BATTER UP!Baseball fans can head for home with books about the game
Sunday, March 30, 2008 3:19 AM
By Bill Eichenberger
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The second-most beautiful words in the English language: Pitchers and catchers report.
The most beautiful words in the English language: Play ball!
It reminds me of something Rogers Hornsby, a Hall of Fame second baseman who played from 1915 to 1937, once said: "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."
Well, spring is nigh because major leaguers are playing spring-training games and book publishers are sending out new baseball titles faster than a Nolan Ryan heater streaking toward home plate.
Here are a few titles to warm you up for the season:
Here are a few titles to warm you up for the season:
• Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original, Carlo DeVito (Triumph, 412 pages, $25.95)
Mickey Mantle once speculated that New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra said only about a third of the things attributed to him.
Mickey Mantle once speculated that New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra said only about a third of the things attributed to him.
"(St. Louis Cardinals catcher and Berra boyhood pal Joe) Garagiola made up a third," Mantle said, "and the (sports) writers made up the rest."
DeVito proposes in Yogi to cut through the tall tales and the myth to uncover the man "genuinely one of the greatest players ever to pick up a bat and ball. . . . And no matter how humorous his remarks are, his accomplishments were hard-earned and fairly won."
