{"id":303,"date":"2014-03-21T14:15:47","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T18:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/?page_id=303"},"modified":"2015-10-17T23:29:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T03:29:35","slug":"scd-baseball-is-a-funny-game","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/?page_id=303","title":{"rendered":"Sports Collectors Digest: Baseball is a Funny Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marty Appel<\/span><\/p>\n

As best as I can determine, the first baseball book to ever hit the New York Times best seller list was \u201cBaseball is a Funny Game,\u201d by Joe Garagiola, published in 1960. The book spent about 4 months on best seller lists around the country, helped launch Joe\u2019s national stardom, helped turn millions of people into baseball fans, and made the awful 1952 Pirates loveable, just in time for the dreadful \u201962 Mets to unseat them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book really has a double meaning,\u201d says Joe, now 76, from his home outside Phoenix. \u201cWe put laughs in the book, because there are a lot of great characters in the game, but it also has that whimsical meaning to cover the times when things don\u2019t go just as planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to its publication by Lippincott, the best humor books on baseball had been written by Al Schacht, the Washington coach turned \u201cClown Prince of Baseball.\u201d \u201cClowning Through Baseball\u201d was published in 1941, and \u201cMy Own Particular Screwball\u201d in 1955. In 1957, The Sporting News put out the small softcover \u201cComedians of Baseball Down the Years.\u201d There had, of course, also been the great 1914 novel \u201cYou Know Me Al\u201d by Ring Lardner.<\/p>\n

Garagiola had the ability to see the lighter side of the game and to weave great stories out of it. As he would say, \u201cto be a \u201952 Pirate, you had to have a sense of humor!\u201d (The team went 42-112). And although Joe\u2019s \u201cact\u201d was to put himself down as a ballplayer, he was really no slouch. As a 20-year old, he was a regular catcher on the world champion St. Louis Cardinals, and to be 20 and handle a veteran, World Series-bound pitching staff, was no small feat. He even had four hits in a World Series game that fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my career ended,\u201d he recalls, \u201cI became a Cardinals broadcaster, working with Harry Caray and Jack Buck. I used to drive to Busch Stadium with my wife Audrey, who was the Stadium organist. One day, probably in the summer of \u201958, we were talking about baseball books. I had recently read one by Paul Richards with all the usual stuff \u2013 how to shift you feet, how to grip the curveball, how to hold runners on \u2013 and I said to Audrey, \u2018geez, the guy driving the 18-wheeler who\u2019s never gonna be a player, these books can\u2019t be for him. Wait til I write MY book!<\/p>\n

\u201cWell Audrey sort of challenged me, one of those \u2018go ahead!\u2019 moments. And so I started to work on a book that was just for fans. I organized it like a march around the ballpark \u2013 here\u2019s what happens in the bullpen, here\u2019s what happens on the mound, in the dugout, in the front office, etc. I wrote it all in longhand, and I gave it to Bob Broeg, the great Post-Dispatch writer to look at.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob, and his wife Dorothy, were very helpful \u2013 too helpful! They edited it so that it read too good, it just didn\u2019t sound like me! They made it into a literary masterpiece, but it wasn\u2019t what I was trying to do!<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I gave my handwritten version to my \u2018Godfather,\u2019 Al Fleishman, the co-founder of Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations, and he put me together with one of their people, Martin Quigley. Martin had just the right touch. Now I began to type my version \u2013 typing was my best course in high school \u2013 and he made suggestions. We finished with a version I was proud to call my own.<\/p>\n

\u201cLippincott wanted to publish it as a paperback, but I held out for a hardcover that would get into libraries, and we got it done. What really put it on the map was an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Paar knew nothing about baseball, but he loved the book, and he told his audience how funny it was. And bang, we were a hit!<\/p>\n

\u201cI did an appearance with Dave Garroway on The Today Show, {Joe later was a regular co-host}, and on a Cincinnati TV show that was really in those days, the Ruth Lyons Show. She told all her viewers \u2013 mostly housewives \u2013 that the book was a riot. And soon we were number one on the Milwaukee Journal best seller list, #9 on the New York Herald Tribune list, and got up to around #12 on the Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Ruth Lyons, I did a book signing appearance at the Hudson Department Store in Cincinnati and I almost rolled over. People were lined up around the block!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball is a Funny Game\u201d went through nearly 20 printings and was in print until about 15 years ago. It remains popular with book collectors because it was such a breakthrough. And while people think it is the book that launched a thousand Yogi Berra stories, there aren\u2019t really that many mentions of Yogi in there. It was more about Joe\u2019s own National League days and the things he witnessed and found amusing. It\u2019s still both funny and informative, a great behind-the-scenes look at baseball in the \u201850s.<\/p>\n

Joe did another book 28 years later, \u201cIt\u2019s Anybody\u2019s Ballgame,\u201d with his daughter Gina playing the role of Martin Quigley, following the same style. And Joe\u2019s original typed manuscript for \u201cFunny,\u201d is now bound and in his possession, as well as several framed best seller lists from around the country which would have shocked his English teachers in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Joe remains one of the most passionate people the game has ever produced \u2013 about baseball, about players in need, about the dangers of smokeless tobacco, and in recent years, about an Indian Mission School in Bapcule, AZ. People who want books, balls, bats, gloves, etc., signed, can write to Joe c\/o the Arizona Diamondbacks (for whom he still broadcasts, and for whom his son Joe Jr. is General Manager), at PO Box 2095, Phoenix, AZ 85001. A $25 check ($10 for cards or flats), should be made payable to the St. Peter Indian Mission School. It\u2019s a good deal \u2013 Joe, as a winner of the Ford Frick Award, is among the broadcasters enshrined in Cooperstown. If there was a wing there for baseball books, he\u2019d be there too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marty Appel As best as I can determine, the first baseball book to ever hit the New York Times best seller list was \u201cBaseball is a Funny Game,\u201d by Joe Garagiola, published in 1960. The book spent about 4… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":2277,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-template-full.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-303","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4s5bl-4T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464,"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/303\/revisions\/2464"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.appelpr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}