Friday Rewind: Big Book News!

Apologies in advance, but this week’s Friday Rewind is a WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL extravaganza! We are now less than two months away from the book launch and there’s so much fun stuff for me to share with you.

But first … our good friend and Brilliant Reader Lonnie reminds us that 75 years ago today, Satchel Paige left the Kansas City Monarchs and signed to play for the Cleveland Indians.

“I know this ain’t Kansas City,” Satchel said. “But I’ll be out there with a ball in my hand, and the fella at the plate will have a bat in his … I’m starting my major league career with one thing in my favor: I won’t be afraid of anybody. I’ve been around too long for that.”

Paige claimed to be 40 years old when he signed the contract. Our best bet now is he was 41. There will always be those who guess he was a lot older than that.

“I ain’t as fast as I used to be,” he admitted to reporters. “But I’m a better pitcher. I used to overpower ’em. Now, I out-cute ’em.”

He was the seventh Black player signed after integration — Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Hank Thompson, Willard Brown, Dan Bankhead and Roy Campanella were first — but he was the first black STAR signed. That is to say, he was the first African-American player signed who was already famous for playing baseball*.

“In the last two decades,” the Associated Press reported on the day of the signing, “Satchel has made most of the major leaguers admit he is one of the all-time great hurlers.”

*Jackie Robinson was well-known for his football, basketball and track exploits, as well as for winning his court martial case in the Army.

Satchel Paige made his American League debut two days later, on July 9, pitching two scoreless innings of middle-relief against the St. Louis Browns. His first strikeout was against an outfielder named Whitey Platt. Hey, I don’t make this stuff up.

Satch didn’t make his first start for Cleveland until Aug. 3 against Washington. More than 72,000 fans attended, and Paige won the game — pitching seven innings and allowing three runs. On Aug. 13 and 20, Paige threw back-to-back shutouts against the White Sox, drawing more than 50,000 fans in Chicago and more than 78,000 back in Cleveland. He was a phenomenon quite unlike any in baseball history before him.

OK, now for a whole lot of WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL.

Book Tour Announcement

OK, I’ve been so excited to start talking about the book tour, because it’s going to be REALLY cool. Baseball talk! Special guests! Here’s the first week of the book tour — lots more to come:

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Tuesday, Sept. 5: In conversation with Bob Costas for Thunder Road Books.
Location: Spring Lake Community Theater in Spring Lake, N.J.
Time: 7 p.m.

Yes, that’s right, we are kicking off the tour at a place called Thunder Road Books just outside of Freehold, New Jersey, and yes, Thunder Road Books is awesome, and, yes their slogan is “Sit Tight, Take Hold.” I cannot promise Bruce Springsteen will be there, but I can promise that another legend, Bob Costas, will be, and we’re going to talk some baseball, and it’s going to be a blast.

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Wednesday, Sept. 6: In Conversation with Alex Edelman for Charter Books.
Location: Jane Pickens Theater in Newport, R.I.
Time: 7:30 p.m.

Alex Edelman, in addition to having one of the hottest shows on Broadway, is a gigantic baseball nerd who began working for the Boston Red Sox when he was, I believe, 16 months old. This will be a preposterous amount of fun.

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Thursday, Sept. 7: In Conversation with Gerald Early for Left Banks Books, St. Louis County Library and St. Louis JCC.
Location: JCC’s Mirowitz Performing Arts Center in St. Louis.
Time: 7 p.m.

Gerald Early is one of the truly great thinkers in America today. His line in Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary is seared in my mind: “There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, Jazz music and baseball. These are the three most beautiful things this culture’s ever created.” I’m so lucky and proud to call Gerald a friend and this should be a fantastic conversation, I cannot wait.

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Friday, Sept. 8: In Conversation with Michael Schur for Rainy Day Books.
Location: Unity Temple on the Plaza in Kansas City.
Time: 7 p.m.

I’m not too familiar with this Michael Schur guy. Have you heard of him? He does something or other in television, I hear, and seems to have a decent reputation for comedy, and from what I’m told, he hosts this kinda dumb podcast with some other guy. So I don’t know all that much about him, but I hear pretty good things, and I’m sure he’ll be fine to have a baseball conversation with.

For this one, if you were part of the preorder campaign and want to come, you can email Geoffrey Jennings at Rainy Day books and he will reserve one or two tickets per order. You can also purchase tickets below.

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Saturday, Sept. 9: In conversation with Jeff Garlin for Joseph Beth Booksellers.
Location: Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati.
Time: 4 p.m.

Oh man, I’m going to be SO tired at this point … and so it will be absolutely perfect to have my friend, the incredible Jeff Garlin, there to carry me through. I might even see if Jeff will do his legendary “Billy Goat Curse” bit. This event is a bit earlier in the day, so that we all can go watch the Reds play the Cardinals that evening. I’m super-hyped for that, too, obviously, and I’m hoping to get just a little Joey Votto time, because nothing is better than that.

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There are many more events being finalized, and I’ll share as I can. But right now I’m looking at this first week and feeling both ecstatically thrilled and pre-exhausted. But what a lineup, right?

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review!

So there are three pretty big trade publications in the book business — Kirkus, Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly. There are other great ones, but those are probably the three most-often quoted … and WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL got starred reviews from all three! It’s like hitting for the starred review cycle! Sure, it’s kind of an inside-baseball sort of achievement, but what is JoeBlogs about if not inside baseball … and I’m really proud and honored.

The latest of the starred reviews came from Publisher’s Weekly, and it was so incredibly kind. Here’s the highlight:

Journalist Posnanski (The Baseball 100) hits it out of the park in this rousing celebration of baseball. With the colorful banter of a play-by-play announcer…Posnanski recounts the “50 most magical baseball moments” from across all levels of the game. This will have readers cheering from their seats.

I’m so ready for you to see the book.

Preorder the Book, Get a Bonus Section!

Here’s another reason to preorder: I’ve been hinting at this for a while … if you preorder WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL from anywhere, you will get a bonus section that was cut from the book for space reasons. The section will have more WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL moments; I think you’ll really like it.

To get the section, all you have to do is fill out this Google Form with your name, email address and proof of purchase. And on pub date you will get an email with some writing that it just KILLED ME to cut from the book; I think these stories are as good as any in the book, but they just didn’t quite make it in.

Just another reason to preorder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Bookshop.org, Rainy Day (obviously), etc.

Happy Friday! The Rewind is free so everyone can enjoy it. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.

A Goodreads Lottery

If you want to get an early look at WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL, our good friends at Dutton Publishing are having another Goodreads lottery where they’re giving away 20 uncorrected galleys, which are early versions of the book that are sent out to reviewers. You can enter the contest here.

JoeBlogs Week in Review

As I mentioned a couple of times this week, we have been out of town — first visiting family in Kansas and then, tonight, we’re going to be at the Taylor Swift concert at Arrowhead Stadium. As such, I’ve been pretty distracted (who needs vacations anyway?) but we still managed to get some JoeBlogs content in this week:

Saturday: What a Month. Broke down the amazing Junes of Shohei Ohtani and the Atlanta Braves.

Monday: The Legend of Hurricane Hazle.

Wednesday: A Midseason American League Update.

Thursday: A Midseason National League Update.

Don’t know for sure what’s coming next week, but for starters, you can probably bank on a Taylor Swift concert review and the return of the Brilliant Reader challenge!