Baseball’s status as the national pastime has been called into question more and more over the last few decades, as its own popularity has declined and that of other sports have surpassed it, but there’s almost no question that baseball is the preferred sport among writers. Baseball, with its curious rhythms, obsession with mythology, and opportunities for heroism, seems to speak especially to those with love for a good story.
No one loves a good baseball story as much as Joe Posnanski. He’s got a million of them, and even if his own book’s title only promises fifty, you can bet he’ll cram in many more at every available opportunity. Why We Love Baseball is a compendium of some of the game’s grandest events, involving both the greatest players of all-time, and those who had greatness thrust up, unlikely heroes coming up big at the biggest moments.
Posnanski does not limit himself to the National and American Leagues, featuring stories from the Negro Leagues, Japanese baseball, college baseball, amateur baseball, and even fictional baseball. Sure, some will be familiar to any baseball fan with a sense of the game’s history. Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard Round the World”, Kirk Gibson’s homer, as well as homers hit by Bill Mazeroski, Carlton Fisk, Joe Carter, etc. But there are lesser-known stories as well, like the 17-year-old girl who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in Chattanooga, TN, or the mystifying feats of Yutaka Enatsu, the Japanese pitcher who struck out 401 batters in a season. Speaking of strikeouts, Posnanski’s book is how I learned about Ray Necciai, a minor-leaguer who struck out 27 batters in a nine-inning game.
My one picayune issue with Posnanski is that he is very much a “print the legend” kind of guy. In several chapters he hints or outright admits that the events he is describing did not really happen they way they have been told in stories. But his reaction, generally, is to shrug his shoulders and say, “but wouldn’t it be cooler if it did?” Ironically, the most thorough investigation Posnanski does is into the ending of the movie A League of Their Own, where he tries to end the debate over whether or not Dottie drops the ball on purpose to let her kid sister win the big game.
That quibble aside, Why We Love Baseball is a very enjoyable read for any baseball fan, whether they can quote statistics and recite old lineups or not.