Baseball!

Hey folks, it’s late March, and I wish I were in Fort Myers, Florida. Not just because it was snowing in Boston this morning, although that’s probably a good enough reason. But no, the real reason I’d like to be there is ’cause then I’d already be enjoying some Red Sox baseball! Opening Day is just around the corner, and I can’t wait. The Sox are due to be playing their much-hyped season-opening games against the Oakland A’s in Japan in just a few short days. Yes, you can catch those on TV — too bad the start time for both is 6:05 AM, Eastern Daylight Time! Maybe you want to read something about the team to get psyched up for the start of the season. One title I definitely enjoyed is One Day at Fenway — a great choice for anyone who (like me) hasn’t actually got tickets to a game. Author Steve Kettmann and his team of researchers attended the August 30, 2003 Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway and had access to multiple different viewpoints — celebrities in the crowd, everyday fans, team owners, even the scoreboard operator. The resulting book is an incredibly detailed and fascinating look at one regular-season baseball game with pennant-race implications (the Sox-Yanks rivalry helps!) and, more broadly, the relationship of fans of all stripes to the sport. Definitely a fun read, with all kinds of interesting tidbits and background information about the game that you probably didn’t know. Snell Library has lots of other books on baseball, and on the Sox: for example, try a Subject search on Boston Red Sox. And yes, if you must, you can also get Subject results for the New York Yankees, but I’m not going to automate that search for you. 🙂 Happy reading, in anticipation of that wonderful soon-to-be-heard cry, “Play ball!”