1. Damage718

    Damage718 Senior Member

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    Question(s) about putting together a collection of essays about baseball history

    Discussion in 'Non-Fiction' started by Damage718, Dec 8, 2020.

    Hi all, got a few questions here that I'm hoping you can shed some light on. Apologies if this seems long-winded...please bear with me.

    While in-between fiction collections, I've started to work on a new non-fiction project, a collection of essays about baseball history. Now, books like these have been done countless times...there are tons of books of random baseball stories. I even know a guy who wrote one just a couple years ago in fact. So why would I do the same, you may ask? Well, I've been blogging about baseball history for years and have had other stories published in magazines and newspapers, so a lot of the groundwork is already done. Basically, my plan was/is to take a bunch of my old blogs/articles, revise them all, verify the research & sources and self-publish it as a collection.

    I have an introduction that tells about how and why I love baseball and why the game itself is important, spooky and strange. Then each chapter is it's own essay about some historical player, or particular game or oddity. Typically what I've done with my blog is if I saw an interesting footnote or a reference to something I was reading (like an "on this day back in (insert year)" kind of thing) then I'd read more about it and write my interpretation of it as a blog post. Tons of people do this too.

    So my plan is to polish these up (and write a couple new ones). Most of the stories are from 100 years ago or more. There are a couple modern ones - basically recaps of games I attended or watched. So all of this can be found and verified with the quickest of Google searches. Except one chapter - an Op Ed about a movie. My theory & belief is that the movie Field of Dreams really isn't a baseball movie at all, despite popular opinion otherwise. So I have a blog post I wrote about it awhile back, but I wanted to include it in the collection. Do I need permission of any sort to mention the film and write about it? I mean, I'm writing about real-life (though mostly dead) players, teams, stadiums, etc. so what would be the difference between that and writing about a fictional story in a non-fiction way? It's not unlike a movie review, really, just with my theory on why it's technically not a baseball movie....

    Non-fiction always makes me nervous for details like this. I of course will list my research sources/quotes for legitimacy, but with other property (the movie in this case) I just want to be cautious about the usage.

    Thank you.
     
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  2. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    There can't be enough written about baseball in my opinion. And the piece you did on Shibe Park was really good, so you'd seem to have a nose for it. And, yes, tying old baseball essays and things together has been done a million times, but it's still interesting.

    Don't see any reason why you can't write about Field of Dreams. People mention books in movies in books in movies all the time, but I'm not an expert on any of that.

    I hope you have a bit about modern baseball analytics and how they've diluted the game into the three true events that a hitter can control--strikeouts, walks, homeruns--greatly reducing batted balls in play, defensive relevance, and "action," for lack of a better term. I'm not one of those "they're destroying the game!" people, but I've found it hard to watch the last few years. And all the rules tinkering they've had to resort to speed up the game for an increasingly disinterested audience: cutting down on mound visits, batter minimums for relief pitchers, pitch clocks, starting a runner on second in extra innings.... The last one boggles my noodle. I think they started playing with it after the lockdown, but not sure. The Red Sox were unwatchable this year, so I didn't tune in much.
     
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  3. Damage718

    Damage718 Senior Member

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    Thank you for the kind words :) The final version of the Shibe Park story (along with two others) were in my recent published collection of fiction. Slightly different -- and better -- than the one I posted here way back when. I'm pretty happy with that particular story.

    I also agree that although baseball history in general, and a lot of what I plan to include in particular, has been (and will be again) written about a million times, there's still interesting and entertaining spins to put on them.

    I agree on your take re: current baseball, and there's no doubt the BIP have gone down. It really is about HR's, BB and K these days. In my intro to this project I specifically explain how I'm not a stathead (though I can read and interpret them just fine), but how the actual stories and narratives, hyperbole included, surrounding the game and players is what makes the game so special. Ironically one of the chapters I plan to include is from a 2015 game I attended at Wrigley Field where me and a friend decided to keep a scorecard for the first time since we were kids...and Cole Hamels throws a no-hitter against the Cubs. I still have the scorecard.

    And I also agree that I'm not one of those "they're destroying the game" guys either, but it has changed and is changing...and not always for the better. New features like the ones you mentioned are not always for the betterment of the game and this can be largely traced to a commissioner who basically hates baseball.
     
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  4. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Maybe that's the angle you can take on the project. With a 100+ years of baseball literature already out there, there aren't many fresh takes left unless you pick up a modern day narrative. And I think the deeper we go, the more baseball slips into antiquity and struggles to cling to a nostalgia that aging fans are increasingly distanced from. I live in Red Sox Nation and the growing disinterest in the sport very disturbing. And that's not just because the Red Sox suck now and the other Boston sports teams have been so dominant for so long. But the general love of the game appears to be waning, and if that can happen in Boston I shudder to think of what the other markets are experiencing.
     
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  5. Damage718

    Damage718 Senior Member

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    It's similar here in Chicago, but with two teams we see a lot of fluctuation. As a Cubs fan, the last 6 years have been wonderful (the previous 30+ of my life...only a few times lol), but now with Theo gone, after this coming season it's gonna be a long rebuild again. The White Sox on the other hand are ready to win a WS right now, which is exciting and they are a fun team. Whole city is down on the Bears of course...what a mess of a franchise that is. But I digress.

    I think there will be a time when advanced analytics will hit critical mass and people will start to view the game through a more sentimental lens again. Science is great and all but it's not the essence of the game. It'll come back around.
     

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