Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Barry Walner, who sent Mickey Mantle a 1952 Bowman card to sign in April 1952. The Mick signed it, and now the autographed card is part of an upcoming Rabbit Hole Auctions sale. 
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www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/he-mailed-his-mickey-mantle-card-for-an-autograph-in-april-1952-now-its-heading-to-auction/
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Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a free pass given to a World War I hero so he could see Babe Ruth's debut as a New York Yankees player in 1920. 

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/pass-given-to-wwi-hero-for-babe-ruths-1920-home-debut-hits-auction/

He was like a meteor briefly streaking across the baseball sky. And like that briefly glowing celestial object, Ron LeFlore would burn out too soon.

LeFlore’s story was straight out of Hollywood — and indeed, his life story would be told on the silver screen. He would grow up in poverty in eastern Detroit, become a petty thief as a youth before being sent to prison for his involvement in an armed robbery, and then learn the game of baseball while incarcerated during his 3½ years behind bars. With a few breaks and some dashes of luck, LeFlore reached the majors and was productive, a speedy runner and exciting player who brought crowds to their feet and left opponents marveling at his ability. But he would become his own worst enemy as drugs and clashes with managers — and management — derailed his career after nine seasons.
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It is a story that Adam Henig captures with clarity, honesty and sensitivity in his latest book, “Baseball’s Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore” (Bloomsbury Academic; hardback; $24; 311 pages). Henig presents an unvarnished look at LeFlore’s career, drawn from “dozens” of telephone interviews he conducted with LeFlore, 77, over a 4½-year period. 

“The goal of the book was to erase the folkloreness about him, the mystique,” Henig said on the “Tiger Territory” podcast a few weeks ago. “And to show that he’s a three-dimensional person just like everyone.”
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To achieve that goal, Henig did some digging. He presents insights from former teammates, coaches, baseball executives, sportswriters, childhood friends, relatives and even inmates. Henig provides extensive notes, and his bibliography draws from 42 books. He also cites the Detroit Free Press, The New York Times, Montreal Gazette, The Evansville Courier & Press, the San Francisco Examiner and other newspapers; and magazines that include Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Sport, Inside Sports, Jet, Baseball Digest and more.

​It’s a thorough look at a man who portrayed himself as a tough guy but whose vulnerabilities would be exposed for all to see.
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This is Henig’s fourth book. His other book about baseball was 2016’s “Baseball Under Siege: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor’s Battle to Integrate Spring Training,” a fascinating look at Ralph Wimbish Sr., a doctor in St. Petersburg, Florida, who went to great lengths to battle racism and help desegregate baseball in his hometown during the 1960s.

Henig also wrote “Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey” (2014) and “Watergate’s Forgotten Hero: Frank Wills, Night Watchman” (2021).

Inmates who played in the majors is not a new story, but LeFlore’s is the most successful example. Eric Stone provided an interesting angle in his 2005 book, “Wrong Side of the Wall: The Life of Blackie Schwamb, the Greatest Prison Ballplayer of All Time.” Ralph “Blackie” Schwamb, a pitcher who reached the majors in 1948 and appeared in 12 games for the St. Louis Browns, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1950. He would win 131 games while playing for teams based at the San Quentin and Folsom state penitentiaries in California.

LeFlore’s teammate in Detroit, Gates Brown, served 22 months in 1958-59 after he was convicted of burglary. He played the game while incarcerated at the Ohio State Reformatory and later enjoyed a 13-year career with the Detroit Tigers (1963-75), establishing himself as one of baseball’s top pinch hitters. His career would overlap with LeFlore’s in 1974 and 1975.

LeFlore co-authored his autobiography, “Breakout: From Prison to the Big Leagues,” which was published in 1978 and adapted into a television film later that year (“One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story”) that starred LeVar Burton in the title role.

LeFlore pulled no punches in his autobiography, addressing his heroin use, his father’s alcoholism, and the armed holdup that landed him in prison.

Henig builds on that foundation in “Baseball’s Outcast.”

During his major-league career, LeFlore played six seasons in Detroit beginning in 1974. He lasted one year with the Montreal Expos in 1980 before playing his final two years with the Chicago White Sox.

Fast on his feet, LeFlore led the American League in stolen bases in 1978 (68) and led the majors in runs scored (126). In Montreal, he topped the National League with 97 steals, becoming the first major leaguer to win the stolen base title in each league.

And from 1976 through 1980, he scored at least 90 or more runs.

During the 1976 season, LeFlore batted .316, stole 58 bases and had a team-record 30-game hitting streak — the longest in the American League since Dom DiMaggio hit safely in 34 games in 1949.

“Whenever Ron came up to bat, fans made sure to be in their seats,” Henig writes. “He was one of the only exciting hitters on the club to watch during this time.

“But during the streak, it was taken to a whole new level.”

That is not to say that LeFlore was immune to criticism or catcalls from opposing fans.

“Get that convict out of there,” they would yell, but Detroit manager Ralph Houk ignored the taunts, a move that a grateful LeFlore never forgot.

Interestingly, LeFlore played for three of the crustiest, old-school managers in baseball during his career — Houk, Sparky Anderson and Dick Williams. Those skippers were bookended by Billy Martin early in his career and by Tony La Russa as his playing days wound down.

Henig provides plenty of details about LeFlore’s troubled youth and his time in Southern Michigan Prison, where he began serving time in 1970. LeFlore was attracted to the seedier side of East Detroit as a youth, impressed by the relative ease with which criminals made money and flaunted their wealth.

“There were drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes in the neighborhood,” LeFlore told Henig. “I would see all these hookers and pimps driving Cadillacs and say to myself, ‘Man, I’m going to get involved in this.’”

LeFlore stole paychecks from the grocery store where he worked, pilfered clothing from a Sears store where he was an employee, and took advantage during the chaos of a riot in downtown Detroit in July 1967, swiping shoes, a leather jacket and even a lamb fur coat.

“Young, uneducated and reckless, Ron failed to come to grips with the immorality and illegality of his actions,” Henig writes. “Nor did he recognize the risks involved.”

LeFlore only became interested in athletics in prison because he realized that those inmates who competed received special treatment. But as it turned out, he was talented enough to get a tryout with the Tigers and would eventually make it to the parent club in 1974.

LeFlore would encounter racism while playing in the minors, Henig writes. LeFlore debuted in 1973 with the Clinton Pilots of the Midwest League and encountered a two-pronged problem — a lack of experience and a hostile fan base.

“I went through hell in Clinton,” LeFlore told Henig.

LeFlore would make life hell for himself during his time in the majors. Prone to drug use, his personal life also suffered because of delinquent child support payments. At one point, he owed more than $56,000 that had been supposed to go to his oldest child.

LeFlore hastened his departure from Detroit by defying Anderson, stating that he was offended by the former manager of the Big Red Machine’s lack of respect toward players — specifically toward him.

Former Detroit traveling secretary Bill Brown told Henig that stars with the Tigers were treated differently and received more leeway. The rub was who management believed were the stars.

“Ron thought he was a star,” Brown said. “(And) assumed he was better than he was and should have had more privileges because of it.”

Still, LeFlore’s trade to Montreal caused outrage among Detroit’s fans.

LeFlore’s exit from Montreal a year later certainly was a result of an interview with Inside Sports, where the player trashed the Tigers, Expos and Anderson, while also calling the fans in Montreal racist.

For all of his flashes of brilliance, LeFlore had a dark side he could not escape.

Henig writes that LeFlore encountered three dark periods during his life. One was the death of his older half-brother, Harry Campbell, who had earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic boxing team in 1960 but would later die in May 1961 after absorbing punishment in a lightweight bout. The other two dark eras were LeFlore’s time in prison and his post-baseball life.

It was especially difficult for LeFlore to make the transition from an admired athlete to a bellhop at a west-central Florida airport.

“He went from signing autographs, riding in limousines, and meeting heads of state, to waking up at four in the morning, hustling for a dollar here, a dollar there, and asking men and women, ‘Can I help you,’” Henig writes.

It was a monumental fall from grace, but LeFlore has persevered. Henig does an excellent job knitting all the details of LeFlore’s complicated life together in a coherent, readable biography.

“Ron LeFlore overcame insurmountable odds,” Henig writes. “He is a survivor. No one with his background should have reached the heights he did, let alone survive past the age of twenty-five.
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“He might not have achieved everything he wanted, but what he did accomplish was nothing short of a miracle.” 

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collector's Daily  about the REA Spring Auction sale that is running through April 19:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/new-discoveries-old-favorites-highlight-rea-spring-catalog-auction/

Here's  a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Ed Strauss, who found a rare autograph of Hall of Famer Pete Hill at a decorative estate sale:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/rare-baseball-autograph-pete-hill-discovered/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily who pulled a fabulous card from a 2025 Topps Chrome Update Mega Box ...

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/north-carolina-boy-selling-topps-chrome-update-logoman-card-featuring-ohtani-judge/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the career of Hall of Fame reliever Hoyt Wilhelm:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/hoyt-wilhelm-baseball-cards-career/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Eddie Murray, who turns 70 on Feb. 24. Taking a look at some of the cards issued during his career:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/eddie-murray-baseball-cards/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a baseball that was autographed by Babe Ruth for 17-year-old Harvard Hodgkins, who alertly saw two men walking in a desolate area of Maine. Turns out they were Nazi spies. This story has all the trappings of a movie:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/babe-ruth-signed-baseball-world-war-2-nazi-spies/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the racquet used by Novak Djokovic in the marathon 2012 Australian Open final. It is going to auction, and I talked with the man who has owned it since Djokovic gifted it to him after the match:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/racquet-used-by-novak-djokovic-in-epic-2012-australian-open-final-headed-to-auction/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a RICO complaint filed by the state of Indiana against companies owned by the late Brett Lemieux, who had previously been charged in a large counterfeit memorabilia scheme.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/indiana-files-rico-claim-against-businesses-run-by-the-late-mister-man-cave/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing Panini America's high-end National Treasures football product:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2025-national-treasures-football-preview/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Panini revealing its regional cover for the 2026 World Cup:

​https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/panini-reveals-special-us-canada-cover-design-for-2026-world-cup/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a collection of signed sports cards from the 1940s and '50s that were autographed for a fan shortly after the cards were produced.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/incredible-trove-of-autographed-sports-cards-from-1940s-50s-now-up-for-auction/​

​The afterglow from a round of golf, with players sitting in the clubhouse or having a drink at a country club’s bar, can be convivial, jovial and full of tales  — some real, some perhaps apocryphal — but all of them entertaining.

Those are the qualities found in the latest work by golf historian/author David Sowell.
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In America Tees Off: True Tales of Golf’s Rich History (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $29.95; 256 pages), Sowell presents 108 chapters — most of them relatively short — about golf, beginning when Robert Lockhart “triggered a golf explosion” in the United States in 1887.

Sowell’s punchy, engaging stories are fun, funny and at times exhilarating — compare it to carding birdies on all three holes of Augusta National’s “Amen Corner,” or dropping a long, curling putt for an eagle.

Very satisfying.

Sowell has excelled in golf writing, with three previous books to his credit: Eisenhower, Golf and Augusta (2012); Sarazen: The Story of a Golfing Legend and His Epic Moment in 2017; and The Masters: A Hole-by-Hole History of America’s Golf Classic in 2019. His work has also appeared in several publications, including Golf Illustrated, Links Magazine and the USGA’s Golf Journal.

In America Tees Off, Sowell dips into his previous works and also digs out some new material.

Find out why Dave Eichelberger wore pantyhose during the final round of the Bay Hill Classic in March 1980. Or how Raymond Floyd’s “bag in one” shot cost him two strokes at the 1987 Tournament Players Championship.

What disparaging comment did Arnold Palmer overhear when Ben Hogan was talking with Jackie Burke Jr. at the Masters, and how did it motivate him to ramp up his game and win his first green jacket? And on what golf course — and what green — did Babe Ruth agree to sign with the New York Yankees?

That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sowell devotes three chapters to one of golf’s most mysterious characters, John Montague, who could do it all — except outrun the authorities, who took seven years to piece together that this talented player was a wanted fugitive named Laverne Moore. Sowell has fun with this story, tossing off lines like “Montague avoided cameras like Superman would avoid Kryptonite” or photographers “began gunning for Monty like the planes firing at King Kong on the Empire State Building.”

Leigh Montville gave Montague the full treatment in his 2008 biographical work, The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery. But Sowell gives the reader an ample taste.

Politics also finds its way into Sowell’s storytelling, with a chapter titled “The Most Politically Significant Round of Golf Ever Played.” The vignette followed the concern over the health of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had suffered a heart attack in 1955 — a condition that put thoughts of his 1956 re-election plans in jeopardy. But when Ike showed his fitness on the links, the die was cast and he would run for a second term, winning handily.

The reader also learns about Woodrow Wilson’s obsession with golf, and how a White House administrator under Bill Clinton was forced to resign after he commandeered a helicopter to take him and another staff member to a golf course in nearby Frederick, Maryland.

The rich even get a turn in this book, with stories about John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Howard Hughes.

Despite the clear and crisp writing Sowell brings to this book, there are some glitches.

Sowell notes that John McGraw began managing the New York Giants in 1904, when he actually began that role two years earlier. He also notes that Bill Klem was one of two umpires in the Hall of Fame. Klem and Tommy Connally were inducted in 1953, but there have been eight umpires enshrined since then.

Sowell also refers to seven-time LPGA majors winner Juli Inkster as “Julie.”

Those are minor and do not detract from the overall product. There are so many stories that can be told, and this book is written so that one can skip chapters or read them in any order. They are timeless. And while many of the stories have been told before, there are plenty of anecdotes that will please a golfer regardless of their level of expertise.

Golf has a rich history, and Sowell tells it richly. 

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Tory Jelinek, a Mariners fan who came up with Shohei Ohtani's franchise-setting 55th home run for the Dodgers. The ball is part of a current Heritage Auctions sale:

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/fan-ohtani-55th-home-run-ball-auction/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a New Jersey collector who found a rare autograph of Louis F. Wadsworth, one of baseball's early rules pioneers.
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www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/autograph-of-obscure-but-important-baseball-pioneer-part-of-scp-fall-premier-sale/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the career of NBA great Elvin Hayes as he turns 80 -- and six of his memorable basketball cards.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/big-e-at-80-here-are-6-cards-of-nba-great-elvin-hayes/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a current online auction featuring items from the collection of Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/gordie-howes-last-jersey-other-milestone-items-in-new-charity-auction/

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about 5 cards that define the career of Chicago Bears great Gale Sayers:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/gale-sayers-5-great-football-cards-of-the-kansas-comet/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily, a follow-up about David Blixt, who rediscovered a ticket and program from Michael Jordan's first professional game in the Chicago area -- a preseason contest played in a high school gym.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/only-known-ticket-program-from-michael-jordans-first-chicago-area-pro-game-headed-to-auction/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Rick Hernandez, a California man who owns more than 1,700 tickets from a closed-circuit television airing of the George Foreman-Muhammad Ali boxing match -- the Rumble in the Jungle.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/ticket-master-man-has-cache-of-1-7k-closed-circuit-tickets-from-ali-foreman-rumble-in-the-jungle/​

Interest in Japanese-born baseball players has never been higher. This year’s World Series, featuring Dodgers’ two-way star Shohei Ohtani, starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, reliever Roki Sasaki and a dramatic finish to Game 7, brought global excitement to the game.

Already, Topps is cashing in on the interest, offering an on-demand baseball card set commemorating the 2025 World Series champions. And one of those sets include a 1/1 triple autographed relic card of Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki. 

The performances of the Japanese players, helping Los Angeles to back-to-back World Series titles, lend credence to what fans of Asian baseball have argued for years — that the game in Japan is just as competitive as the major leagues.

And deserves another look.

What sets Japanese baseball apart from its American counterparts is the culture — polite fans, strenuous training for players, beer girls carrying kegs on their backs, and cheerleaders.
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Who better to provide an inside look at Japanese baseball than Rob Fitts? His latest book, In the Japanese Ballpark: Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $36.95; 304 pages) is the result of interviews with players, managers, fans, mascots, umpires, team owners — and beer girls.

Other authors have cracked open the door to Japanese baseball — most notably Robert Whiting, the author of 1989’s You Gotta Have Wa whose perspective graces the first chapter of Fitts’ new book. But Fitts has kicked the door down once again. This time, he makes some interesting observations about Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), noting that his latest book was written “to help foreigners better understand Japanese baseball.”

It is a continuation of unique and very readable books by Fitts, who is currently a curatorial consultant for the Yakyu-Baseball exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Fitts, who began collecting Japanese baseball cards while living in Tokyo in 1993-94, began writing about Japanese baseball with a pamphlet he published more than two decades ago, An Introduction to Japanese Baseball Cards. That was updated in 2020 as an online PDF.

Fitts’ 2005 oral history, Remembering Japanese Baseball, was followed three years later by a biography of Wally Yonamine, the first Asian American to play pro football and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan.

Fitts’ best-known work, Banzai Babe Ruth, breathed new life into the 1934 goodwill tour of major leaguers to Japan, led by Ruth. The 2012 book earned Fitts a Seymour Medal from the Society of American Baseball Research. Fitts’ 2015 work, Mashi, chronicled the life of Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese major leaguer.

In his 2020 book Issei Baseball, Fitts focuses on five men who would play a large role in shaping Japanese baseball in the United States before World War I.

Rather than dwelling on just baseball players, Fitts, a former archaeologist, digs much deeper in his latest effort. He conducted most of his interviews via Zoom and edited the transcripts for clarity without sacrificing the integrity of the narrative. He did allow the people he interviewed to read the transcripts in order to ensure their accuracy.

Fitts also had to cut through red tape with some of the baseball clubs in order to speak with his subjects. Some of them, like the mascots, had to talk about their jobs in the third person because their teams wanted to keep the mystique of the character intact.

But the hassle was worth it, as Fitts presents a fine cross-section of Japanese baseball in a book divided into seven sections.

Above all, there is politeness that is not forced.
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“There’s a lot of gratitude within baseball in Japan,” Kenjiro Kajita, a former security guard at Meiji Jingu Stadium in Shinjuku, told Fitts. “You’re taught to be respectful and have gratitude when you’re growing up.”

​Fans rarely boo during games in Japan and limit their cheers to when their team is up to bat. The courtesies also extend to pitchers tipping their caps in apology after hitting a batter. The bench-clearing tension during the fourth inning of Game 7 on Saturday night, when Toronto shortstop Andrés Giménez was hit in the right hand by a fastball from Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski, likely would not have occurred in Japan.

“Like, ‘I’m, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that,’” four-time Japan All-Star Matt Murton, who also played five seasons with three major league teams, recalled about the reaction of Japanese pitchers. “(Tipping the hat) was just a way of paying respect.

“Pitchers in the United States would never do that.”

Murton also observed that players are more likely to defer to their managers and not challenge them, playing a more submissive role.
“I started thinking, ‘You know what this feels like? Amateur baseball at a professional level, in terms of how these players sit under the authority of these managers,’” he tells Fitts.

Fitts got the inspiration to write In the Japanese Ballpark while on an organized tour of all 12 stadiums. While at Yokohama Stadium on a sweltering, 90-degree day, Fitts wanted a beer. He bought one from a uriko, or beer girl, who had a 33-pound keg strapped to her back.

Fitts continued to watch the game but was stunned by the stamina of the uriko, who effortlessly bounded up and down the steep stairs, expertly poured beer into a cup and then jogged toward another customer.

Fitts then began to wonder about other workers in the stadium and their day-to-day duties.

Keiko Suzuki, who worked for two years at Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, told Fitts she would pour more than 200 cups of beer at each game. And changing the kegs “is like changing the tires on a Formula One race car” as a team works to make sure there is a smooth transition. The empty keg is removed and a full one is strapped to the worker’s back.

“I think the record for the quickest change is only thirteen seconds,” Suzuki tells Fitts.

Longtime sportswriter Jim Allen conceded that working for English-speaking newspapers in Japan was “awkward” because he did not have command of Japanese in order to communicate with team officials and players.

“I had some interviews where we were talking at 90-degree angles from one another. Sometimes, I was asking players things they’d already answered.” Allen tells Fitts, adding that as the years went by, he became more proficient. “I went from never asking questions in the press conferences in Japanese to understanding enough to ask and do follow-ups.”

Still, Allen notes that no matter what language they speak, athletes have learned to say nothing of substance.

“Cliches work the world over,” he tells Fitts.

Fitts interviewed two Americans who became managers in Japan — Trey Hillman and Bobby Valentine. Before managing in the major leagues for the Kansas City Royals (2008-10) and the Dodgers (2012-13), Hillman piloted the Nippon Ham Fighters from 2003 to 2007. He won the Japan Series in 2005.

Hillman said he was “awestruck” by the commitment of Japanese players and coaches, their work ethic and preparation.

“We would have meetings to decide when the next meeting was,” Hillman told Fitts.

More famously, Valentine has managed a team to the World Series (the 2000 New York Mets) and a squad to a Japan Series title (the 2005 Chiba Lotte Marines). He tells Fitts that Japanese baseball in the 1990s — when he first managed in the Far East — had “an inferiority complex.”

But that was not the case.

“I always thought it was real baseball, and then I got to experience it and I was like, ‘Holy Cow!’” Valentine tells Fitts.

Valentine also refers to the little dramatic moments that occur in Japanese baseball games as “a little bit of Kabuki theater.”

Yasuro Karibe has been an oendan member of the Hiroshima Carp for more than 30 years. An oendan leads the cheering of fans, and Karibe compares it to “a conductor of an orchestra.”

“It’s our job to pump up the players,” Karibe said.

Taylor Foote, who was part of the Carp’s mascot team — Slyly is one of Japanese baseball’s most beloved mascots — said that most teams wanted to keep the integrity of the mascot intact.

“That means not making any sort of admission that it’s a person in there,” he tells Fitts.

Quaint.

Fitts covers all the bases of Japanese baseball, interviewing an owner, general manager, scout, interpreter, data analyst, trainer, umpire, agent, marketing director and cheerleader.

Even NPB Commissioner Ryozo Kato is interviewed, and Tatsuo Shinke gives his take on Japanese sports cards.

Japanese baseball is finally getting the respect it has craved for decades. In 2025, Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese-born player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Yamamoto became the second Japanese native to earn World Series MVP honors, following in the footsteps of New York Yankees’ star Hideki Matsui in 2009.

Other big names from Japan who crossed the Pacific to play in the majors include Hideo Nomo, Yu Darvish, Hideki Irabu and Daisuke “Dice-K” Matsuzaka.

Former major leaguers have excelled in Japan, , including Yonamine, the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. Other notables (this is not an all-inclusive list) include Randy Bass, Tuffy Rhodes, Leron Lee and Warren Cromartie.

“I think if guys go over there knowing it’s going to be difficult but with an open mindset, and they embrace the journey, they are going to have some wonderful moments,” Murton tells Fitts. “Memories that they’ll never forget.”

Fitts gives readers an eye-opening account of baseball in Japan. He includes four appendices, which features a list of English-language books about the NPB. Not surprisingly, some of the sources include Fitts’ impressive list of titles.
​
Fitts channels his knowledge and passion of Japanese baseball into his work, and In the Japanese Ballpark is another excellent example.

The Kansas City Chiefs may be one of pro football’s elite teams today, but they were also a powerful franchise during the 1960s, when the American Football League challenged the NFL.

The team, coached by the peppery and loquacious Hank Stram — Green Bay Packers guard Jerry Kramer was less charitable, referring to him as “that loud-mouthed coach” —  won three AFL titles. One came in Dallas, where the franchise began as the Texans, while the others came when the team moved north to Kansas City.

The Chiefs played in the first Super Bowl, losing to the Packers, then stunned the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV in the final game before the NFL-AFL merger.

But despite their success, those early Chiefs teams never seemed to receive their due. Even though the franchise was the winningest in AFL history, the Chiefs were overshadowed by the New York Jets, the first league team to win a Super Bowl; and the Oakland Raiders, who were just as physical as Kansas City but thrived on its bad boy image.
​
That changes with Rick Gosselin’s detailed, interesting new book, The Team that History Forgot: The 1960s Kansas City Chiefs (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $34.95; 256 pages). Gosselin is a veteran of sports in Kansas City; during the 1980s when I worked at The Stuart News, Gosselin’s stories for United Press International were must-reads. While the Chiefs were not a powerhouse, MLB’s Royals were, reaching the World Series for the first time in 1980 and then winning ​it in 1985. Gosselin's stories were accurate, smartly written and delivered quickly.

He follows the same blueprint with his book about the Chiefs. The structure is reminiscent to James Patterson’s technique.Short, punchy chapters with page-turning intensity.

But this is no work of fiction.

Gosselin, 74, documented his work, saving his notes and interviews through the years. He noted that “the backbone” of the book is the interviews he conducted 30 and 40 years ago with key members of the Chiefs, some of whom have since passed away. That includes Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, quarterback Len Dawson, wide receiver Otis Taylor and defensive tackle Buck Buchanan.

Gosselin began assembling his notes and turning them into a narrative in 2023. He starts the book with the story of the Dallas Texans and the squad’s natural rivalry with another newly minted pro football team in 1960, the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. Both teams, in an attempt to lure fans who were in love with college football to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, drafted and signed players with Texas backgrounds.

“Texas was a large, fertile, and proud football state,” Gosselin writes. “Like oil, football talent gushed” in the state.

Stram was the perfect coach for the upstart AFL, “a little man with a big swagger.”

The Texans had to overcome their natural league rival, the Houston Oilers, and that was not easy. Houston won the AFL’s first two championships. But the addition of Dawson at quarterback and defensive back Johnny Robinson were the two key pieces that allowed the Texans to unseat the Oilers in double overtime and win the 1962 AFL title. At the time, it was the longest game in pro football history; the Chiefs would later play a role in what remains the longest game in NFL annals — the 1971 Christmas Day playoff game that Kansas City lost to the Miami Dolphins.

After leaving UPI, Gosselin covered sports as a writer and columnist for The Kansas City Star and then The Dallas Morning News. His first professional byline came in 1973; Gosselin said in a recent interview that his goal was to be a sportswriter since he was a third-grader.

His enthusiasm has not waned. He tells a compelling story about the Chiefs and the culture of pro football during the 1960s.

While the Texans were champions on the field, they were losing at the gate. That led team owner Hunt to move the franchise north to Kansas City in 1963.
The Chiefs took some time to become successful in their new city, posting a 19-19-4 regular-season record, but they soon became a powerhouse. From 1966 to 1969, Kansas City went 43-12-1, won two AFL titles and competed in a pair of Super Bowls.

The team’s owners and coaches were not shy about tapping the talent from historically Black colleges and universities. Lloyd Wells scouted for the Chiefs and landed Buchanan, linebacker Willie Lanier and cornerback Emmitt Thomas.

“The Chiefs became colorblind,” Gosselin writes. “And the rest of pro football eventually followed.”

The reason was simple. For years, the NFL had operated as “a closed fraternity,” Gosselin notes. But the AFL opened up 300 new job opportunities,  opening the door for the best HBCU players.

“And the AFL was in a greater hurry to find them than the NFL,” he writes.
Gosselin’s focus is on the Chiefs, but he does provide context with chapters about the AFL-NFL merger, the Oakland Raiders, the Packers, the Buffalo Bills and the Cowboys.

He also writes about the AFL title game that propelled the Chiefs to the first Super Bowl. And while they were going to face the Packers, Kansas City was really hoping to face the Cowboys. It would have provided incentive to show fans in Texas what they were missing when the Chiefs were forced to abandon Dallas and move north.

“The old Texans wanted a little payback,” Gosselin writes.

It did not happen. The Packers defeated the Cowboys 34-27, despite a frantic Dallas drive in the final minute that died at the Green Bay 2-yard line when Don Meredith was intercepted in the end zone.

Gosselin devotes several chapters to the first Super Bowl, hitting it from just about every angle. The only disappointment is that he only devoted one chapter to Super Bowl IV, when the Chiefs stunned the Vikings and Stram was famously wearing a microphone, giving NFL Films a gem video for the ages – “65 Toss Power Trap” is a legendary moment.

“This might pop right open,” Stram said.

And it did — Mike Garrett scored on a 5-yard run to give the Chiefs a 16-0 halftime lead.

Gosselin puts the finishing touch on his work by recounting the opponent the Chiefs wanted the most — the Cowboys. While it was a preseason game in 1970, Kansas City treated the contest like another Super Bowl, winning 13-0. The Chiefs defense recorded 10 sacks and intercepted a pass.

After the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV, it would be 50 seasons before Kansas City would return to the NFL’s marquee game. Since 2020 they have played in five Super Bowls, winning three of them as quarterback Patrick Mahomes and coach Andy Reid (who wrote the foreword for Gosselin’s book) returned the Chiefs to prominence once again.

“The team that history forgot in 1966 became a team to remember in 1969,” Gosselin writes.

Gosselin’s very satisfying work gives football fans a memorable taste of the first Chiefs dynasty.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the home run ball off the bat of Shohei Ohtani in Game 4 of the NLCS. The ball traveled at least 469 feet and now will be up for sale in an upcoming SCP Auctions sale:

​https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/ohtanis-monster-blast-in-nlcs-part-of-scps-fall-premier-auction/