural, and social history, focussing on the Dodgers in the first two years of Tom Lasorda’s managerial tenure. In addition to Lasorda, it anchors the narrative in three other Toms: Tom Fallon, a southern California small businessman, Tom Wolfe, the New York writer who often wrote about California, and Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, who during this time is trying hard to land the 1984 summer Olympic games for LA.  This was the era of such Dodgers as Don Sutton, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Steve Yeager. In the two years that are the focus, the Dodgers won the both their division the National League West, and the League pennant, and faced the New York Yankees in the World Series, losing that contest both years.

Robert F. Garratt. Home Team: The Turbulent History of the San Francisco Giants. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2017

This is sports history at its finest. Garratt traces the fate of the San Francisco Giants from their move from New York to the West Coast up to 2000, when their new Pac Bell Park opened near downtown. I was especially interested in all of the intrigue in getting the team to San Francisco, as it intersected with my interest in the Minnesota Twins. The Giants had made a commitment to move to Minnesota for the 1958 season, only to have that undone when the Mayor of San Francisco, George Christopher, was able to persuade Horace Stoneham to choose the West Coast instead. But the history of the Giants after their move was, as the title indicates, “turbulent.” Their new ballpark in the Bay Area, Candlestick Park, was an unmitigated disaster. It was an unattractive stadium,  on a site plagued with wind and cold weather. In 1976, when Stoneham was ready to sell the team, it at first looked like they would be moving to Toronto. But led by Mayor George Moscone, a local group led by Robert Lurie was able to pull together at the last minute a way to keep the team in San Francisco. Alas, Lurie too became disenchanted with the team’s situation, and in 1992, sought to sell the team. The only serious offer to emerge was from a group in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida, and it again looked like the Giants were going to move. But a second frantic effort, helped by some turmoil at the level of Major League Baseball, which gave the city some extra time, allowed another last minute salvation, from a group headed by Peter Magowan, and the team was once more saved from leaving. One of his first moves was to land free agent Barry Bonds, which added excitement and success to the Giants on the field. He made improvements at Candlestick to attract the fans back, but also figured out a way to get a new downtown stadium, which radically changed the team’s fortunes. Having modest success in postseason play during all the Candlestick years, once they were in Pac Bell Park (renamed AT&T Park), they were perennial postseason contenders, and won three World Series. Garratt does acknowledge this success in a brief Epilogue, but the volume focuses on all that led up to this point. He ably portrays the interesting characters both on and off the field. I found this to be a model history of an interesting period in a particular franchise’s history.

Doris Kearns Goodwin. Wait Till Next Year. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

This charming volume is about growing up in the 1950s, as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. But it’s so much more than just baseball, as she traces life in the suburbs of New York City in that era. It’s about the neighborhood, and all the friends and characters that inhabit it. It’s about her family, and of course, about herself. But the narrative is woven into her passion for the Dodgers, and the many ups and downs of the 50s: Bobby Thomson’s home run in 1951, the seemingly endless losses to the Yankees in the World Series, culminating in the magical 1955 season where the Dodgers finally won, and of course the ultimate down, when the Dodgers announce they are moving to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. The stories are priceless. And, in an Epilogue, she describes her new love of the Boston Red Sox, and of course their many frustrations (at least up to the time this book was written).

Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver. Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.

I am not a mountain climber, and never aspired to be one. But I have long been fascinated with reading about them, and this is one of the very best books on the subject that I’ve encountered. What’s especially interesting about this is the account of the evolution of the domain. Advances include better equipment, knowledge of the mountains, understanding the weather, and of course superior techniques. One of the most amazing accomplishments is Reinhold Messner climbing Everest in 1980 all alone and without supplemental oxygen. But scores of other striking accomplishments are chronicled in this excellent volume. The text is accompanied by excellent photographs, maps, and charts of routes used in various climbs.

Jim Kaat. Still Pitching: Musings from the Mound and the Microphone. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2003.

Kaat, a left-handed pitcher, played in the major leagues for 25 years, mostly for the Minnesota Twins, but also for several other teams. He was a key member of the remarkable Twins teams of the 1960s, which went to the World Series in 1965, nearly won the pennant in 1967, and won the Western Division of the reorganized American League in 1969 and 1970. He later was a member of the World Series winning St. Louis Cardinals in 1982. At the time of writing this memoir, he was a TV announcer for the New York Yankees. This volume contains his reflections about the game, the players, and the management both as a player and as an announcer. It’s especially noteworthy that at the front of the book he has a long quote from his son, who notes that his dad did not acquire enough votes from the baseball writers to get elected to the Hall of Fame, but notes that later, “when your peers on the Veterans Committee vote you into the Hall of Fame…” And this year, 1922, that happened.

Michael Leahy. The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers. New York: Harper Collins, 2016.

The 1960s were an extraordinary time in American history. This most interesting volume traces the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers amidst the events of that decade. It was a different era in the sport, with no free agency and other great changes. The lives of many Dodgers were intimately connected with the events of the times. For instance, Maury Wills lived in Watts, and experienced all the anguish of the Watts riots in 1965. I of course remember 1965 as the year the Minnesota Twins played the Dodgers in the World Series, and the drama of those games is recounted here from the Dodgers players’ perspectives.

Lee Lowenfish. Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman. Lincoln, NE, 2007.

Branch Rickey was responsible for three major changes in baseball. Everyone knows that in 1947 he elevated Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first black player in the major leagues in the 20th century. But he had two other important innovations. Starting in the 1940s, he built up the St. Louis Cardinal’s farm system, an innovation that allowed small- and modest-sized-markets to develop good teams. And, in the late 1950s, he was a principal in trying to form a third major league, dubbed the Continental League, which finally forced the hands of the two existing leagues to expand beyond their respective 8 members. This initially brought baseball to Minnesota (the Twins) and California (the Angels) to the American League in 1961, and to New York (the Mets) and Houston (the Colt 45s, later the Astros) in the National League. This began the expansion ultimately from 16 teams to 30. Rickey was a colorful figure, and Lowenfish’s detailed biography is full of good stories about Rickey’s long involvement in baseball, spanning two thirds of the 20th century. Interestingly, one of his most frustrating moments was the takeover of the Dodgers by Walter O’Malley, the subject of Andy McCue’s excellent biography.

Bill Madden. Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

This is an extraordinary biography of probably the most extraordinary owner of a baseball franchise in the second half of the 20th century. Known as The Boss, he exercised an autocratic, vindictive regime that drove countless associates to stressful distraction, often ending either in resignation or being fired. He micromanaged in the worst way, hounding managers and players and other executives over the most minor ups and downs of a long baseball season. He spent money, usually that of his associates, extravagantly, creating the culture of gigantic free agent signings that changed the face of the game forever. To be sure, he had extraordinary success, bringing the Yankees back to the dynastic flourish they had mostly lost in the 60s and early 70s. But the churn and turmoil were excessive. We all know that he hired and fired Billy Martin as manager five times. The first manager with any real longevity under him was Joe Torre, who brought success  after a long period of struggling. He created media dynasties that after uncertain times yielded huge profits to the Yankees. He built a new Yankee Stadium. But then he had a long, sad slide into dementia and decline. This is one of the best baseball biographies I’ve ever read, and there is a lot of excellent competition, some of it reviewed on these pages.

Andy McCue. Mover & Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.

The story of how the Dodgers, and of course also the Giants, ended up on the West Coast is a major chapter in the 20th century history of baseball. While there is much mythology about the Dodgers’ move, and O’Malley himself, McCue does a masterful job of setting the record straight. I got interested in this topic for two reasons: first, I now live in Southern California, so the Dodgers are a local team, and therefore of great interest; but second, I am a lifelong Minnesota Twins fan, and the Dodgers move to the West Coast prevented what could have been the Giants move to Minnesota. O’Malley knew that for the Dodgers move to be viable, there had to be a second team to justify the long trips required by other teams, and the Giants faced the same issues as the Dodgers: poor stadium, poor finance, and indifferent political leaders in the New York area. Both the Dodgers and Giants have flourished on the West Coast, and of course through moves and expansion, the whole character of baseball changed.

Jeff Passan. The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports. New York: Harper Collins, 2016.

The human arm, apparently, was not meant to throw a baseball nearly 100 miles an hour. Yet Major League Baseball teams highly value those who can do it. Very few of them escape unscathed. Many end their careers with arm injuries. A number have their careers interrupted, and following surgery and extensive recovery (the so-called Tommy John procedure) make it back. Alas, many youngsters ruin their arms before they ever get a chance to play professionally. This book tells the gripping story of such folk, including Hall of Famers like Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan, who avoided surgery but had painful arms in much of their remarkable careers. There is almost no likelihood it will ever end, given the economics of the sport. While there are efforts to do something, they are plagued by lack of knowledge, mixed motives, and the overriding demands of the game.

Bill Pennington. Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius. Boston: Mariner Books, 2015.

Billy Martin, as a player, as a manager, in almost any role he had, was almost always surrounded by success, but also by controversy. He played most of his career as a Yankee, though I remember his brief playing days as a Minnesota Twin. He was often involved in on- and -off-the-field brawls. But he knew the game, and he had huge success as a manager, though everywhere he managed he ran into trouble with ownership. He managed the Twins for one season and won the division. He was hired and fired by George Steinbrenner five times, almost always successful but not in Steinbrenner’s eyes. This excellent biography covers all the rich details of Martin’s career, both on and off the field. The subtitle says it all: “flawed genius.” Certainly one of the most interesting baseball personas of the second half of the 20th century.

Jon Pessah. The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball’s Power Brokers. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015.

This volume traces the tumultuous years during which Bud Selig was the Commissioner of Baseball, George Steinbrenner was in ascendance as the owner of the New York Yankees, and Donald Fehr was the head of the player’s union. These were turbulent years. The relationship between the owners, represented by the Commissioner, and the players, represented by their union, was poor. The most notable event was the player strike in 1994 that led to the cancellation of the postseason, including the World Series. Selig, representing the owners, was firm in his demands. Only in the latter stages of Selig’s reign was there labor peace. There was also the rise of steroid use, and Selig’s long denial that there was a serious problem. And of course, Steinbrenner was being Steinbrenner at his finest throughout much of this period, though he declined and then died before the new Yankee Stadium was finished. There are ballpark dramas, and the threat of contraction. Pessah has access to remarkable material about this period, and the volume is rich in details about the many events and personalities. If I have one complaint, it’s that the book goes into great detail about the Yankees, the Brewers, and the Commissioner’s office, but much less about the other teams and figures. But it’s a good read.

Jon Pessah. Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask. New York: Little Brown, 2020.

This is one of the best sports biographies I’ve ever read. Yogi Berra was of course a Hall of Fame player, a coach, and a manager. He was a key part of the great Yankee dynasty, and was involved in more World Series as a player, coach, and manager than any other figure in baseball history. But he was also a marvelous human being, loving, funny, caring, fair. He may be the most admired and loved sports figure ever, leaving behind a legacy that is unmatched. Pessah’s detailed biography covers his rich life in great detail, from his earliest days on The Hill in St. Louis, his early amateur baseball years, his being passed over by the St. Louis Cardinals but then signed by the Yankees, his simply incredible playing career as one of the best catcher’s and hitters of all time, his several managerial and coaching eras, and his great later years of community engagement. He said of his wife Carmen: “We always had a great time together, even when we’re apart.” This is of course just one of many Yogi-isms, which many know better than his baseball exploits. He has a museum at Montclair State University which is now definitely on my bucket list.

Jerald Podair. City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017.

I’ve known a fair amount about the story of how Dodger Stadium came to be, but this book provided for me the first really detailed account of all the twists and turns. It was anything but a simple and straightforward matter. While a large impetus for Walter O’Malley’s move of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles was the promise of prime land to build a new stadium, the way in which the saga unfolded was full of drama. Chavez Ravine was owned by the city, but still occupied by some Latino families who had not moved out earlier when the city considered, but backed away from, building low income housing on the site. A contract was signed and delivered to O’Malley, but its legality and approval was fought in public, including a voter referendum, and in the courts, all the way to the US Supreme Court. In the end, O’Malley won, and the stadium was built. But Podair sets the story in the context of southern California politics and the mixed ambitions of the citizens and politicians of Los Angeles. He casts Dodger Stadium as the first step in the process of turning Los Angeles into a major international city. I cannot vouch for that, but I found the details of the steps leading to Dodger Stadium becoming a reality to be fascinating. My one complaint about the book is that Podair is very repetitive. Some better editing could have produced a briefer, but equally clear story.

Curt Smith. Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009.

Vin Scully retired at the end of the 2016 season, so it is a good time to reflect back on this excellent biography of the great sportscaster. He first began broadcasting Dodger games in 1950! His voice is so iconic. Interestingly, he’s the broadcaster in the great movie, For Love of the Game, which is not about the Dodgers, but about the Tigers. Sadly, a dispute among cable TV providers kept Scully out of the homes of nearly 2/3 of the Los Angeles area the last three years of his career, including our home. But I can still hear his voice. In my experience, he’s up there with Ernie Harwell, the long-time voice of the Tigers.

Judith Testa. Sal Maglie: Baseball’s Demon Barber. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.

One of the many pleasures of baseball is all of the interesting characters that have been part of the game. This is an especially rich biography of one of my favorite players, known as “the Barber” because of his high, inside pitches that gave batters a close shave (a little “chin music,” as they said). While this is a somewhat scholarly treatise, it still has the drama and personal interest of this fascinating player’s life. For fans of the 50s, it is a great trip down memory lane.

Jay Weiner. Stadium Games: Fifty Years of Big League Greed and Bush League-Boondoggles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

This volume focuses on roughly fifty years of controversial efforts to provide playing grounds for the Minnesota Twins. The original effort to attract a major league team to Minnesota led to a focus on building a stadium to attract a team, initially thought to be the New York Giants but eventually resulting in the relocation of the Washington Senators. Metropolitan Stadium, built primary for the Twins but jointly occupied by the Twins and the Minnesota Vikings, by the late 1970s was deemed unacceptable, mainly to the Vikings, and resulted in the building of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, which was much better suited to the Vikings than the Twins. But this in turn led both the Twins and the Vikings to seek other options, and Weiner traces the tumultuous and politically contentions efforts up to the end of the century. Alas, to the inevitable surprise of many, including Weiner, in the early 21st century not only the Twins, but the Vikings and the Minnesota Golden Gophers all got new, and separate, stadiums with substantial public support. Indeed, even the Minnesota United soccer team got a new stadium. So the full story is incomplete, but the part covered in this volume is juicy enough to illustrate the points Weiner wants to make about greed, political manipulations, and the role of big league sports in our times.

Tim Wendel. Down to the Last Pitch: How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta  Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time.  Boston: De Capo Press, 2014.

The 1991 World Series has numerous interesting characteristics, and as a result, some have thought it’s a candidate for being the best World Series of all time. But as even Tim Wendel states, there are certainly a number of other candidates for that honor. Of course, as a lifelong Minnesota Twins fan, this is the best one I ever watched. Here are some of the unusual features. First, both Minnesota and Atlanta had finished last in 1990, so it had two teams vying for the last to first honor. Four games were walk-off wins. Three of the games went into extra innings, including the 10-inning 1-0 Twins victory in Game Seven, with Jack Morris pitching an 11-inning shutout. The  home team won each game (the same thing had happened in 1987, the other time the Twins won the World Series). In this terrific book, Wendel covers each game with appropriate detail, but also weaves in interviews with many of the participants done years later. He also weaves in many baseball reflections triggered by things that happened in these seven memorable games. In an epilogue and two appendices, he reflects on what happened to the players in subsequent years, and covers other opic World Series. It’s just a perfect book about a special moment in baseball history, whether or not you are a Twins or Braves fan.