Rainy Day Books is a magical little place in the magically named town of Fairway. It’s Fairway, Kansas, if you want to connect it to magical Kansans like Dorothy and Clark Kent and Ike and Janelle Monáe, but it is just two Bob Horner home runs away from the Missouri state line, and so it’s limiting to say it’s only in Kansas.
Rainy Day Books is in Fairway.
I visited Rainy Day Books on the second day that I lived in Kansas City. Maybe it was the third. I have loved libraries and bookstores all my life. I loved libraries and bookstores before I loved books. I feel like my best self inside. Rainy Day's founder, Vivien Jennings, was in the store that day. She had no idea I was a writer. I had no idea I was a writer — this was a decade before I would write my first book, “The Soul of Baseball.”
She asked me what I liked to read. I don’t know what I said. I do know she went to a shelf, pulled a book, put it in my hand and said, “I think you’ll like this.”
And that scene would repeat a thousand times. I look over my bookshelf now, and I see book after book that Vivien or Roger or any number of the good people at Rainy Day excitedly handed to me and said, “Oh, I’ve been waiting for you to come in — I think you will LOVE this book.”
Vivien retired and sold Rainy Day Books to a group of Kansas City investors four years ago, led by the people who run “Made in KC.” Her singular requirement was that they keep the magic going.
They have. I walked into Rainy Day Books a couple of months ago. It was like the first time.
I tell you all this because my next book, FIFTY SEASONS, publishes in exactly 160 days — and starting today, you can preorder a special, personalized edition from Rainy Day Books.
Yep! We’re back! I will inscribe ANYTHING YOU WANT (up to 50 characters) in the book. Anything. You want me to write a toast to your father, I’ll do it. You want me to list the 10 best Colorado Rockies, I’ll do it. You want me to say that Mike Schur is right about hot fruit? I’ll do it (you just know that Mike is preordering right now). You want me to say that Derek Jeter was the best defensive shortstop ever, I’ll … well, that’s pushing the edge …
I love doing special personalized editions — absolutely love it — but you should know that they are logistical nightmares. I have to sign and inscribe thousands of books, sure, and my hand throbs for weeks, but that in so many ways is the easy part. The bookstore has to match those books up to the correct people, the correct addresses, get them in the right envelopes, send them out, it’s a major production.
And Rainy Day is taking it on. For this one, I will be coming to Kansas City a couple of weeks before pub date to sign and inscribe the books and help out however I can.
I try to be as honest as possible here — there was a lot of thought that this would be too hard to do. There are other preorder campaigns that are much less work-intensive. But I insisted that we do it this way. Why? Because I love FIFTY SEASONS. I think of it, in many ways, as the most personal baseball book I have written since Soul all those years ago. My heart is in this book. I truly believe it will surprise you, and delight you, and warm your baseball-loving spirit.
And if you preorder it, I want to personally thank you. This is the best way I know to do that.
So preorder away! Preorder two! Preorder 10! I’ll inscribe each and every one however you like.
And remember: Keep your receipt. Everyone who preorders the book — and that’s from Rainy Day or anywhere else — will be eligible to get some of the stories I had to cut from the book, and there are a bunch of them. Zack Greinke! Janet Marie Smith! Moneyball! More!
I have spent the last day reading Dolly Parton stories and crying a little bit.
I think of Dolly the way I think of Buck O’Neil. That is to say, I think more of humanity knowing that they lived.
My friend Tommy Tomlinson wrote something beautiful.
Molly Knight and I talked with the wonderful comedy writer Megan Amram in this week’s Joy of Baseball. The way Megan talks about baseball sneaking up on her and stealing her heart like Nasim Nuñez stealing second, ah, I love this game.
You have nominated hundreds and hundreds of people, real and imagined, for The Baseball Garden, and it has me more excited about this series than ever.
Keep the nominations coming! You can nominate anyone you want here. But please do it one at a time … some of you have been nominating multiple players at the same time, and it won’t really register unless you are nominating them as one entity (Abbott & Costello; Tinkers to Evers to Chance, etc).
I would LOVE to pre-order this right away, maybe even be the first one.....but holy cow, do you know how much time I need to think of what to ask you to (make you) write???
I love finding a small, local bookstore. The folks who take the time to know the customers and are able to recommend something new. And I appreciate authors who do what they can to encourage readers to support those stores.
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Dolly was certainly an inspiration. Work hard. Take risks. Don't take yourself too seriously. Be kind. Be generous. She made certain that the saying 'may her memory be a blessing' would ring true. But please never make me listen to Down from Dover again. That song absolutely rips my heart out.