Highlights of a Magical Week

OK, to be fair, Saturday was a little bit less magical than the rest of last week … at the end of the first week of the WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL tour, I was SUPPOSED to be talking with Jeff Garlin at the amazing Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati. So … Jeff got sick. And our flights were delayed so much that, sadly, we had to postpone the event. Such a bummer, but I’ll be in Cincinnati as soon as I can, and I will yet eat Skyline and see Joey Votto.

The rest of the week, though, was bliss. I want to share some of the highlights … and please feel free to skip if you’ve had enough book stuff to last you for a long while. I totally get it. But this is my life right now, and I’m having a blast.

Tuesday at Thunder Road Books in Spring Lake, N.J.

Me and Bob and Kate Czyzewski of Thunder Road Books.

Kicking off a WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL book tour with Bob Costas is like, what, kicking off a fishing tour with Johnny Morris, or kicking off an acting class with Meryl Streep, or kicking off a golf trip with Tiger Woods. Bob has been so eloquent and expressive and such a virtuoso when it comes to talking about and announcing baseball that, over the years, he has BECOME baseball to so many people, for better and, yes, for worse.

Why worse? There are people who think Bob is some sort of hopeless romantic about baseball, all old-school snob who abhors what the game has become. It’s as far off from the truth as could possibly be. Bob loves today’s game. And he is, above all, nuanced, not just when talking about baseball, but really when talking about anything. This is what makes him the greatest studio host and one of the greatest interviewers, in and out of sports, in the history of television. In a medium that is so black and white, hot takes and counter-hot takes, debate for the sake of fireworks, Bob somehow thrived being measured and reasoned and not taking it all so seriously.

These days people often soundbite and simplify and distort his views because, at this point, Bob is so much a part of the game that you can apply any old-man-screaming-at-clouds opinion to him in the same way you can apply any semi-wise-sounding quote to Mark Twain. It’s a shame, but I guess that’s what goes with being a 27,000-time Emmy winner, 250-time Olympic host and Baseball Hall of Famer.

Mostly, with Bob I think, people miss distinctions. Yes, he misses the days when starting pitchers went long, but that doesn’t mean he misses out on the thrilling talents of today’s pitchers. Yes, he is opposed to the zombie runner in extra innings, but not because he’s opposed to the game changing with the times — he very much loves the pitch clock and increase in stolen bases and is interested in more rule changes (he even would be willing concede to the zombie runner if they would just wait until the 11th inning to do it). Being on stage with Bob and letting him open up on what he loves and thinks about baseball was absolutely amazing.

Bob talking about watching a kinescope of the 50th anniversary of the 1960 World Series in a theater filled with Pirates fans and players from both the Pirates and Yankees was utterly beautiful.

Plus, he and I did quite a bit of George Carlin’s Baseball and Football bit from memory. One audience member reached out to say that he had never heard of the bit, so he went to YouTube to watch it, and he loved it, but he thought Bob and I did it better, which is sacrilegious but incredibly nice.

One question I’ll highlight was from someone who asked: “What was the greatest baseball moment you ever saw live as a child?” Bob talked about seeing his hero? Mickey Mantle, hit the walk-off home run to win Game 3 of the 1964 World Series.

And I said: “I grew in Cleveland,” and handed the mike back to Bob.

Thunder Road Books, by the way, is a wonderful place, and the theater where we did this event was beautiful and ancient, and it has a library that looks like a miniature version of the library in “Beauty and the Beast.”

Wednesday at Charter Books in Newport, R.I.

If I told them once, I’ve told them a thousand times, it’s Why We Love Baseball and THEN Barbie. But I did have the bigger dressing room.

One thing that was so interesting was how each night had its own vibe. Wednesday night with my friend Alex Edelman was a very different show from Tuesday night with Bob Costas, but I loved it every bit as much. Alex is a comedian whose one-man show on Broadway, “Just For Us,” was universally celebrated, and I’ll bet it’s nominated for, and might win, a Tony Award.

And while Bob and I exchanged many thoughts about some of baseball’s great moments, Alex was really interested in talking about the mystical qualities of baseball. I mean, of course, Alex was hilarious. But he loves baseball for the poetry, the supernatural coincidences, for the fact that Stan Musial had 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 hits on the road, and the fact that Cecil and Prince Fielder each hit exactly 319 regular-season home runs, and so on.

Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa is, I think, his favorite baseball book.

Alex and I had a blast at the Jane Pickens Theater in Newport.

On the fly, he came up with a wonderful idea: Before each audience member asked a question, Alex asked them to offer a one-sentence explanation of why they love baseball. This turned out to be so utterly delightful and touching, as people talked about their first game or the loved one who introduced them to the game or the feeling of stepping on the field to play as a child.

All of this in the gorgeous Jane Pickens Theater. I mean … magical.

Me, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University, Gerald Early, and Fredbird. That’s Fredbird in the middle.

Wednesday for the St. Louis Public Library, Left Bank Books and the St. Louis JCC.

I don’t know that I can say more than what’s in the photographs. Wednesday night in St. Louis was simply one of my favorite nights — not only of this tour but of my entire professional life. I was with my friend Gerald Early, who might be the most thoughtful and brilliant person I know, and there was a full house of baseball fans and well, I’ll let the photos speak.

Fredbird attacking a child.

This guy wanted to know why I didn’t tell anyone I had written a book.

I made Gerald laugh quite a bit, which is one of my proudest achievements.

Friday at Unity Temple on the Plaza for Rainy Day Books in Kansas City.

This is how Michael Schur began the night. “I should probably say this up front: I really didn’t care for the book.”

Mike Schur marveling at my deep insights into baseball and life.

I can’t begin to describe what it was like coming back to my beloved Kansas City and talking baseball with one of my closest friends in front of a full house of amazing people … this goes beyond dreams. But I will tell you this: The amazing people at Strat-o-Matic have been giving away one game at every stop, and it’s been one of the highlights of the evening, because I figured out what I have to admit is kind of a genius way to give it away.

First I ask: OK, raise your hand if you actually want this game.

About two-thirds of the crowd raises hands.

Then I say, “OK, keep your hands in the air for one second. Now, I’m going to give this game away to the person who came the farthest to be here.”

What happens then is immediately just about all the hands go down and there are a few seconds of silence. A couple of times, I needed to coax someone in the crowd to make an opening bid — like in Kansas City I might say, “Come on, there has to be someone here from Olathe or something.” Then the bids will start coming in.

So in Kansas City, we eventually got to someone from Minneapolis, which is a bit more than six hours away. Then someone said they came from Denver, which is actually father away, but lots of people booed because of the whole Chiefs-Broncos rivalry, so we kind of moved on. Someone also came from Detroit, but the boos were REALLY loud for that person, what with the Lions’ victory, so again we had to move on.

And then someone said, “Rhode Island,” and I got up to give the guy the game.

“Hold on,” Mike said, “hold on. What team do you root for?”

To which our friend from Rhode Island said, “I’d rather not say.”

To which Mike said: “OK, no way, we’re not giving a Yankees fan this game. Sorry. You’re out.”

The Minneapolis person got the game.

I don’t know why, exactly, but for me that pretty perfectly sums up the whole wonderful night.

Also, someone asked Mike to choose his favorite between David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez, and the sheer agony he went through as he hemmed and hawed over that question was perfect. I so hope someone asks that question again when Mike and I and Molly Knight and Nick Offerman appear at The Wilshire Ebell in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

Saturday talk with Scott Simon on NPR’s “Weekend Edition.”

While the Cincinnati postponement was a super-bummer, it was not a lost day. NPR ran the conversation I had with my friend Scott Simon for “Weekend Edition,” and it was SO much fun. Some of it had to be cut for space and time (we also talked about Larry Doby, Norm Cash facing Nolan Ryan, Jim Abbott’s no-hitter, etc.), but I’ve heard from so many people about our little chat here. I think you can tell from the interview that Scott is a true baseball fan, someone who loves the Cubs and delights in the game.

Now, it’s on to Los Angeles, then Santa Rosa, then our book party in San Francisco, then the Kansas Book Festival in Topeka, and I’ll be hanging out with the incredible Molly Knight and Mike and Nick and Bill James and probably some other super-special guest stars who say they will try to come by. As our younger daughter Katie says: “Dad, you’re living your best life right now.”

Thank you, brilliant and loyal readers, for making it all possible.