London Calling

OK, heading for London here in a couple of hours for the release of WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL in the UK, so wanted to give you some updates about that and various other tidbits.

First: I have to tell you: I am loving the Revisiting Greatness series. I understand from some of the feedback that not all of you do (I’ve also heard from some who think it’s the best thing they’ve seen on JoeBlogs), and I get it. This makes me think of the classic line in the David S. Pumpkins skit: “It’s 100 floors of frights, they’re not all going to be winners.”

If I have one regret, it’s that I started at the bottom, so the first two days mostly have been filled with plaques I don’t like very much, and that has given this a bit of a negative tone. I regret that. I think of this as a little book, and the book itself is really a celebration. Starting in Part III, I pretty much like all the plaques, and then I start loving them, so we’ll see if you like that better. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. It’s 100 floors of frights.

OK, let’s talk London. I’ll be in town for a few days for the promotion of the special UK version of the book (with UK bonus material!) and for the London Series. We have a couple of public events going.

Friday at 5 p.m., I’ll be at the Waterstones Trafalgar Square to sign some books and talk some baseball.

Then we’ll all repair to the Theodore Bullfrog for drinks and merriment. The original start time for that was at 6 p.m., but the thought now is that, with a lot of baseball stuff happening in Trafalgar Square at the time—I think Chase Utley is going to be doing a bunch of things—we’ll slow-walk over there and probably not get it really going until 7 p.m. Anyway, it should be a lot of fun.

Saturday, noon, I’ll be with Kelley Franco at the Riverside East Bar at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to talk some Mets and Phillies and whatever else happens to come up. First pitch isn’t until 6:10, so this should be a fun place to hang out in the hours before the game.

It looks like I’ll be bouncing around London doing some other stuff—interviews, radio and TV, etc.—so hopefully if you’re in town for the games (or just in town) we’ll run across each other. My plan is to wear my Monarchs-color Kansas City Royals hat to help me stand out, but, you know, I’ll probably stand out no matter what.

Father’s Day is fast approaching, and so is the deadline for ordering a signed AND inscribed copy of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL. To go over the deal again: Order the book from Quail Ridge Books before Father’s Day, and right around Sept. 17, when the book is published, you’ll get:

• A beautiful copy of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL.

• My signature (I’m working on making it a little bit fancier)!

• Any inscription you want. You want me to wish your spouse a Happy Anniversary? Done. You want me to tell your brother-in-law that Dak Prescott will lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl? Done. You want me to list my three favorite players on the 1977 Buffalo Bills? Done. You want me to say something nice about John Elway? Point is, I’ll do pretty much any inscription you want.

The deadline is Father’s Day. And as a bonus, if you order from Quail Ridge Books by then and send an email with the receipt, you’ll be among the very first to get a copy of the book’s introduction.*

*If, for some reason, you ordered the book earlier and were not included in the first batch of introduction recipients, please let us know and we’ll get that out to you.

For those of you who, for whatever reason, are PosCast fans: Mike and I recorded a new PosCast earlier this week, and it should be up any time now. But more to the point, we’re going to have an exciting announcement in the next couple of weeks so… hang tight.