Players, Managers, Sportswriters, and Fans Talk about Their Love for the Game
From zany mascots to the most beautiful ballparks ever, and from great traditions to humorous anecdotes from the game, I Love Baseball explores the many reasons we love baseball. It's all here:
Based on assiduous research and the author's exclusive interviews with baseball legends past and present, this book will be a cherished keepsake for fans of the game everywhere.
November 1, 2024
In a compendium that is vastly more than the collection of interviews its subtitle implies, Stewart unearths precious nuggets even seasoned fans might never have found. Like the August 1910 game between the Dodgers and Pirates that was played to an 8-8 tie, both teams having 38 at-bats, 13 hits, 12 assists, 2 errors, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks, 1 hit batsman, and 1 passed ball. Or 24-year-old Detroit Tiger Hank Greenberg, who, with 100 RBIs at midseason, was passed over for the 1935 AL All-Star team by his own manager, who chose the entire All-Star lineup, and went on to win his league's MVP award that season. Stewart lays out a kaleidoscope of subject areas, from classic punch lines to long home runs to baseball-themed movies and TV shows to baseball cards, "class acts," iconic plays, famous promotions (Ten Cent Beer Night?!), mascots, oddly configured stadiums, and more, that-- almost offhandedly--captures a broad range of the game's history and character. A surprise winner.
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November 1, 2024
Stewart's career as a baseball reporter provides him with unique insight into the game that he's long been a devout acolyte of. In this work, the author of The Football Book of Why (and Who, What, When, Where, and How) aptly captures the romance of baseball by exploring the many reasons why fans are attached to the sport. His book shows that the fans' reasons for gravitating toward baseball are wide-ranging: the entertaining players, the debates with other fans over a player's relative merits, the idiosyncrasies of the ballparks where the sport is played, the pure nostalgia. This book also surveys the sport itself. Stewart indicates that the game has not changed, in its basic form anyway, since its inception, which is what lets fans realistically compare the astounding pitching and batting feats of Shohei Ohtani to those of arguably his only real rival, Babe Ruth, whose career peaked at least 70 years before Ohtani was even born in 1994. VERDICT Every baseball fan likely remembers their first visit to a professional ballpark and the way that the atmosphere stayed with them. Stewart's book does a wonderful job of reminding readers of that sensation.--Brian Renvall
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