Young baseball historians

As a history major in college I wrote my senior thesis on how the city of Grand Rapids, MI and the state of Michigan as a whole helped integrate baseball. I wish I could have had a full year to do the research and write the paper, and that I didn't have to do it the same semester as my last season of playing ball. It could have been a much better paper, and a much better senior season...

If you ask me, the passion is still there. You might just have to look a little bit harder as kids are bombarded with so many other things these days.

rain delay, I was just like your boy back in the 60's when I was his age, knowing about players from the 20's, 30's and 40's. I've coached several travel and rec teams and noticed that some good ball players don't even know today's players much less past decades guys. A few years ago on a 13u travel team I told our shortstop that he reminded me of Derek Jeter on a play he made and he looked at me kind of quizically and said, "Doesn't he play centerfield?"

Three bagger, I believe you and my son could enjoy a good baseball trivia game. When we went to Cooperstown for a baseball tournament a couple of years ago, when he was 12 year old, we had a chance to go through the Hall of Fame with his team. He wanted to go through HOF with only the two of us and not with the rest of his team he was playing with at the time. He said that the other kids would be a distraction to something that should be honored as a shrine to the greatest sport called baseball.He wanted to make sure we saw the plaque of our relative Johnny Mize the Big Cat from during the 40's and 50's. We ended up going to the HOF twice during our visit there to make sure we didn't miss anything. I must say, so far at 14 years old, he plays the game with the same passion and respect.

My son, now 18, has always had that keen interest in the history of the game and the players from the 20's, 30's, and 40's. That's truly his passion in life. He's got a memory like a steel trap and is fascinated by the business side of the game as well as the players from the years gone by.

He'll be playing ball for a D3 team next year -- which will probably be a good fit for his skills. Doesn't know what he wants to do with his life -- but can't picture it not being related to baseball.

He knows he's not MLB caliber from a player standpoint, but wants to be a part of baseball ... all because he loves the game, loves its history, and loves learning new things about the old days.

You do wonder about the respect for the history of the game sometimes, but people approach it from different places for different reasons.

But if they miss the history of the game, they miss much.

I remember an article some years back about how few pro players were aware of Jackie Robinson and what he went through. And I would be willing to bet that a whole lot fewer know what Curt Flood did for them.


Mine's junkie, too. In college, his team had just "won" a particularly important game in the bottom of the ninth. Prior to the play, it was one out, tie ballgame, bases loaded. Batter hits a scorcher to right, crosses first, jumps in the air, celebrates as the winning run crosses the plate.

Runner from first detours to the celebration, as does the runner from second.

My son corrals the runner from second and drags him to third base, instructing him to tag, and tag now. "Do you know the rules of the game? Haven't you ever heard of Bonehead Merkle?!" He hadn't....and the whole situation had to be explained to way too many players.


At eight, he and I were in a card shop when he spotted a framed photo behind the counter, "Look, Mom, it's Enos Slaughter!" The owner's flabber was completely gasted!

What attracted him to shoeless Joe?

rain delay, you are so right, it has always been a dream of mine to go to Cooperstown. I would need at least 3 or 4 days there to probably go through the hall as thoroughly as I'd like. It might be to slow for the rest of the family. Your son and I would probably have a lot of fun trying to stump each other on trivia questions, but I've got to warn you I'm fair at it. I have over 500 baseball books--encyclopedias, sabermatics, stats, biographies, team histories, minor league related stuff, etc. I've read them all and constantly refer back to them. There was an old poem about Johnny Mize when he was a great pinch hitter for the Yankees at the end of his career--it went something like this--"Johnny Mize, he's lost his legs, he's lost his arm, Johnny Mize, but not his eyes, not his eyes." I guess it meant he couldn't run or throw at the end but he could hit even to th last. Orlando, If your son knows the Merkle story then he is truly my kind of guy. It imparts a real lesson for base runners as your son obviously knows. There are two great books in my collection, "The Unforgettable Season", by G. H. Fleming and "The Glory of Their Times", by Lawrence Ritter that have a lot about that great National League race leading up to the so-called Merkle Boner. I especially recommend the one by Ritter but both are great. RPD, if I were in your sons shoes at his age I would try to get into a statistician job or maybe see if the Hall would hire him one summer as a free or low paid guy who deals with the memorbelia or record keeping at the Hall. It might lead to something. Ballclubs are getting more and more into statistical research and need people to sort through piles of numbers. Front office people start as interns just like Theo Epstein did and learn baseball operations from the ground up. Just not a lot of money at first.

Daque,
I think T-bone thinks that Shoeless Joe Jackson should have been in the HOF and wasn't given a fair shake in getting there. I'm sure reading books and seeing the movie Field of Dreams several times peaked his interest on Shoeless Joe. 3-bagger,thank you for the poem about Johnny Mize. It seems like my great great aunt told me something like that many years ago before she passed away. Johnny Mize was her nephew, while I was her great great nephew. My son had a chance to meet his great, great , great aunt before she passed away a couple of years ago and that was his connection to the Big Cat.