My Baseball Diary

"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." -- Jacques Martin Barzun A bit maudlin, hokey, overly sentimental at times, and sometimes a bit too obvious in its observations, but nonetheless this is a grand appreciation of the game of baseball and the hold it's had on the American psyche since its beginnings, with a good bit of history -- American and baseball -- helping to tell Farrell's "diary." Farrell has seen and touched base with many of the greats of the diamond through the years. A pure love of the game of baseball shines through, and Farrell also brings back the days when baseball players were genuine heroes who loved the game themselves and weren't the jaded malcontents they seem to be nowadays. Reading this made me want to go out and see a ballgame and pore through the boxscores in the newspaper. Favorite quote: Farrell talking about his Irish grandmother and how she became a rabid baseball fan: "She loved baseball and understood absolutely nothing about the game." As an ode to baseball, I would rank this up there with the works of Roger Angell, Lawrence Ritter and others I may be missing. Sidenote: As I read about Farrell and his brother attending White Sox games in the teens, I couldn't help but reference the kids in the movie "Eight Men Out."

After years of searching secondhand stores for "My Baseball Diary," I was delighted to find it back in print after a long hiatus. Farrell takes off his novelist's hat and delivers a straightforward homage to the game. Unlike George Will and others who have exhibited an unfortunate tendency to overanalyze baseball and lace their writing with social commentary, Farrell reminds us that we attach ourselves to the game as kids, and forever after our love for it comes from childhood.Most remarkable are Farrell's clear and unadorned memories of the White Sox games that he saw as a boy growing up on the South Side of Chicago. He devotes a great chapter to detailing a no-hit game he saw pitched by Ed Walsh, one of his many childhood heroes. You feel with him the mounting excitement as Walsh approached recording the final out of his gem. Farrell also brings vividly to life the 1917 White Sox, the "No-Hit Wonders," who batted just .228 as a team but who went on to win the World Series handily. His admiration for the team is plain (and he writes convincingly of the strengths of individuals on it), but he doesn't back away from expressing the disappointment the infamous 1919 team delivered him. At the same time, we get from Farrell the point made much later by Eliot Asinof in "Eight Men Out": that owner Charles Comiskey's economic abuse of the team contributed to the decision to throw the Series.Fans of the White Sox will appreciate the portraits of Ray Schalk, Eddie Collins, Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Nick Altrock and many others. Farrell shows he was a close observor of the nuances of the game from a young age and never slips into mere idolatry. Overall the book is a fine evocation of baseball when the game and its players were more tightly integrated into the communities it served and fascinated. Farrell turns his writer's eye to the past and returns with memories bathed in the light of childhood.