Review: Homestand (2025)

This book really didn't play fair with me. 

It's something of a love letter to the Batavia Muckdogs of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. Author Will Bardenwerper spent several days in the summer of 2022 with the team in its quest to win a championship while keeping "organized" baseball alive in that city that's located about 45 miles from Buffalo down the Thruway.

The book, "Homestand," was written shortly after major league baseball's "contraction" of several minor league teams after the pandemic. Some New York State squads got together in 2021 to form a summer league from the remains of those franchises, as some of them like Batavia didn't survive the cut.

In an interesting coincidence, I actually attended the final two games of that season in Batavia in 2022. I even checked my baseball scorebook. It was odd that I actually recognized a few names in the scorebook after reading the book, as opposed to when I saw them in person at the time. I've tried to go to Batavia every so often over the years; I even announced a game on the radio in the 1980s there.

Speaking of coincidences, the owner of the Muckdogs also owns the Elmira Pioneers of the PGCBL. Bardenwerper makes a couple of trips there for games. I spent ages 9 to 14 in Dunn Field in Elmira, learning about baseball from my father's company's season tickets along the first-base line. I can still picture the place; I took a walk on the field and in the stands before a PGCBL game when in town in 2023. 

Therefore, there was absolutely no chance I wouldn't like this book. Heck, I lived a little of it. And I did enjoy it - even if I knew how the story of the season was going to turn out (no spoilers here).

Bardenwerper is an interesting personality. He went to Princeton and had a finance job in New York when 9/11 hit. That inspired him to enlist in the Army, and he saw duty in Iraq. After his time was up, Will eventually landed a Masters' degree in international studies and worked at the Pentagon. He has one other book to his credit - the story of Saddam Hussein and his American captivity during the end of the Iraqi's leader's life. 

Still, baseball stays with him. He played in college, and has been a New York Mets' fan for much of his life. But the minor league contraction hit him hard, as MLB ended a tradition of small-town professional baseball that went back decades to save a relatively pittance. So it was off to Batavia for some R&R, even if the players were simply college kids playing summer ball who had little chance to advance their careers past this stop. 

Bardenwerper, then, is of two minds during the course of his summer. He wants to be furious about the way cities like Batavia have been treated, but he likes the way the citizens of the small town have banded together to keep some of the magic around. The author makes friends with the front office members and the manager, of course. But he also manages to fit in with some of the other fans who are regulars. Some walk a few blocks from their home to Dwyer Stadium, while others drive in from Buffalo. It does feel like some of small-town America is still alive and well in Batavia. 

In addition, Bardenwerper stayed in hotels in the Batavia area during his season with the Muckdogs, That gave him time to explore the town a bit. He had meals there, and frequently ran into - or set up appointments - with others. It allows him to inject some local flavor into the story. 

This all adds up into an odd sort of contradiction at the center of the book. He likes what he sees in Batavia, but is still angry about what was lost. So the tone essentially goes back and forth. It's also a little odd that the book was written about the 2022 season, and is only coming out now. I know first-hand that such delays happen, but an update on the situation and the players might have been worth knowing. 

It's also worth mentioning from my standpoint that Buffalo doesn't come off particularly well here. Bardenwerper seems obsessed about the weather, making several knocks about the winter snows in the region. For someone who lives in Pittsburgh and was here in summer - and in terms of weather, Western New York has better summers than almost anywhere else - this comes off as a little petty. 

That said, there's a lot to like in the book. Not much has been said or written about the towns that got left behind when the MBA types in MLB decided to break with the past. There are plenty of moments in "Homestand" that will remind you what we've lost.

Four stars

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Review: Blue-Eyed Soul Brother

By William C. Kashatus

There's a new book out about the life of Bill Bradley, one of the top athletes of the 1960s.

Let's stop right there. It's not that Bill Bradley, the one you are thinking about unless you are from Texas or Philadelphia. That better-known Bill Bradley was one of the great college basketball players of all time, had a successful career in the pros with the New York Knicks, and went on to become a Senator from New Jersey.

This Bill Bradley, the one in "Blue-Eyed Soul Brother," has a much different story to tell. It may not be as noteworthy as his namesake's tale, but it's still interesting to learn about it.

Some explanation needs to be told. Bradley came out of tiny Palestine, Texas, as something of an athletic legend. He wasn't Bo Jackson-level legendary, but he was mighty good. Even though he wasn't too big and strong, there wasn't anything that he couldn't do athletically. 

Naturally, his first publicity came from football, because that what young boys play first in the state of Texas. It's the home of "Friday Night Lights," where schools spent more month on athletic tape in a year than textbooks. Bradley did everything in high school, serving as a brilliant quarterback - a ambidextrous athlete who could run, throw, punt, return kicks, and so on. Along the way Bradley picked up the nickname of "Super Bill," although with all modesty he said he liked his other nickname, "Stupid Bill," a lot more. 

By the way, if Bradley had put his mind to it, he could have been a pro baseball player - at least according to accounts here. It's tough to say if he could have been a major leaguer, but he might have had the chance to get that far. 

But this being Texas, Bradley headed to the University of Texas in 1965, and was a prized recruit of the legendary football coach Darryl Royal. Things went according to form for a few years there, as Bradley took over the starting quarterback job. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1967. But then as a senior, the Longhorns got off to a slow start, and Royal decided to install the Wishbone offense. Bradley lost his starting job at that point, in part because a knee injury cost him some quickness. Bill mostly watched for a few weeks until Texas decided to try him in the secondary. Naturally, Bradley was quite good at that position, even without playing it for years. 

The Philadelphia Eagles somehow noticed Bradley's work on defense, and drafted him in the third round in 1969. He was a reserve in the secondary and was the regular punter there for a couple of years. Then Bradley got a chance as a starter in 1971, and all he did was lead the league in interceptions. For good measure, he led the league again in picks in 1972 - the first time anyone had done that. Bradley stayed with the Eagles through 1976, playing with some really bad teams but mostly having a good time on and off the field. The kid from small-town Texas learned how to party Philadelphia style rather quickly, but he always maintained his knack for being popular with his teammates. 

If you are wondering, the title comes from a nickname given to Bradley by Jerry LeVias, an African American football standout of the era who noticed how well Bradley interacted with him and other Blacks of the time. Bradley also was popular with the media, someone known for his candor.

Author William Kashatus has plenty of fun writing about such a free spirit. Bradley was quite open about his exploits over the years, and some of the stories are quite entertaining. The frustration of being a good player on a bad team also comes across here. It's fair to say that Kashatus obviously is quite fond of Bradley, and so this is told in a way that makes the former star look good. 

Most people who might have remembered Bradley from his college days might have not kept up with him since then. After some time in private business, he became an assistant coach in pro football. I had forgotten that he had a stay in Buffalo as an assistant under Wade Phillips. In more recent times, Bradley has had some difficulties, including a family tragedy and some lingering issues probably causes by numerous concussions in his football days. 

Someone once said that Dwayne "Pearl" Washington went from legend to superstar to star to mediocrity, instead of the other way around. Bradley sort of did that with a longer and better second act during his days with the Eagles. "Blue-Eyed Soul Brother" shows that there's no guarantee of ultimate success for high school phenoms, and those who remember the name first-hand will enjoy the details of this look back.

Three stars

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Review: The Fenway Effect (2024)

By David Krell

It didn't take long to figure out that "The Fenway Effect" was going to move into unfamiliar territory.

As in, the title.

It doesn't really provide much of a clue as to what is to come in the upcoming 200 or so pages. The subtitle isn't much help either - "A Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox."

What then are we getting here? "The Fenway Effect" looks at the Red Sox from a variety of different angles, and some succeed and others fall short.

David Krell's work has appeared on this website in the past. He wrote "1962," which was a mixture of baseball and world events. My problem with that book was that there didn't seem to be a unifying theme. At least he covers that base as the Red Sox are the common denominator on the chapters, although it goes in several directions.

You never quite know what you're going to get from chapter to chapter. Let's take the portion of the book called "Icons." There are four chapters there. One is about Carl Yastrzemski, OK, no argument. One is about Tom Seaver, who pitched for a small portion of the 1986 season. While my admiration for Seaver is close to unlimited, his contribution to team history is small indeed. One is about the Citgo sign, towering over left field. That drew me in initially but bogged down a bit in corporate-speak after a while. The last is on the statues outside of Fenway Park. Can't say I've read that much about baseball statues before, but it's fun to hear that the same guy who did a Yastrzemski tribute also did one for Teddy Roosevelt here in Buffalo.

That's the pattern that becomes established in the book. There are some relatively unknown corners of Red Sox history that are explored here, which is nice. The full story of the Jimmy Fund - a fund-raising group to fight childhood cancer - is explored well. Can't say I knew much about the history of Narragansett Beer, which advertised on Red Sox broadcasts back in the day. I still remember the beverage's ads in the annual Red Sox yearbook of the era. It's fun to read about Sam Malone's career (Cheers) and how real Red Sox players were drawn in to stories.

There's a chapter mostly dedicated to the 1967 team, and deservedly so. It changed the course of Boston baseball forever, reviving interest in a long-dead franchise. Most of the games that are reviewed feel a little oddly picked. For example, there's nothing about Bill Rohr's relatively famous one-hitter in the opening week of the season, or the game-saving throw by Jose Tartabull in a win at Chicago. At least the last two games of the regular season and all of the World Series contests are covered.

I have to admit I found myself skimming over some of the material. For example, there's a reference to the Dwight Evens catch in Game Six of the 1975 World Series. Krell doesn't just list some other great catches in the Fall Classic; he writes a paragraph on five of them. My guess is that this audience already knows about it. 

The last chapter is made up of fans' comments on what it's like to be a Red Sox fan. It's really difficult to make such comments interesting to a general audience, although I suppose it puts an upbeat tone on the joys of rooting on the way out.

"The Fenway Effect" adds up to a book that will keep your interest in spots and lose it in others. It's written for fans who follow the team closely, but yet they are likely to know many of the details of the team's history already. It's a tough assignment. Your reaction will depend on where you fit in the scale.

Three stars

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Review: The Last Manager (2025)

By John W. Miller

It doesn't take long to figure out that we are in good hands when reading John W. Miller's fine biography of Earl Weaver, "The Last Manager." I clocked it at less than two chapters. 

The book starts at the end of the 1982 season, when Weaver was about to end a remarkable run as the skipper of the Baltimore Orioles. Weaver's team lost that one-game playoff against Milwaukee for the division title, but the day became a chance for the fans there to celebrate a spectacular run of success for the franchise. Since 1968, the Orioles had won a World Series, lost three others, and taken several division titles in becoming consistent winners. 

And in that opening chapter, Miller points out that Weaver should be remembered for more than arguing with umpires ... although, in fairness, no one was better than Earl in that department. Weaver was an amazing innovator when it came to the game, revolutionizing the thinking that went into the job as manager. He was way ahead of his time when it came to philosophy and matchups, serving as a pioneer in the effort to maximize his team's chances of winning. We might call it analytics today, but Weaver certainly pointed us in that direction. The Orioles manager also carried certain philosophies. Just as an example, Weaver said you only get 27 outs, and you shouldn't give any away. In other words, if you play for one run, that's how many runs you'll get. Weaver emphasized pitching, defense and three-run homers over one base at a time with sacrifice bunts. 

Then in chapter two, we find ourselves back in the spring of 1952. Weaver had worked his way up the ladder of the St. Louis Cardinals organization to the point where he had a good chance of making the major league team. The problem was that the Cardinals had just named an infielder named Eddie Stanky as the manager, and Eddie didn't think he was completely washed up as a player. So while Weaver had a good spring training, Stanky wasn't going to cut himself from the roster. So a broken-hearted Weaver went back to the minors. It was the crucial turning point in his life up to that point. He played a few more years but his heart really wasn't in it.

But everyone realized that Earl knew baseball inside and out, so a switch to manager was almost inevitable. He again worked his way up that ladder, stopping in more small towns along the way. In order to make ends meet, he sold cars in the offseason in Elmira, New York. A friend of mine remembers how Weaver sold his father a car while balancing my pal as a young child on his knee. Eventually, though, Weaver reached the majors. Earl took over the Orioles in 1968, and became one of the most beloved figures in Baltimore's baseball history. No wonder there's a statue of him in Camden Yards.

Weaver developed a particular style of managing that you wouldn't exactly call "corporate." The overriding philosophy shown here is that Weaver didn't merely want to win. He had to win. That meant if an umpire's call went the "wrong way," he was going to hear about it from Weaver. Heck, Earl got himself thrown out of games before they started, which is a pretty good trick. Those arguments with the umps featured plenty of colorful words and a few stunts such as turning his hat around by 180 degrees in order to get more of a face-to-face discussion going. The fans, of course, liked the idea that someone shared their passion for the team. Weaver always figured that the team was better off without him than without one of the players, who had a direct influence on a game's outcome.

Off the field, Weaver did some of his best work in the clubhouse. No, he didn't get along with everyone. His "feud" with Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer was almost legendary, and others sometimes weren't happy about Weaver's style either. But while Earl was maybe too direct in spots, he never carried a grudge to the next day. What's more, Weaver certainly got the most out of his players. Many of them were never better then they were for Earl's teams. 

That sort of passion carries a price, of course. Baseball's schedule is relentless, and Weaver missed a lot of birthdays and anniversaries and dinners and so on. He was divorced from his first wife by the time he reached Double-A. Miller also concludes that Weaver probably could be considered an alcoholic by most standards. That's the way people of that era sometimes blew off steam, for better or worse (mostly worse, of course). Miller points out along the way that writer Bill James once estimated that 17 of the top 25 managers in baseball history were alcoholics. It would be interesting to see that list, although you'd hope that today's skippers are a little more aware of the dangers of traveling down that road.

Miller's workload in putting together this book is quite obvious. He personally visited several of Weaver's stops, from his native St. Louis through Elmira and Baltimore. The author has a long list of items that are source material. At the book's end, the reader really has the idea of what went right in Weaver's life - it's a good-sized list - and what went wrong. It's a balanced and full portrait. 

It's been almost 40 years since Earl Weaver last bounced out of the dugout to complain about, well, something. That might limit the potential number of readers for "The Last Manager." That's too bad, but almost anyone interested in Weaver and the profession of baseball managing will find this just about completely satisfying.

Five stars

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Review: Gut Punch (2024)

By Bob Gutkowski with Wallace Matthews

As a chief executive of a sports operation, you'd have to say that Bob Gutkowski has a fine track record.

He was the President of Madison Square Garden during a portion of the early 1990s, and that was a very good time for New York sports. You might remember that the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994 - the only time that has happened since 1940. You also might remember that the New York Knicks reached the NBA Finals in 1995, only to fall just short in the series with the Houston Rockets. Still, there were some good times for the Knicks along the way. 

In hindsight, that accomplishment of having twin winners in New York looks even better now than it did then. Perhaps Gutkowski's biggest strength was getting some strong-willed people to work together, at least temporarily. 

Now, about 30 years later, Gutkowski looks back on his career in sports business with "Gut Punch." It's an easy read about some interesting times for all concerned.

Gutkowski's career dates back to 1970, when he was a page at NBC in New York. His main job was to herd crowds into programs like "The Tonight Show" and "Jeopardy." That may not sound like much, but among those who once had that job were Michael Eisner, Ted Koppel and Regis Philbin. From there things got more serious as Gutkowski worked on the business side of NBC Sports. He left for ESPN at just the right time, as the Connecticut-based network had just about figured out how to survive in a changing landscape.

From there it was on to Paramount Television, which took over Madison Square Garden, in 1985. Bob led the MSG Network for a few years and became president of Madison Square Garden in 1991. Let's face it - on the list of cool if stressful jobs, that's a pretty good one. It also supplies the meat of the book. 

Cleaning up the business end of the operation was the easy part for Gutkowski, who worked to bring in top concerts and some boxing matches to the New York City complex.   Getting the Rangers and Knicks to thrive was more difficult. The problem was personality clashes. In hockey, general manager Neil Smith and coach Mike Keenan didn't get along too well. OK, they couldn't stand each other. A highlight of the book was Gutkowski's meeting with the two of them early in 1994, figuring out how to help the team go on a playoff run. A flurry of trades before the deadline followed, and the Rangers went on to end a 54-year drought. 

In basketball, there weren't many personalities bigger in basketball at the time than Pat Riley, and he was the coach during that era. Riley worked for general manager Dave Checketts, and they had some major disagreements as well. When the dust finally settled, Riley was off to Miami, and the Knicks' era of top-level of play ended shortly after that. 

Gutkowski's stories about all of this work rather well. He also has some tales about George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the New York Yankees. Gutkowski helped negotiate a television deal between MSG and the Yankees that represented nearly a half-billion dollars in revenues .... which was good money at the time. Gutkowski also essentially had the idea for what became the YES Network. While that worked out well for the Yankees, and is still working out for the Yankees, Gutkowski didn't get a piece of the pie for his efforts and watched others profit from the concept. 

You don't land jobs like these without having a bit of an ego, and that's occasionally on display here. But Gutkowski comes across here as a rational man who can laugh at himself. He'd be a good companion over a nice dinner, if this is any indication.

There are a couple of obvious problems with the book. Sports business is a rather narrow of interest for most people. especially in the parts that are more business than sports. Some may get a little lost in the discussions at that end. Meanwhile, the most interesting portions of the publication deal with matters that are 30 years old or so. That leaves out quite a number of people.

Still, it's nice to have this side of the story down on paper. "Gut Punch" goes by quickly and sticks to the subject. Those who are interested enough in Gutkowski's stories to pick the book up in the first place will be happy they read it.

Three stars

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