1924 and You Are There!: A Fictionalized Baseball Replay

by Jeff Polman

An original, "fictionalized" replay of the 1924 baseball season, told in the language of the time, through the eyes and hearts of 17-year-old Phillies fan Vinny Spanelli, Tigers beat reporter Calvin J. Butterworth, and others. Meet all the stars of '24, from Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson, to Goose Goslin, Kiki Cuyler, Zack Wheat, and Negro League greats Oscar Charleston and Rube Foster. Told in a daily diary format, "1924 and You Are There!" is a funny, heartwarming and unpredictable plunge into a bygone baseball era unlike any you've ever read.Still scarred from losing his father during the First World War, Vinny finds daily solace in attending Phillies games at the old, decrepit hitter's paradise known as Baker Bowl. The Phils are pretty awful but Vinny is fiercely loyal to them, and with his best friend and ballgame companion Benny Zepp, heads up to New York in late April to watch them play the hated Giants and Brooklyn Robins. It's there that Vinny meets Rachel Stone, a literary-minded Jewish girl and rabid Brooklyn fan, and kindles a season-long courtship filled with giddy ups and downs.When Benny comes into some family money, he takes Vinny on a "far west" road trip in one of the first Chryslers, following the Phillies as they tour through Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and falling into trouble with a host of unsavory local characters. Back home, a quirk of fate finds Vinny becoming the Phillies' batboy at the end of June, and the hot summer eventually gets hotter when he and Benny try to pull off an unheard-of exhibition series between white players and Negro League stars.Intertwined with occasional dispatches from Calvin Butterworth's American League news, Vinny's saga coasts to an exciting pennant race conclusion. With every passing week of the season, Vinny learns more about the obstacles of life and how to wend his way around them—but never without humor and danger. Basically, if you took Huck Finn and dropped him into a vat of baseball cards, Vinny Spanelli would pop out the bottom.

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 10, 2012

About the author

Jeff Polman was born in Hartford, CT in 1954, grew up in Longmeadow, MA and graduated from the BDIC program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He worked for the Advocate Newspapers and Boston Phoenix before becoming Arts Editor for the Vermont Vanguard Press in Burlington, VT for its first five years.

Having enjoyed his time as a student filmmaker, he moved to Los Angeles in 1982 to pursue screenwriting. He has written over 20 scripts and has had two low-budget thrillers produced, Grave Secrets (1989) and Benefit of the Doubt (1993), a Miramax release which starred Donald Sutherland and Amy Irving. Baseball has long been one of his passions, and his season replay blogs have all been turned into published books: 1924 and You Are There!, Play That Funky Baseball (released as Ball Nuts), Mystery Ball '58, Twinbill (featuring "Dear Hank" and the Bragging Rights League"). He has also written Web articles for The Huffington Post, ChicagoSide Sports, Fire Brand of the American League, Seamheads, The Hardball Times, Baseball Prospectus, New England Baseball Journal, and The Platoon Advantage. His previous novel, The Invasion of Normandie, is a timely comic fable about the allure and dangers of celebrity.

RED JACARANDAS, to be released in January of, 2022, is a unique trio of "weird tales" about Los Angeles, two original screenplays wrapped around a short novel. Having grown up in New England watching countless scary movies as a youth, his new project is a return to his supernatural thriller roots. He lives in Culver City, CA with his artist wife Carmen Patti, and can be followed on Twitter at @ReddJeff8 or emailed at jpolman54@gmail.com

Reviews

[The Master · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great American adventure! Vinny and Benny are a baseball-mad Tom and Huck combo who get into all sorts of wild situations as they follow their beloved Philadelphia Phillies throughout every day of a fictitious 1924 season. Interspersed with this is the proto-gonzo reportage of a baseball writer from Detroit. As the season progresses their paths converge and hilarity ensues. Lots of LOL moments and grab-a-pencil-and-underline-this-passage moments. A gem that deserves a wider audience.

[Chris Witt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, fictional story set against a replay of the 1924 season using Strat-O-Matic baseball.

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I can't be objective. Readers should just keep in mind the 1924 season doesn't play out as it did in real life. It's fiction! So, enjoy!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

From a fellow Strat player and baseball nut take it from me this is great romp through a re envisioned 1924 MLB season! This book led me to buy the 1924 Strat card set to play along.