Baseball Memories & Dreams Touches All the Bases

It’s wonderful to go down baseball’s memory lane. Once again, the collaboration between the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Mango Publishing Group cleared the proverbial fences, by producing their fourth title in two years – Baseball Memories & Dreams: Reflections on the National Pastime from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

This book houses a collection of more than 60 essays that over the years have appeared in the Hall’s official magazine – Memories & Dreams. The game’s history is well introduced and preserved for 323 pages.

Some of the biggest names in the game’s history share their thoughts of moments in time, either from their all-star careers or events that inspired them to fall in love with the game. Johnny Bench, Joe Torre, Nolan Ryan, and Wade Boggs are just a few in Baseball Memories & Dreams’ lineup.

Along with the greats who wore the spikes and shared their thoughts from the dugout level, all-star scribes, some with no connection to baseball other than being super fans get to tell their stories. Claire Smith, Craig Muder, Scott Pitoniak, Peter Gammons, and Tyler Kepner are the pros who have covered the game for media outlets through the decades, and who offer great insight to a great moment in time for readers to enjoy.

Baseball Memories & Dreams takes you on a visit to Central New York’s most famous village – Cooperstown. Home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, each essay carefully selected, educates all levels of fans. An interest in baseball is all the qualification needed to become lost in the game’s past.

Famed author John Grisham offers his account of what it was like growing up in rural Arkansas while listening to St. Louis Cardinals’ games on the radio. On Page 33, Bill Francis tells a fascinating story about how A.G. Spalding revolutionized baseball on and off the field, first as a sporting goods manufacturer.

My two favorite essays included in Baseball Memories & Dreams weren’t created in between the foul lines.

On page 47, Tim Wiles offers Baseball’s Greatest Skit – Abbott and Costello’s classic routine "Who’s On First“, which has become film royalty. In four pages, Wiles, a former director of research at the Hall of Fame, dishes all the nuts and bolts to this hilarious routine. It is said that the comedic duo performed their famous "Who’s On First“ skit more than 15,000 times.

Wiles fills us in on the origin of "Who’s On First“. Abbott and Costello debuted the routine in 1938 on the Kate Smith radio show, and on TV in the 1940s. Remember hearing about Ernest L. Thayer’s "Casey at the Bat“? A brief history on this poem, which was first published in the San Francisco Examiner leaves no questions unanswered – except for one. Where is the real Mudville? Nearly 135 years since its first publication, and featured in nearly 700 books, "Casey at the Bat“ still has legs. You learn why in Baseball Memories & Dreams.

This mini coffee-table edition of Baseball Memories & Dreams is made to be passed down by families to the next generation of fans of the game. Beginning with a heartfelt foreword by Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, each turn of the page introduces you to the roots of what has made baseball a fabric of Americana.