Generally speaking, books on minor league baseball fall into one of two categories. They are either a history or nostalgic look at specific leagues and clubs, or they are descriptions by players of life as a minor league player. Of the latter, the message is always the same. We were young, it was tough riding the buses, we drank a lot and played practical jokes on each other, and we worked hard to get out of there. Sometimes we made the majors, sometimes we didn’t. And we almost always started in Class D.
The classic of this type is A False Spring by Pat Jordan. It is the story of a high school phenom who played three years in the Braves’ farm system beginning in 1959. Jordan was a bonus baby and as such, rated a little higher on the totem pole than some of his teammates. But he still had to suffer the same experiences as the rest.
Jordan is an exceptional writer, and his skill in painting word pictures of the teams, the players and the surroundings make this book the model of its type. It is not so much about minors as it is about a boy growing up. McCook, Davenport, Waycross — they’re all well described, and you understand what it must have been like in the lower minors almost thirty years ago.
At the other end of the spectrum is Low and Outside: The True Confessions of a Minor League Player by Jerry Kettle. This is everything that A False Spring is not. It is badly written and careless with detail; Kettle can’t seem to get anyone’s name right. Manager Benny Zientara becomes Vinny Zintera; Bill Posedel is Bill Fosdel. The least his editor could do is look up the names. Kettle comes across as a cocky unpleasant jock, and inspires no sympathy when his career is shortened by an arm injury. Kettle played in the Phillies system, and life in Mattoon, Tifton, and High Point-Thomasville is not much different from McCook."
Like two peas in a pod are Wait Till I Make the Show, by Bob Ryan and Beating the Bushes by Frank Dolson. The books were written by two excellent sportswriters eight years apart, using the same format. They traveled with minor league teams to get a real flavor of life in the minor leagues. Curiously, Jim Bunning’s career as a manager in the Phillies system is featured in both books. Dolson’s was written in 1982, a bit longer and confined to the Phillies farms as one would expect from his Philadelphia Inquirer background. Ryan’s book features a wonderful description of the Termite Palace in Honolulu, where the Islanders played. If ever a park resembled Sulphur Dell in Nashville, this was it. I think that Dolson is the better of the two. Wonder if we’ll complete this trilogy in 1990?
"The best of these histories is Overfield’s The 100 Seasons of Buffalo Baseball. lt covers the entire history of the Bisons, including their years in the National League, concluding with the 1984 season. Each year is given its own summary chapter and statistics. There are numerous photographs (including several action shots in Offermann Stadium), the great Bisons are profiled, and the importance of the club to the community is given much attention.
The advantage that the author has over most minor league historians is his long association with the team. He saw his first Bison game in 1925, and with time out for World War II service, has been a faithful supporter ever since. He personally saw most of the greats and was an official of the community-owned Bisons of the ’50s; this gives his history an authenticity that is lacking in others. It’s an outstanding history of a ball club and could hardly be improved upon
Two excellent histories of the Newark Bears have been produced by SABR members. Randy Linthurst produced a three volume set: Newark Bears; Newark Bears: The Middle Years; and Newark Bears: The Final Years. They cover the Bears from 1931, when the club was purchased by Colonel Ruppert and the Yankees through the final season of 1949. It’s a year-by-year account of the club and naturally concentrates on the great 1937 team. The author provides an abundance of pictures and includes correspondence from former players and fans. The books are small, about one hundred pages each, and could have easily been consolidated into one. Linthurst presents a very thoughtful analysis of the decline and fall of the Newark franchise, giving as reasons (beyond the obvious impact of television) decline of the park neighborhood, the Yankees’ need to stock the Kansas City franchise, the recall of Bob Porterfield in 1948"
"The Canadian members of the International League receive attention in Bill Humber’s Cheering for the Home Team. Although this book is not exclusively about the minors, it is an historical overview of baseball in Canada and naturally devotes much attention to the Canadian minor league teams. A more complete report on the Toronto Maple Leafs is found in Baseball’s Back in Town, by Louis Cauz. This book was issued in 1977 to commemorate the creation of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Cauz has produced a very fine book. Its emphasis is on the Maple Leafs, and the history of that club is presented in a summary form, decade by decade. The photographs in this book are remarkable. There are pictures of all of the Toronto ballparks, team pictures, good action shots and prominent Maple Leafs, some of which are in color. No statistics to speak of but there is a brief bibliography. The photography by itself makes this one a great buy."
