Category Archives: Books

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, a Pocket Review

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Ted

Last night, Eric and I went down to the Georgetown section of Seattle, where, nestled between tendrils of the Union Pacific and BNSF Railway, some warehouses surrounded by barbed wire, and a few coffee shops, Fantagraphics Books runs a richly … Continue reading →

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The Ten Commandments

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Eric

In my day job as managing editor of Jew-ish.com, I had the pleasure of speaking with Bethlehem Shoals of the awesome FreeDarko about hoops, Judaism, and Seattle.  Check it out. Also, I may post some more about FreeDarko soon. They … Continue reading →

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John Lardner: Writer, Sports Writer

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Eric

Ted and I were emailing recently about what makes sports writing compelling or not compelling. We write many such emails. Our basic complaint is that writing about baseball is nearly always boring and rarely transcends its subject. It rarely even … Continue reading →

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The Big Announcement

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Ted

Pitchers and Poets was unknown to me back in 2009, when I came across a beautiful, haunting piece of writing about a dead young pitcher and a family’s tribute on the baseball field, The Death of a Pitcher. The piece’s … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Rules of the Game

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Eric

It’s difficult to pin down the “Rules of the Game.” One might expect an anthology of “The Best Sports Writing from Harper’s Magazine” to be easily defined: small in type-face, varied in subject matter, and somehow grand. Because one would … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Eric

Cardboard Gods: an All-American Tale Told through Baseball Cards is not, as its cover and title may indicate, an innocuous book. It is not even a book about baseball cards. Instead, it is a book about baseball fandom, and how … Continue reading →

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PnP Book Review: Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s Pastime

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Eric

In Robert Graves’ fictional memoir of the bumbling Roman emperor’s assent to power, I Claudius, the title character finds himself in a library with two of his era’s most prominent historians. Just a teenager at the time, Claudius gets into … Continue reading →

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Shoeless Joe

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Eric

When we asked young Phil Bencomo, chronicler of all things baseball if he would like to write a Situational Essay, we were unsure of what to expect. His Baseball Chronicle is in many ways a kindred spirit in this massive, … Continue reading →

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Alex Rodriguez: Tragic Hero? (Part II)

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Eric

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” – The Witches of Macbeth This started as an essay called Alex Rodriguez: Tragic Hero. I had noble intensions for it; I was going to compare A-Rod to Macbeth. I would have matched … Continue reading →

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Poem Of The Week: ‘The Crowd At The Ball Game’

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Eric

Poem Of The Week: The Crowd At The Ball Game By William Carlos Williams The crowd at the ball game is moved uniformly by a spirit of uselessness which delights them — all the exciting detail of the chase and … Continue reading →

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