Agent Palmer

Baseball is a Funny Game by Joe Garagiola is not about a baseball star. It’s hardly about the fundamentals of the game or its many statistics. It is simply the story of baseball told by an average catcher who bounced around the National League for a while who can tell stories with the best of them.

This book is baseball as it was and as it is, because the more things change the more they stay the same. America’s game is no exception.

Over the years baseball has changed. On the diamond, in the dugout, and off the field as well. And there are a ton of things in this book that emphasize that point, but this book is more than baseball, it’s Earl Weaver. And then again, some things don’t change.

It’s pitching, defence, and the three-run home-run. It’s arguing with umpires, tearing up rulebooks, and “debates” with your own players and management.

There are two reasons I picked up Confessions of a Baseball Purist by Jon Miller with Mark Hyman. One, Jon Miller was the voice of the Baltimore Orioles during my formative years listening to games on the radio and two, he really knows his stuff.

The book originally released in 1998 and the updated edition from 2000 may appear dated, but it is not antiquated at all. In fact, more of his observations are proven out than those that aren’t in the 18 years since this text has last been touched.

I was there, in the beginning.

I watched Chase Utley’s uniquely unorthodox, seemingly three-quarters swing blast extra-base hits in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s cavernous copy of Veterans Stadium, the former Lackawanna County Stadium, for the Red Barons.

I wondered why he was still in Triple-A.

Bull Durham is one of my favorite sports movies. The dialog is almost as punchy as some of the characters, and it really does grasp the spirit of minor league baseball. There exist three types of players in the minors: talent working towards the majors, veterans just hanging on, and solid baseball guys that just enjoy playing the game but don’t have much hope of getting called up any higher. This game, though it focuses on the first two, really…