Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the effect tariffs on China are having on sports card suppliers and card shop owners: 

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/tariffs-concern-retailers-of-trading-card-supplies-and-shop-owners/

Here's a story  I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about "The Great American Collectibles Show," hosted by Tom Zappala, Rico Petrocelli and John Molosi. I spoke with Tom and Rico about the show, and Rico shared some baseball stories: 
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/the-great-american-collectibles-show-serves-up-fun-laughter-and-knowledge/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about players with mustaches who have appeared on baseball cards through the years. Up until 1970, there were very few: 

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/bristling-with-character-a-modern-history-of-players-sporting-mustaches-on-baseball-cards/

​I was reminded of the disco era this past weekend when my 92-year-old father participated in a fashion show at his independent living facility.

Spry as ever, he bounced onto the runway to the pulsating beat of “Stayin’ Alive” and mimicked some of the moves John Travolta made famous in Saturday Night Fever. Well, not all of the moves, but some a nonagenarian could manage, including a clapping motion to the audience reminding them to applaud. Classic.
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In 1978 the Bee Gees dominated the airwaves with three disco-flavored No. 1 hits, according to Billboard: “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Night Fever.” But the times were changing, with punk music, new wave, R&B and funk music all muscling for attention. Grease would be the word for most of the summer, and a spin-off from television’s hit sitcom Happy Days would kickstart the career of Robin Williams.

And then there was baseball. The 1978 season saw the New York Yankees’ improbable comeback from a huge midsummer deficit to create a memorable, heated pennant race.

​That was capped by an electrifying playoff game in Boston that turned on a home run from an unlikely hero.

It is all there in David Krell’s latest mash-up of baseball and popular culture in 1978: Baseball & America in the Disco Era (University of Nebraska Press; $34.95; hardback; 224 pages). Krell, a baseball historian who considers himself “a pop culture guy,” deftly views 1978 in 12 compact chapters — one for each month, beginning with the death of Hall of Fame manager Joe McCarthy and ending with Herman Wouk’s blockbuster novel War and Remembrance, which would be adapted into a television miniseries a decade later.

Krell digs into the controversy surrounding the playing status of Vida Blue, who was “stuck like a car in the mud after a rainstorm in his home state of Louisiana.” That was when Commissioner Bowie Kuhn repeated his “best interests of baseball” mantra to nix a deal that would have sent the 1971 A.L. Cy Young Award winner from the Oakland A’s to the Cincinnati Reds.

February saw a blizzard that pounded Krell’s native New Jersey and much of the Northeast and New England states. It set the stage for the Happy Days episode “My Favorite Orkan,” which featured Williams as Mork, an alien from the planet Ork, and even a reference to slugger Hank Aaron. Krell goes into great detail about the episode, which would lead to the spinoff show, Mork & Mindy.

“The episode punctuated the show’s magic in capturing America’s hearts during an uncertain time,” Krell writes.

Nanu nanu, indeed.

Many baseball fans know Catfish Hunter’s quip about slugger Reggie Jackson, who had a candy bar named for him — “When you open a Reggie Bar it tells you how good it is” — and Krell notes that if Jackson “were a piece of music, he would be a symphony full of blaring horns, compelling violins, and emphatic timpani.” Jackson was a controversial character, but in Philadelphia, the Phillies unveiled their own character — the Phillie Phanatic.

Besides the Reggie bar and the Phanatic, another key debut in 1978 happened on television, Krell writes. That was Dallas, the primetime soap opera that introduced Larry Hagman (who played good guy Maj. Tony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie) as the conniving, ambitious oil baron J.R. Ewing.

Free to be devious, Hagman, as J.R., “showed the incredible range of his acting.” He manipulated lovers, rivals, business partners, and family members with the finesse of a pianist giving a performance at Carnegie Hall, and the patience of a wartime general devising a battle plan,” Krell writes.

Almost as in-your-face as Ewing was Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, who managed the team to a World Series appearance in 1977 and would repeat as National League champions in 1978.

On May 14, Chicago Cubs Dave Kingman smacked three home runs in a 15-inning game against the Dodgers, and reporter Paul Olden asked Lasorda after the game about the slugger’s performance. What followed was one of Lasorda’s most colorful, profane rants.

“How can you ask me my opinion like that, ‘what is my opinion of his performance,’” Lasorda barked. “That’s a tough question to ask me, don’t you think? … Well I didn’t give you a good answer because I’m mad, but I mean, that’s a tough question to ask me right now.”

Earlier in May, Pete Rose joined the 3,000-hit club, with a single in the fifth inning off Montreal Expos pitcher Steve Rogers. Rose would later put together a 44-game hitting streak, becoming the first player in years to seriously challenge Joe DiMaggio’s seemingly insurmountable record of 56.

Years later, Rose would be banned from baseball for gambling on games. Ironically, 1978 was the year that gambling also made headlines as New Jersey officially ushered in legalized gambling in Atlantic City during late May.

On the cultural side, Krell notes that American Hot Wax, the story of Alan Freed’s rise and fall as an influential disc jockey. Freed would popularize rock ’n’ roll music but later plead guilty to “payola” — taking bribes to give certain songs radio airtime.

“You can stop me, but you’re never gonna stop rock ’n’ roll,” Freed (played by Tim McIntire) says as the film ends.

As baseball season veered into June, great pitching was the main theme. Tom Seaver threw the only no-hitter of his career on June 16 for the Cincinnati Reds, and Yankees left-hander Ron Guidry struck out 18 batters the next night, dispatching the California Angels in 2 hours, 7 minutes. It was one of many big moments during his 25-3 season.

A longtime fan favorite also reached a milestone as Willie McCovey hit his 500th career home run on June 30.
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Krell smoothly shifts gears, noting the emergence of Grease, another look back at the 1950s. For a year that also boasted breakout performances by the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Elvis Costello and Dire Straits, the nostalgia in Hollywood during 1978 provided a stark contrast — or perhaps, an escape.

Tensions in the Yankees clubhouse between Jackson and manager Billy Martin would dominate the headlines in July, leading to Martin’s infamous “One’s a born liar, the other’s convicted” characterization of the slugger and team owner George Steinbrenner. That led to Martin’s resignation and the hiring of Bob Lemon, who had “street cred” as a former major league pitcher and restored calm in the Bronx.

Steinbrenner, never one to shy from a splashy headline, brought Martin back five days later to appear at an Old Timers' Game at Yankee Stadium. At that point, it was announced that Martin would become the manager again in 1980, with Lemon becoming the team's manager that year.

Martin would return to the dugout earlier, taking the reins after 65 games in 1979 after Lemon was fired.

There was unrest in Los Angeles, too, when pitcher Don Sutton and first baseman got into a fight in mid-August. Garvey took offense at Sutton’s comments in a Washington Post column, where the pitcher complained that “all you hear about on our team is Steve Garvey, the All-American boy.” Sutton added that the best player on the Dodgers the past two seasons was outfielder Reggie Smith — “and we all know it.”

Sutton eventually apologized and the Dodgers went 10-4 from Aug. 16 until the end of the month.

With all of the widely publicized turbulence among the Yankees, the Dodgers’ spat has been downplayed through the years. To his credit, Krell gives the Dodgers’ tension the credit it deserves.

While the Dodgers rolled along, Hollywood hummed with the release of Animal House, a film that featured Tim Matheson as the fraternity leader who convinces his expelled fraternity brothers to commit “a really futile and stupid gesture” to get even with the haughty Dean Wormer. It also starred John Belushi as John “Bluto” Blutarsky, a loutish, slovenly member of the Delta Tau Chi frat.

Krell gives a blow-by-blow description of September’s “Boston Massacre,” when the Yankees pummeled the Red Sox during four days in early September to move into a tie for first place in the American League East. New York had trailed Boston by 14 games on July 19, but Red Sox Nation was still optimistic.
“We need sports as an outlet for our frustrations,” Krell writes. “The team’s success is our success; we live vicariously through strikeouts, home runs, no-hitters, and batting records.”

Optimism can only go so far, and both teams were deadlocked after 162 games, forcing a one-game playoff at Fenway Park for the division title.

A storybook finish for the Red Sox did not happen, Krell writes. Bucky Dent tore the heart out of the Boston faithful with a two-out, three-run homer in the seventh inning to cap a four-run rally and erase a 2-0 Red Sox lead.

Krell also gives a daily description of the World Series, when the Dodgers, emotional after the loss of coach Jim Gilliam on the eve of the Fall Classic, won the first two games in Los Angeles. That included a classic pitcher-batter duel between Bob Welch and Jackson, with the rookie pitcher striking out the future Hall of Famer with two outs and two on to preserve a 4-3 victory.

Jackson also ignited contoversy in Game 4 when a throw deflected off him after he was forced at second during a potential double play -- a move dubbed the "Sacrifice Thigh."

The Yankees would win Games 3 through 6 to win their 22nd World Series title.

And Krell would jump back into pop culture with descriptions of the television series The Incredible Hulk and The White Shadow and the TV movie Rescue from Gilligan’s Island.

As 1978 wound to a close, the Reds dismissed manager Sparky Anderson and there was tragedy in San Francisco. Dan White, a member of the city’s Board of Directors, fatally shot fellow supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone at city hall.

But “America found renewed hope with a familiar hero who stood for truth, justice, and the American way” — Superman. The blockbuster movie featuring Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel debuted on Dec. 10, 1978.

Although some critics “were about as kind to Superman as salt on Frosted Flakes,” the public loved it, flocking to theaters like “overweight guests heading toward the dessert tables at a wedding,” Krell writes.

There are many more stories that Krell tells in 1978.

His narrative is crisp, informal and informative, and his research is extensive. It follows the pattern he has set for a decade. The former MSNBC producer’s book debut was “Our Bums”: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory and Popular Culture (2015), followed by 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK (2021); Do You Believe in Magic?: Baseball and America in the Groundbreaking Year of 1966 (2023); and his 2024 effort, The Fenway Effect: Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox.

In 2019, Krell edited another look at baseball and culture: The New York Yankees in Popular Culture: Critical Essays. One year earlier, Krell produced mini-biography of actor-singer-game-show host Bert Convy for the Society of American Baseball Research. Who knew that the host of the game show TattleTales was once a minor league outfielder as a teen in the Philadelphia Phillies organization during the 1951 and ’52 seasons?

Krell is also working on a biography of pitcher Bo Belinsky that is scheduled to be published in September 2025.

In his approach for writing The Fenway Effect and 1978, Krell said he went against traditional thinking.

“Every writing class, every writing seminar, every writing conference will tell you, ‘Just write. Worry about making it good later,’” he said on the Hooks and Runs podcast earlier this month. “(Now) I’m only going to do three pages a day, and I’m going to make the three pages as good as I possibly can. I’m also going to frontload as much research as possible.

“If you focus on that, you’ll probably get 90 to 95% of your research accomplished. And then, after two months, start writing … three pages a day. And my stress level went down. My effectiveness went up. I can’t recommend that approach enough. Slow and steady always wins the race.”

Krell writes that disco was powerful and was a dominating force during 1978.

“It fostered an aura of positivity created by the music, something sorely needed after suffering, enduring, and recovering from events that had tested America’s resolve,” he writes. “America wanted to learn disco dances because it gave them a sense of belonging.”

That sense of optimism seeps through in 1978. Krell can mimic my father’s exit from the disco runway at the independent living facility, clapping out to the audience for a positive response.
​
Krell deserves one. 

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a man who pleaded guilty in a large fake autograph scheme he conducted for nearly a decade:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/anthony-tremayne-fake-autographs-guilty-plea/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily that focuses on five cards issued during the career of Hall of Fame pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/catfish-hunter-5-cards-marking-his-hall-of-fame-career-and-a-bonus/
​

​Memoirs written by sportswriters are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, journalists do not like to be part of the story, or the focus of any of them. And do sports fans even care? I guess that depends.

On the other hand, the wealth of stories and anecdotes from a sportswriter who has been on the beat for five decades can be fascinating and absorbing.

Put Bill Madden into the second category.

Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown: A Baseball Memoir (Triumph Books; hardback; $30; 276 pages) is a fine read from a Hall of Fame sportswriter/columnist. Madden, who received the Hall of Fame’s J.G. Taylor Spink Award in 2010 for his contributions to baseball journalism, has been writing about the sport since 1970 and has also published seven books.

Madden, 78, has spent most of his career covering the baseball in New York, and he gives a unique perspective of the competitiveness between the Yankees and Mets — and also between the newspapers that covered the two teams. Madden was — and remains — a dogged reporter and a journalist whose reputation for fairness has gained the trust of baseball players and managers, and has also helped him get some scoops along the way.

Writing about sports is a tightwire to walk in New York, which is a hotbed for sports and whose fans are passionate. Madden spent a decade with United Press International before landing a job at the New York Daily News.

And while his latest book contains plenty of anecdotes about Madden’s years in the trenches of Big Apple sports writing, two chapters really caught my eye. One chronicled the career of Milton Richman, the columnist and sports editor at UPI.

​Allow me to take a brief detour.

When I worked at The Stuart (Fla.) News during the 1980s, the newspaper subscribed to UPI as a news service. That meant we ran Richman’s daily column, “Today’s Sports Parade.” We’d jokingly refer to Richman as “Uncle Miltie,” and he actually stopped by our office one spring to say hello. We were thrilled.

One spring, Richman asked if we could give a copy of a published column he wrote about Ron Cey to the Dodgers third baseman. A few days later, I went to Vero Beach, where the Dodgers held spring training, armed with a notepad and a copy of the column that had been published in the News.

I approached Cey, who sort of waved me off with a “not talking today” growl.

“But I have a column Milt Richman wrote about you that he wanted you to have,” I said.

Cey brightened up immediately. “Milton wrote about me? Really?” he said. “Wow, thanks.”

Then he looked at me and asked, “You wanna talk?”

I sure did. Thanks, Milton. I got an interview with the Penguin thanks to your pull.

Richman, along with his brother Arthur, grew up in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium. But the boys were not fans of the Bronx Bombers.

“My brother and I, you see, were wayward boys,” Richman wrote in a March 1982 column. “We never did anything to land us in jail, but we did something far worse.

“We rooted for and followed the St. Louis Browns.”

And Harlond Clift was Richman’s idol. He devoted an entire column in July 1984 to the Browns’ underrated third baseman, writing in the earnest, friendly style that was his trademark.

While Richman wrote about many sports, baseball was his passion and.

Madden writes about Richman excitedly running into the press room in Miami the night before Super Bowl X and telling then-UPI football writer Joe Carnicelli, “Joey, I got it!”

Carnicelli, who was writing on deadline, stopped and asked in an exasperated tone, “What, Milton?”
​
“Then, leaning down and whispering in Carnicelli’s ear, Milton pronounced: ‘Dick Drago to the Angels,’” Madden writes. “To Milton the trade of a marginal relief pitcher the first week of January was a far bigger ‘stop the presses’ story than the Super Bowl, especially because Milton had it alone.”

​The other chapter that intrigued me was “The Great Baseball Card Explosion.”
In addition to his writing duties at the New York Daily News, Madden wrote a biweekly column in The Sporting News about collectibles. Madden had been a collector since 1953, so writing about cards was an attractive side job.

When a judge ruled in June 1980 that other companies besides Topps could produce baseball cards, Madden hooked up with Donruss, one of the beneficiaries of the ruling (Fleer was the other company). Madden had called Steve Lyman, the president of Donruss, to do a reaction story about the lawsuit. Lyman lamented he wanted to be the first set on the market in 1981 and wondered if Madden knew anyone who could help with the logistics of putting out the set.

He did. “Me,” Madden told Lyman.

“I’ve always wanted to be a part of the process of creating” a set of cards, Madden writers, recalling his conversation with Lyman.

Madden would write the brief biographies on the Donruss card backs for the company’s inaugural 1981 set. He writes in his book that he suggested that Donruss would set itself apart from the other companies if it gave added emphasis to first-year players — hence, the birth of “Rated Rookies.”

Madden writes that while it was exciting to contribute to a new brand of baseball cards, the first set was “an unmitigated disaster.”
​
“A good many of the photos were either grainy or out of focus,” Madden writes. “The cards were printed on flimsy stock, and there were numerous error cards with misidentified players, typos, and wrong stats.”
The only consolation, Madden notes, is that Fleer’s 1981 debut set had the same issues.

He continued in the “baseball card business” until 1989, adding that he had fun “riding the crest of the wave” but was glad to exit before the 1990s, when overproduction caught up to the hobby.

Madden’s stories about Barry Halper are also interesting, noting that the collectibles guru “loved the chase as much as the actual acquisitions” and was “both ingenious and tireless.”

Madden also digs into the reporting he did for the Daily News in 1994, a series that “exposed an industry rife with deception, shill bidding, secret deals, and outright fraud.”

Madden does defend Halper, whose reputation took a big hit when some uniforms he believed belonged to the Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s were discovered to be fraudulent, along with other forged and fake memorabilia.

“In an industry full of swindlers and crooks, Halper was not one of them,” Madden writes. “He honestly believed all his stuff, for which he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, were real.”

Part of Madden’s lengthy career was spent covering the turbulent Yankees franchise of the late 1970s and early 1980s. And his book has plenty of stories from that era.

He writes that 1982 was “the craziest season of them all,” at one point filing a breaking story about a fight between Lou Piniella and Bob Lemon from a payphone in the women’s restroom of a South Florida restaurant.

Madden had become fond of Lemon and even talked the manager out of resigning halfway through the 1982 season when the pressure became too much for the former star pitcher, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976. Lemon shared his thoughts about quitting while they were taking a taxi to a Chicago bar, and Madden told him to “let (owner George Steinbrenner) fire you, but don’t quit.”

“I had just talked the manager of the New York Yankees out of quitting, but this would’ve been one scoop I wanted no part of,” Madden writes.

Lemon followed Madden’s advice and waited until Steinbrenner fired him from his second tenure as manager (he piloted New York during parts of the 1978 and ’79 seasons). And Madden believed that not publishing his conversation with Lemon in the taxi was better left unreported.

“It would’ve been a betrayal of Lem’s confidence,” he writes.

Integrity was — and remains — one of Madden’s core values.

He points to a story he broke about Tom Seaver being left unprotected in the 1984 free-agent compensation draft. Madden was tipped off to the story and dutifully spoke with the New York Mets’ public relations department, who connected him to Frank Cashen. The general manager confirmed the move, but Madden took an extra step by contacting Seaver.

The pitcher was surprised by the move, and Madden had his story. However, the Daily News sat on the news for more than 12 hours until the newspaper’s four-star edition was printed at 1:30 a.m.
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No one else had the story, something that “could never happen today in the age of cell phones and social media,” Madden writes.

The story also established a bond between Madden and Seaver.

“Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my handling of this story dramatically changed my relationship with Seaver from player/journalist to player/friend,” Madden writes. “He later told me how appreciative he was that I called him before going to print with the story.”
​
It also led to Madden's 2020 book, Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life. Madden has also written biographies about Steinbrenner and collaborated on the autobiographies of Lou Piniella and Don Zimmer.

Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown: A Baseball Memoir is an interesting read. There are stories about Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Kirby Puckett, and he writes about his rise from covering events for the University of South Carolina school newspaper to the highly competitive baseball beat in New York.

Madden left South Carolina during the 1960s before graduating, but in 2019 he would take classes again and earn his journalism degree.
​
From Ralph Houk spitting on his shoes in their initial encounter to Steinbrenner upbraiding him about a story, Madden’s anecdotes are lively and fun. Perhaps a sportswriter’s memoir is not such a bad thing after all. By the way, a book about my 46 years as a sportswriter, sports copy editor, columnist, digital editor and blogger is in the works — Just Remove the Adjectives is the working title.

Just kidding. Well, half-kidding.

He charged at umpires like a banty rooster, was foul-mouthed and had a raspy voice that grated like sandpaper thanks to years of chain-smoking cigarettes and hard drinking. But Earl Weaver was a winner who battled on every pitch, a driving force as manager of the Baltimore Orioles for 17 seasons.

He feuded with some of his players, trashed umpires and tapped their chests with the bill of his cap so many times that he was later forced to turn it around when arguing his case. He was ejected from 96 games, was the first manager in in 34 years to be tossed from a World Series game and was sent to the showers in both games of a doubleheader — twice.

The Earl of Baltimore was a feisty manager and a throwback, a contemporary of Billy Martin and a managerial descendant of Leo Durocher. No argument was too insignificant for Weaver if he believed his team had been wronged. He would kick dirt on home plate or rip up a rule book in front of an umpire, or mockingly pantomiming himself throwing out Don Denkinger, a move that was captured in a classic photograph. A video of Weaver jousting with first base umpire Bill Haller in 1980 remains a favorite on YouTube.
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Entertaining stuff.

Weaver is the subject of a superb biography by writer and former Orioles scout John W. Miller. In The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball (Avid Reader Press; hardback; $30; 353 pages), Miller’s debut biography does not sugarcoat Weaver’s flaws, providing a fascinating look at the manager’s Hall of Fame career.

As the only manager to last with one team during the 1970s, Weaver reigned supreme, Miller writes. It was a time when baseball managers “were American royalty and powerful operators within the game, sometimes bigger stars than their players.”

Certainly, the Orioles had their share of superstars — Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer and Cal Ripken Jr. come to mind — but Weaver was the spark that ignited Baltimore to six American League East titles, four World Series berths and a world title during his tenure. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996, at the time only the 13th skipper to be enshrined.
Weaver sought pitchers who threw strikes, hitters who had a high on-base percentage — a walk was as good as a hit — and teams that played tight defense.

Miller, who wrote Weaver’s obituary for The Wall Street Journal in January 2013, has also written for Time magazine, NPR and The Baltimore Sun. He was also a contributing writer at America Magazine, and in October 2024 became the head baseball coach at Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh.

“He was a manager at a time when baseball managers were cultural icons in America,” Miller said on AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast. “He kind of stood for this archetype of the manager as this folk hero, who was part philosopher, part general and part clown.”

Weaver’s theatrics were comparable to fights in the NHL or the soap opera that is professional wrestling, but he truly had a burning desire to win.
​
Between 1968 and 1982 — not counting the strike seasons of 1972 and 1981 — Weaver’s teams won 90 or more games 11 times and averaged 97, Miller writes. The Orioles won three straight American League pennants from 1969 to 1971 and topped 100 victories five times — including back-to-back 109- and 108-win seasons in 1969-70.
George Weigel, who wrote a biography of Pope John Paul II, told Miller that listening to Earl Weaver talk about baseball was like “listening to Homer recite The Iliad.”

Weaver had already published a pair of memoirs — his 1972 book, Winning! and 1982’s It’s What You Learn After You Know It All That Counts — and a book he co-wrote with longtime sportswriter Terry Pluto about baseball strategy. So Miller decided he did not want a rehash.

“Journalism is stuff you can’t Google,” Miller said in the podcast.

Miller approached Weaver’s life by delving into archives and speaking with members of his family. He spoke with 26 former major league and minor league players from the Orioles and received an email from Palmer. Miller also interviewed three former major league umpires and spoke with team officials, historians, managers, general managers and sportswriters.

Miller picked the brains of more than 200 subjects by the time he was ready to write. He even asked a genealogist to research Weaver’s family tree.

Miller’s starting point for this biography was Weaver’s heartbreaking failure to reach the major leagues. He was a scrappy second baseman in the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system, and after a strong showing in spring training in early 1952, his chances of sticking with the parent club looked promising. His grit and baseball knowledge drew comparisons to another second baseman, Eddie Stanky.

But unfortunately for Weaver, Stanky became the Cardinals’ player-manager in 1952. When deciding who would occupy the team’s last roster spot, Stanky chose himself over Weaver — a move that devastated the young infielder.
It was a time when Weaver “knocked on the door of his childhood dream and watched the baseball gods crack it open, and then slam it shut like a nightmare,” Miller writes.

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language.

Weaver’s love for baseball began early, and he confessed that his combativeness was due to the influence of his favorite uncle, Edward “Bud” Borchert, an illegal bookie who roamed the stands at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis taking bets.

Weaver homered in his first professional at-bat in 1948, helping West Frankfort to a 5-2 victory against Marion in the Class D Illinois State League. He would play in the minors through the 1960 season (although he appeared in one game for Elmira in 1965), but turned to managing in 1956. He would compile an 802-704 record and was tapped to manage the Orioles in 1968 after beginning the season as Baltimore’s first base coach.

He thrived in Baltimore, carving out a 1,480-1,060 regular-season mark.

Weaver had plenty of personality flaws, Miller writes. He used racial slurs while growing up in St. Louis, but later championed Black players like Frank Robinson, Don Buford, Paul Blair and Elrod Hendricks. He had a distant relationship with the three children from his first marriage but did draw closer to them and his grandchildren after retiring from baseball.

Weaver was a notorious three-pack-a-day smoker and the Orioles’ equipment manager sewed a pocket inside his uniform to hide them from umpires during a game. His drinking got him into trouble, and on at least two occasions he was pulled over by police for suspicion of driving under the influence.

“You would not have wanted him to date your daughter,” Miller writes.

Regardless, on the field Weaver was a tactical genius. He devoured statistics and worked on analytics and situational baseball along before the heyday of Bill James.

“It was important to Weaver to have a player matched up in his mind with every possible game situation,” Miller quotes James from The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers.

Miller notes that Weaver used his data to great effect in 1977, when the Orioles overachieved with 97 victories. It legitimatized Weaver’s famous mantra that he coined two years later — ballgames were won by “pitching, defense and three-run homers.”

He employed groundskeeper Pat Santarone, nicknamed the “Sodfather,” to tailor the infield at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium to suit his hitters. He knew that his defense would adapt, and the infield, adapted to the Orioles’ opponents, gave Baltimore an edge. Weaver was also the first manager to use a radar gun to clock the speed of pitches.
​
He and Santarone would also talk trash about the “Tomato Wars” they waged, as they grew them and swear their plant was the best. During the 1980s they would develop and market a fertilizer called “Earl ’n Pat’s Tomato Food,” Miller writes.

​Miller quotes some of Weaver’s best lines through the years. “If you don’t get the ball over the plate, the batters will keep walking around and stepping on it,” the manager would say.

Weaver enjoyed “playing the Socratic gadfly,” Miller writes.

When Pat Kelly told his manager that he should “walk with the Lord,” Weaver snapped back that “I’d rather you walk with the bases loaded.”

Another time, Weaver told Kelly that “We better not be counting on God. I ain’t got no stats on God.”

“I’d like to read your rule book,” Weaver screamed at Triple-A umpire Paul Nicolai while managing for Rochester in 1967.

“You can’t read,” the umpire retorted.

“Not your book,” Weaver countered. “It’s in Braille.”

Weaver hated the nicknames “Mickey Rooney” or “Toulouse-Lautrec,” because it emphasized his short stature.

Miller recounts the story of a woman singing the national anthem and Weaver asking umpire Dale Ford, “How many calls are you gonna screw up tonight?”

“Rooney, it don’t matter, cuz when this fat lady’s done, you are too,” Ford said.

And then there was the Sept. 17, 1980, game when Weaver and Haller butted heads. Haller called Orioles starter Mike Flanagan for a balk in the top of the first inning, and the fireworks began. The umpire proved to be equally adept at using profane language as the two adversaries sparred.

Haller had agreed to wear a microphone for WDVM PM Magazine, a news show that the Washington, D.C., television station aired. The station was doing a segment about umpires’ pregame routines, but the camera crew got more than they bargained for.

“The first thing I said was, ‘Haller, you’re only in here to cheat us,’ only I didn’t say ‘cheat.’” Weaver told reporters after the game.

“Boiling Earl,” was the caption in the Sept. 19, 1980, edition of The Richmond Times-Dispatch that showed Weaver pointing at Haller.

The Baltimore Evening Sun published a transcript that was also sanitized, but the video is vulgar in every sense of the word.

“They threw us out of the stadium,” cameraman Rick Armstrong told Miller. “We drive back and our mouths are wide open. It’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen.

“They cut that with beep after beep. He put on a hell of a show.”

Weaver always fought for his team, and his players were loyal to him because of that, Miller writes. He battled with Palmer and Rick Dempsey, but to a man, players managed by Weaver said he was passionate about winning and never held a grudge.

It did not matter that he had a drinking problem, Miller writes.

“How could this work for so long? How could the Orioles play so hard for a turbulent, messy boss?” he writes. “It’s a fascinating question that gets to the heart of Earl Weaver’s success, our complicated natures, and the nature of leadership.”

Weaver prepared his players during spring training, never imposed curfews or criticized players behind their backs, Miller writes. He also enjoyed confronting players, believing that players would better respond to pressure during game situations.

“If you couldn’t handle him, he didn’t want you up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth,” Doug DeCinces said.

Weaver’s career was a pivot point in baseball history, Miller writes. “He entered the old-time baseball world and, when he left, the game was modern.”

“He was more intense than any manager I ever had in spring training,” Ken Singleton told Miller in an interview.

“Earl had everything,” former Orioles general manager Frank Cashen said. “He drank his brains out. But he was an (expletive) genius.”
​
Miller has crafted an absorbing and revealing look at one of baseball’s greatest managers. His thorough research and detailed interviews make The Last Manager a fascinating read.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily updating a civil lawsuit filed by Upper Deck against a former employee accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of cards from the company's redemption center in North Carolina:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/upper-deck-seeks-to-add-defendant-in-theft-claim-against-former-redemption-manager/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a jersey worn by Wayne Gretzky during his three-game tenure as captain for the New York Rangers in 1998.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/wayne-gretzky-jersey-captains-part-of-grey-flannel-auction-in-may/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily, a follow-up to the Paul Skenes 2024 Topps Chrome Update 1/1 MLB Debut Patch autograph card that sold for $1.11 million on March 20. The winning bidder was Dick's Sporting Goods:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/dicks-sporting-goods-announces-it-had-winning-bid-for-paul-skenes-1-1-debut-patch-autograph-card/

​They are the workers who scan your tickets, guide you to your seats and make a professional sporting event a fun experience.

But to Bruce Reynolds, working as a fan host at Tropicana Field has never been a job. He is having too much fun.
​
Reynolds, 73, gives readers an inside look at the quirky dome in St. Petersburg, Florida, throwing in interesting stories, a puckish sense of humor and an endless barrage of corny jokes that are nevertheless endearing.
​
There Is No Place Like Dome: A Fan Host's Unofficial View from the Top of the Trop to the Stands with the Fans (St. Petersburg Press; paperback; $19.95; 169 pages) is a look at the Trop from Reynolds’ perspectives from his posts in Sections 116 and 118. He has been a fan host with his wife, Jeanette, since 2008, but is not working in Tampa this year as the Rays are playing their 2025 home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field. That temporary move was necessitated by Hurricane Milton, which severely damaged the Tropicana Field roof when it roared through the Tampa Bay area in October 2024.

Reynolds’ book is timely, since on March 13 the Rays backed out of a deal for a new stadium. The city of St. Petersburg has plans to restore Tropicana Field in time for the 2026 season. 

Fans are generally more interested in what is going on during the game, and many do not pay attention to the ushers in the stands. But fan hosts do play a crucial role in keeping order, and Reynolds has added several twists through the years to make his presence memorable to fans.

“I really have no impact on what takes place on the field, but I have a lot to do with a fan’s experience during the game,” Reynolds writes. “Regardless of the final score, I want to do all that I can for the fan to have a memorable time.

“Hopefully they will have enjoyed themselves, so much so that they want to return for another game.”

The Baltimore native is an ordained Presbyterian minister who grew up a diehard Orioles fan. He and his wife learned about becoming fan hosts during a Rays Fan Fest in 2008.

“What can seem like a mindless job, in that all you do is check tickets and then watch baseball, is far from reality,” Reynolds writes.

That includes subduing a “wild beast” — a bat that was underneath a seat in the stands—and rerouting fans who try to sneak into better seats during the game.
“When I ask them to show me their ticket, it often has become ‘lost,’” Reynolds writes. “Think about it, that is hard to do these days since your ticket is on your phone.

“An amazing number of phone batteries die in The Trop once fans enter the stadium.”

The reader learns how many steps there are in Reynolds’ section (51) and who retrieves the baseballs that are invariably trapped in Tropicana Field’s notorious catwalks. Also, how Reynolds once placed his badge under a hand soap dispenser instead of a scanner at the stadium.

He adds that using his sense of humor while doing his job depends on the body language of the fan.
​
“It requires me the ability to read people, and rather quickly,” Reynolds writes

But Reynolds confesses that sometimes he makes mistakes. One example in 2008 is alternately embarrassing and hilarious.

“To be honest, I committed more than one error on this play,” Reynolds writes.
A man in his late 20s carrying a tray of food back to his seat during the fifth inning asked if Reynolds needed to see his ticket.

Reynolds said yes, and the man said the ticket was in his back left pocket and motioned for the usher to dig it out. Rather than hold the man’s tray, Reynolds obliged.

“Immediately I could feel the edge and corner of the ticket as I pulled it out. By now there were several fans waiting behind him to go down, along with fans sitting at the top of the section all watching what was unfolding,” he writes. “So, I pull out in front of all these curious fans, not a ticket, but a condom.”

Reynolds put the “ticket” back in the fan’s pocket. When the man asked if everything was all right, Reynolds said yes and quickly moved the man down the aisle.

“I should have told him he was ‘safe,’” he writes.
​
Reynolds attended Parkville High School in Baltimore and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from North Carolina's High Point College (now University) in 1974. Four years later he received a Master of Divinity degree in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.

Reynolds also is a graduate of the Mooseburger Clown Arts Camp in Minnesota, which touts itself as “the premier clown arts school for adults in America.”
​
That is a perfect fit for Reynolds, who enjoys clowning around in the stands as a fan host. He has worn taco hats, sub hats and pizza hats, and enjoys mugging with fans and snapping photographs.

The pizza hat was born from a promotion that rewarded fans with a voucher for pizza if the Rays pitchers struck out 10 or more batters during a game. When the 10th whiff was recorded, Reynolds would run down the aisle in his section waving a flag that said “pizza.” And then, during a trip to Nashville, he found a beret that looked like a pizza.

It was a perfect fit.

“It seemed to me that adding a bit of ham (uh huh) on the pizza furthered people’s enjoyment of the promotion,” Reynolds writes. “People would laugh and even some wanted to take a picture of that goofy Fan Host with the pizza flag and hat on his head.”

Reynolds is not as agile anymore since having knee surgery after the 2019 season, but his enthusiasm remains high.

Showing his love for the Rays, beginning in 2012 Reynolds composed a poem recapping the team’s season, calling them “Reynolds Raps.” Excerpts are included in his book.

Reynolds is an enthusiastic writer, and his passion soaks through his prose. While charming, the book could have used a sharper eye for editing. As a lifelong copy editor, I saw several instances where a few edits would have been appropriate. And please, no “LOL” mentions in your narrative.

Reynolds also refers to the first professional umpire as William McClean, when his last name was “McLean.”
​
Honestly, between the poetry and grammatical flubs, Reynolds is probably correct when he notes that “Probably my former English teachers and professors would cringe knowing I was once their student.”

But just as honestly, Reynolds has presented a fun read about a job that many baseball fans take for granted. He and Jeannette, high school sweethearts who have been married since the mid-1970s, project that love when they lead fans through the “vomitory” — “yep, that’s what the passageway that allows people to enter or leave the field view of Tropicana Field is called.”

Their passion for the game is apparent and real — “Finding out we would get paid was a pleasant shock,” Reynolds writes.

“These past 16 years have only increased my love of ‘America’s Past Time’ while also becoming emotionally involved in the lives of fans and fellow Fan Hosts who have become my baseball ‘family,’” he writes.

No matter what team loyalty a fan may have, There Is No Place Like Dome provides a cool behind-the-scenes look at what makes attending a baseball game at Tropicana Field so much fun.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about speedster Herb Washington, the designated runner for the Oakland A's during the 1974 season and the early part of 1975:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1975-topps-herb-washington-remembering-baseballs-original-designated-pinch-runner/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Beckett filing a civil suit against two Texas residents who were arrested and charged in an extensive autograph fraud case:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/beckett-files-civil-suit-against-duo-arrested-in-large-fake-autograph-case/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the continuing saga of dueling lawsuits between Fanatics and Panini  America:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/judge-rules-that-dueling-lawsuits-between-panini-fanatics-should-proceed/

Baseball fans are fortunate to have Art Shamsky as a friend.

Mets fans should be especially grateful. Shamsky, 83, a member of the “Miracle” New York Mets who won the 1969 World Series, has written a new book that provides an intimate look at the squad that shocked the baseball world 56 years ago.
​
Mets Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Triumph Books; $30; hardback; 240 pages) allows Shamsky to share anecdotes and observations about his career and the teammates who played for the ’69 Mets.

​Other books have done the same, but from an outsider’s point of view. Shamsky, with the help of writer-editor Matthew Silverman, puts the reader into the locker room and into the minds of the Mets as they blossomed into champions. It is a fascinating look and a great way to meet the Mets.
​
“The 1969 Mets were a bolt of lightning, and that ’69 team is the Miracle team that people talk about more than half a century later,” Shamsky writes.

Shamsky already has written two books about the ’69 Mets — 2004’s The Magnificent Seasons: How the Mets, Jets and Knicks Made Sports History and Uplifted a City and the Country, with Barry Zeman; and 2019’s After the Miracle: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets, a warm, sentimental retrospective that was co-written with Erik Sherman.

Certainly, the Mets winning it all in 1969 was nothing short of a miracle. The ragtag franchise, which debuted in 1962 with 120 losses and had never finished better than ninth place in the National League, was suddenly on top of the baseball world.

The 2024 Chicago White Sox took over the major league record for futility with 121 losses, but it is doubtful that fans in the future will view that squad with the same warmth afforded to the ’62 Mets. The Mets did not escape the N.L. cellar until 1966, when they finished ninth in the 10-team league. In 1968 they finished ninth again, squeezing past the Houston Astros by a game and winning a then-team record 73 games.

The 1969 season would be different. The Mets caught fire in midsummer and roared past the Chicago Cubs to win the N.L. East by eight games during MLB’s first season of divisional play, finishing with a 100-62 record. Then they swept the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS and stunned the Baltimore Orioles in a World Series that went five games.

When Shamsky was traded from the Cincinnati Reds to New York after the 1967 season, he mistakenly thought he was headed to the Yankees. General manager Bob Howsam told him it was the Mets.

“I thought, ‘Oh, no,’” Shamsky writes.

But when Gil Hodges took over as manager of the Mets in 1968, Shamsky realized a change was in the air.

“You could see he was a no-nonsense guy after one sentence,” Shamsky writes, adding that he had an “arm’s length relationship” with Hodges and only had three substantive conversations with him between 1968 and 1971. But he had plenty of respect for Hodges.

“His way of managing was getting everyone involved. Everyone on that team felt like an integral part of the whole,” Shamsky writes. “And yet on a personal level, Gil was tough.

“I avoided him as much as possible. … He wasn’t going to waste a lot of words on us.”
​
Shamsky devotes bite-sized stories about each coach and player and recaps the 1969 season. Donn Clendenon’s role, in addition to his potent bat, was his veteran leadership and ability to needle every player — relentlessly, Shamsky writes.

He writes about Tom Seaver’s near perfect game on July 9, and the Aug. 14 came when a black cat sauntered in front of the Cubs’ dugout at Shea Stadium. And about the Mets taking a crack at singing on “The Amazing Mets,” a 1969 release by Buddah Records recorded the day after the team clinched the division title. The record featured Shamsky and 25 of his teammates.

The record cover was unusual for its formality. Shamsky was listed as “Arthur,” and all of the players’ given first names were printed on the cover. Who refers to Duffy Dyer as “Don”? Or Bud Harrelson as “Darrell” (Even though his first name was actually “Derrel”)? Or Tug McGraw as “Frank,” and J.C. Martin as “Joseph”?

Who were those guys? Lawrence Berra, not Yogi? C’mon. Besides, “Thomas” Seaver’s first name was George.

Seven of the Mets, including Shamsky, were invited to perform at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas after their win against the Orioles. The group rehearsed for three days, and then did two shows daily for 17 days. That's show business.

“What a fantastic time,” Shamsky writes.


Speaking of business, Shamsky writes about the business of splitting World Series shares among the players, coaches and staff members.


“You learn a lot about people on the day of this meeting,” he notes. “Sometimes these meetings get heated; sometimes they are smooth.”

Shamsky noted that while the players on the active 25-man roster, coaches and managers each receive a full share, considerations also given to groundskeepers, bat boys, the traveling secretary and batting practice pitchers, to name a few.

“Yet you always have some players complain about sharing the money they’re going to earn,” Shamsky writes.
​
It is a tidbit that Shamsky just leaves hanging. The reader does not find out what decisions were made.

But his observations about his teammates are enlightening. Reliever Ron Taylor, who had a degree in electrical engineering and later became a doctor, was “a fascinating character.”

Shamsky’s roommate, Ken Boswell, and teammates Wayne Garrett and Rod Gaspar, appeared on an episode of The Dating Game several weeks after the World Series.

Gaspar was chosen by Lynette Marvin to be her date.

“I never let Boswell or Garrett forget that Gaspar was picked,” Shamsky wrote. “Rod didn’t have a whole lot of personality, and he beat Garrett and Boswell, who together couldn’t make one personality!”

Shamsky also got into television with first baseman Ed Kranepool, as they appeared on an episode of Sesame Street.

The best anecdote in the book involved Hodges’ son. Shamsky and Boswell were in Los Angeles and were invited to a beach party by the Dodgers’ Ken Boyer.

The two Mets asked Gil Hodges Jr. if he wanted to tag along. The younger Hodges—who turns 75 on March 12 — was 19 at the time.

“Even as we were talking to Gilly about the party, we knew we shouldn’t be asking him if he wanted to go, for obvious reasons,” Shamsky writes. “But we did anyway. I guess we liked to live dangerously!”

The players had a midnight curfew and had rented a car to get to the beach. At about 11 p.m., the younger Hodges asked the players about the curfew and was told to come back in 15 minutes. However, Gilly did not return for two hours. The players, knowing they were already in trouble, gave him the keys to the rental car and told him to return to the team hotel.

Hodges Jr. went to the room he shared with his father, and Hodges Sr. got a call at about 3 a.m., telling him that he needed to move the car he just parked. He told his son, who had come back to the room 30 minutes earlier, to “go take care of this.”

Father and son talked the next day, and the manager laid down the law. “I don’t know want to know who they were, but I never want you going out with any players again.”

Shamsky said he never publicly told the story or wrote about it while his manager and his wife were alive. When Joan Hodges died in 2022, Shamsky thought the time was right to tell the tale and Hodges Jr. agreed.

“Why not tell the story now? What difference does it make?” Shamsky writes. “They can’t fine me … Gilly’s not going to get in trouble.

“I think waiting to tell the story until now goes a long way toward our respect for — and fear of — Gil as a manager.”

Shamsky writes about the time in spring training when McGraw decided to show off his ambidextrous skills against a switch-hitting batter — with predictably hilarious results.
​
He also writes about life after his baseball career, when he was a sportscaster, a podcaster, a talent agent and a partner running a restaurant in New York City.
And he writes in great detail about pulling together a 25th anniversary celebration of the 1969 Mets. He partnered with attorney Ed Schauder beginning in 1993 to make it happen.

“Art’s passion for preserving the team’s history was unprecedented,” Schauder, an attorney at Nason Yeager Gerson Harris and Fumero, said in a telephone interview this week. “He opened doors, he worked his butt off.

“He was the glue that kept (the players) all together.”

Schauder said that he and Shamsky worked “from the bottom up” to secure commitments from Mets players from 1969, starting with the utility and bench players and working up to the main stars, like Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver.
Schauder also convinced Shamsky to run the Art of Hitting, a clinic that the former player ran in the New York City area. Schauder got Shamsky booked onto The Joe Franklin Show, a late-night talk show in the Big Apple. The other guest that night? Captain Lou Albano, the infamous pro wrestling manager.

Shamsky gave Franklin a T-shirt that had Schauder’s telephone number on it, touting the Art of Hitting. Neither knew that the response would be so sudden.

“Callers would think it was me and say to Ed, ‘Hi Art, I want to take your class,’” Shamsky writes.

“It was 2 in the morning and some guy named Jerry Finkel calls and says, ‘I’d like to take batting lessons,’” Schauder said. “I said, ‘Right now?’”

Shamsky also returned to the baseball diamond full time, managing in the Israeli Baseball League in 2007.

Shamsky, who played eight seasons in the majors and batted .300 during the miracle season of 1969, has plenty of stories to tell — and he tells them well. His anecdotes in Mets Stories I Only Tell My Friends are fun, sentimental, informative and humorous. He also makes a point about his own career, regretting that he quit the game too soon.

“If this is a book about things I tell my friends, I’ll say this again, because it’s important,” Shamsky writes. “Work harder, and don’t be satisfied. It all goes quickly.”

But the memories of the 1969 Mets will not go away so quickly. Shamsky's latest work makes sure of that.

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the Masters badge collection of Marcus Burnell. The collection includes a ticket from the inaugural tournament signed by 13 participants: 

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/badge-of-honor-ticket-from-1934-masters-is-jewel-of-marcus-burnells-collection/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the upcoming release of the 2024 Topps Heritage High Number set. It is scheduled to be released on March 26:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2024-topps-heritage-high-number-coming-this-month/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a jersey gifted to a 5-year-old boy by Victory Wembanyama that the child's father put on the auction block. The jersey sold for $73,200, but now the dad wants the jersey back:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/sale-of-wembanyama-jersey-swapped-with-youth-wound-up-in-different-court/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily, looking back at the 1985 Topps baseball set. It's 40 years old this year!

​https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1985-topps-baseball-here-are-5-key-cards-and-one-famous-oddity/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a framed home run collage of Babe Ruth's 60 home run season in 1927, personalized to former teammate Jimmie Reese in 1931:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1927-babe-ruth-hr-display-owned-by-jimmy-reese-part-of-heritage-auctions-sale/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about 84-year-old Mayo Gilbert McNeil, who pleaded guilty to counts of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and wire fraud. Both are felonies. McNeil sold cards that he claimed were high grade, high ticket items supposedly encapsuled in PSA slabs. But the cards were swapped out.

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/84-year-old-colorado-man-pleads-guilty-to-selling-trading-phony-high-grade-sports-cards/

​The title of the new biography of Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale is right on the money.

“Don Drysdale: Up and In: The Life of a Dodgers Legend” (Triumph Books; hardback; $30; 272 pages) is Mark Whicker’s look at the life and baseball career of an intimidating pitcher who was not afraid to go inside on hitters.

“Big D” stood 6-foot-5 and seemed even taller on the high mound at Dodger Stadium.

“When Drysdale walked to the top of a mound, it seemed to grow and rise,” Whicker writes. “He represented a gargoyle,” especially to right-handed hitters.

And when Drysdale delivered a sidearm pitch, watch out. He was one of the two most intimidating pitchers in baseball during the 1960s — Bob Gibson was the other — and did not allow opposing batters to dig in against him.
​
The difference, Whicker writes, is that Drysdale “would spin a batter at 8 p.m. and drink Scotch with him at 11 p.m.” Gibson was not that convivial.

​Drysdale won 209 games and led the National League in strikeouts three times during his career in Brooklyn and Los Angeles (1956-1969). The big right-hander threw 167 complete games, led the league in starts from 1962 through 1966, and won the Cy Young Award in ’62 when he fashioned a 25-9 record. He retired during the 1969 season and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984.

In the 1963 World Series, Drysdale pitched a three-hit shutout in Game 3 as the Dodgers won 1-0 en route to a four-game streak.

The pitcher also set a major league record when he threw six consecutive shutouts in 1968 and put together 58 2/3 innings of shutout ball to break a record set by Walter Johnson in 1913. That was one of the shining moments of the “Year of the Pitcher.”

The “up and in” part?

Drysdale hit 154 batters during his career and led the majors in hit batsmen five times. He was also suspected of doctoring the baseball to throw a spitter, which gave him an additional psychological edge.

“The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid,” Drysdale told The New York Times in a 1979 interview.

Drysdale, who died in 1993, would team with Sandy Koufax to give the Dodgers a potent one-two pitching punch that led to three pennants and two World Series titles between 1963 and 1966.

Whicker retired in February 2022 after 49 years as a sportswriter and columnist, including his last 34 with The Orange County Register. He dutifully provides the nuts and bolts of Drysdale’s career but also provides context and rich detail.

Whicker writes that the pitcher-turned-broadcaster was passionate about the game, knowing it from every angle.

“If you didn’t represent the game, if you didn’t play the way he thought you should play, he didn’t have time for you,” Harrelson told Whicker, calling his broadcasting relationship with Drysdale “turbulent” at times. “We’d go out and argue about players, and he’d hit the sauce pretty good.

“But he was also more knowledgeable than anybody I was ever around.”

Whicker did not know Drysdale during his playing days but interacted with him when the former pitcher was broadcasting games for the Dodgers. For Up and In, Whicker interviewed 39 different people, including his widow, Ann Meyers Drysdale; former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley; family members; fellow broadcasters Ken Harrelson, Al Michaels and the late Vin Scully; teammates including Koufax, the late Jeff Torborg, Wes Parker, the late Carl Erskine, the late Stan Williams, Joe Moeller and Jim Lefebvre.
​
Whicker, who also referenced 14 newspapers and four books — including Drysdale’s 1990 autobiography, Once a Bum, Always a Dodger — began his original project in 2013 but it fell through the following year. Whicker returned to writing the biography in late 2022.

​Whicker writes about the Dodgers’ exodus from Brooklyn — Drysdale enjoyed pitching at Ebbets Field — to Los Angeles, where the pitcher hated the quirky dimensions of the Los Angeles Coliseum. California’s explosive growth after 1950 meant that more people flocked to the state, and more people could crowd into Dodger Stadium, which replaced the Coliseum in 1962.

They were treated to excellent pitching and small ball that epitomized the Dodgers’ brand of baseball.

After losing a three-game playoff to the San Francisco Giants in 1962, the Dodgers would win pennants in 1963, ’65 and ’66.

“The first five years of Dodger Stadium made up the most successful chunk of time in franchise history,” Whicker writes.

Not only could Drysdale pitch. He could also hit.

In 1965 he hit seven home runs and was the only Dodger with more than 15 plate appearances who batted .300. Drysdale would hit 29 homers during his career.

As a pitcher, Drysdale was comfortable playing second fiddle to Koufax, who won 111 games between 1962 and 1966. Drysdale won 98.

“All I know is that when Don was pitching, the other team would have problems all of a sudden,” Lefebvre told Whicker. “I’d hear guys say, ‘You know, my back doesn’t feel good today. My arm is sore all of a sudden.’ Amazing.”

Whicker gives a blow-by-blow description of the famous holdout that Drysdale and Koufax staged before the 1966 season. Koufax had won 26 games and Drysdale had 23, so their bargaining power as a duo was never stronger — and in baseball, unheard of — as they asked for a combined $1 million over three years.
​
Drysdale stayed in shape by pitching hay and grooming his horses. That enabled Whicker to bounce off one of his best lines in the book.
​
“Presumably, he wasn’t brushing back the horses with 90 mph bales,” he quipped.

The two pitchers ended their 32-day holdout when Drysdale signed for $105,000 and Koufax inked a deal for $130,000.

Whicker prefaces Drysdale’s greatest pitching effort with Johnson’s 56-inning scoreless streak. The Dodgers right-hander overcame the Big Train's longstanding record during a 20-day span in 1968 that saw him defeat fellow future Hall of Famers Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins and Jim Bunning.

The streak seemed to end at 44 innings in a May 31 game at Dodger Stadium when Drysdale grazed Giants catcher Dick Dietz with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. However, umpire Harry Wendlestedt ruled that Dietz did not try to get out of the way.

​The catcher returned to the batter’s box and Drysdale retired him on a fly ball. Drysdale got the next two batters out to earn a 3-0 win and preserve his streak.

Pinch-hitter Howie Bedell would finally break Drysdale’s string of goose eggs on June 8 with a fifth-inning sacrifice fly — his only RBI of the 1968 season and the last of 3 RBI in his career.

“How important was the streak? His successful bid to reach the Hall of Fame depended on it,” Whicker writes. “The streak was the badge that he wore for the rest of his life.”
​
Another Dodger, Orel Hershiser, would break Drysdale’s mark in 1988, hurling 59 scoreless innings.

Off the field, Drysdale showed he was just as comfortable as an actor as he was on the mound. In 1960, he played the role of  Roy Grant in one episode of the Western series, “Lawman.” Drysdale would also appear in four episodes of “The Donna Reed Show” and had guest roles in “The Brady Bunch,” “The Flying Nun,” “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Rifleman.”

There are some flaws in Drysdale’s character, which Whicker documents. He was an “all-star drinker” who also made suggested marrying his eventual second wife, basketball star Ann Meyers, while he was still married to his first. Drysdale’s first wife also filed for divorce, alleging domestic violence.

As a broadcaster, Drysdale was opinionated and emotional, but could also let the crowd tell the story. Many recall Scully’s iconic call of Kirk Gibson’s walk-off homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, but Drysdale also excelled in his local radio call of the blast.

"A drive into right field! Way back! This ball … is gone!” Drysdale shouted, then went silent for nearly two minutes before resuming.

“This crowd will not stop! They can't believe the ending. And this time, Mighty Casey did not strike out!”

Drysdale struck out a lot of batters during his career, fanning 2,486 and throwing 49 shutouts. His career ERA over 518 games was 2.95.

Up and In does “Big D” justice, putting him in the context of his time and revealing his competitive spirit. Pitching rules today might have curtailed the knockdowns that made Drysdale notorious, and the righty might have chuckled at how today's players are “armored up” when they approach the plate.
​
But one thing is certain. Any player who tried to crowd the plate got a message from Drysdale — loud and clear. “Up and in” demonstrates that perfectly.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily as I interview Phil Imbriano, who designed the base set for the 2025 Topps Series One baseball set. Fanatics SVP Clay Luraschi also chimes in as we talk about the set:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/birth-of-a-baseball-card-set-2025-topps-series-one-designer-talks-flagship-product/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about some of the football cards of former Miami Dolphins quarterback Bob Griese, who turned 80 on Feb. 3: 

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/bob-griese-turns-80-here-are-8-cards-that-spanned-his-career/​