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Once Around the Bases: Bittersweet Memories of Only One Game in the Majors
Once Around the Bases is a collection of per sonal reminiscences of men whose dream was realised. There a re approximately 150men living today whose baseball career c onsisted of one game, but they were all still major league b aseball players. '
308 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 3, 2018
Review title: Put me in, Coach
Of all the major team sports, baseball is more of a skills game than an athletic one, and projecting how a skill will play at the Major League level is very hard. Add to that the arcanity of the business and organizational management of multiple levels of progression through the minor league training teams and it isn't surprising that some players make it to the majors--for only one game.
Tellis has researched baseball's rich trove of statistical sources to identify 150 living players as of 1998 who had that one shining moment--and never another--and here uses oral-history writing style combined with box scores and statistics to tell the story of 40 of these one-day Major Leaguers. The stories of the players and their game are told chronologically across four eras: the Depression and pre-war years, the World War II years, the post-war years, and the expansion era (1963-).
Like a good Studs Terkel oral history, the stories of the individual players become the history of times, places , and ways of life that are no longer. At the same time we meet the players as people and not just ball players, and the individual stories become poignant in their humor, anger, hard work, good luck, bad luck, and inflection points in life that pass almost always unseen. While most of us might think we would trade a year of our working lives for that one day in the Major Leagues, these guys have done exactly that, and found that life afterwards held more rewards than that day on the diamond.
Why only one day? Common threads develop through the course of the book: most of the games were at the end of seasons when rosters are expanded so the Major League clubs call up players after their minor league seasons have ended. Most of the games were meaningless blowouts between teams whose playoff fates were already determined. A majority of players were pitchers called in to pitch one or two innings late in those blowouts, including one unfortunate player who was called in from the bullpen but injured his arm during warm-ups on the mound so he never threw a pitch even though he was credited with entering the game. Under these conditions, accurate evaluation of a player's ability was next to impossible if attempted at all, and most of the players were sent back home the next day, to begin spring training the next year back in the minors with the hope (in some cases the confident expectation) of working their way back up to the big club. Instead injuries, contract issues, ownership or management changes, or wartime service intervened, and the next chance never came.
It is in those days after that the stories told to Tellis really shine. The inflection point passing unseen, the players in most cases soldier on, trying to improve their skill or find the right team or the right manager, until the realization becomes too clear to ignore. Sometimes it comes in anger, sometimes in relief, sometimes with advice and guidance from parents or wives who see the reality before the player can admit it to themselves. Especially in the pre-war years, the minor leagues were much deeper and larger than they are today, and players crisscrossed the country up and down through the levels and leagues in small towns searching for the season that would get them noticed or pay them enough to feed a wife and a young family while they chased the dream to the last day. It is these stories that are most poignant and interesting.
Of course, the men telling their stories are mostly old men now, with memories dimmed by the years between (Tellis inserts statistics from box scores to correct them) and shaped by the nostalgic tendency to remember the good. But the good prevails as most remember their one day on the diamond with little regret for the months and years that followed away from baseball as they built their lives around families, places, and steady jobs that provided the good. Stories with happy endings aren't written in a day, they are written over a lifetime well lived and well loved. Tellis tells those stories.
Of all the major team sports, baseball is more of a skills game than an athletic one, and projecting how a skill will play at the Major League level is very hard. Add to that the arcanity of the business and organizational management of multiple levels of progression through the minor league training teams and it isn't surprising that some players make it to the majors--for only one game.
Tellis has researched baseball's rich trove of statistical sources to identify 150 living players as of 1998 who had that one shining moment--and never another--and here uses oral-history writing style combined with box scores and statistics to tell the story of 40 of these one-day Major Leaguers. The stories of the players and their game are told chronologically across four eras: the Depression and pre-war years, the World War II years, the post-war years, and the expansion era (1963-).
Like a good Studs Terkel oral history, the stories of the individual players become the history of times, places , and ways of life that are no longer. At the same time we meet the players as people and not just ball players, and the individual stories become poignant in their humor, anger, hard work, good luck, bad luck, and inflection points in life that pass almost always unseen. While most of us might think we would trade a year of our working lives for that one day in the Major Leagues, these guys have done exactly that, and found that life afterwards held more rewards than that day on the diamond.
Why only one day? Common threads develop through the course of the book: most of the games were at the end of seasons when rosters are expanded so the Major League clubs call up players after their minor league seasons have ended. Most of the games were meaningless blowouts between teams whose playoff fates were already determined. A majority of players were pitchers called in to pitch one or two innings late in those blowouts, including one unfortunate player who was called in from the bullpen but injured his arm during warm-ups on the mound so he never threw a pitch even though he was credited with entering the game. Under these conditions, accurate evaluation of a player's ability was next to impossible if attempted at all, and most of the players were sent back home the next day, to begin spring training the next year back in the minors with the hope (in some cases the confident expectation) of working their way back up to the big club. Instead injuries, contract issues, ownership or management changes, or wartime service intervened, and the next chance never came.
It is in those days after that the stories told to Tellis really shine. The inflection point passing unseen, the players in most cases soldier on, trying to improve their skill or find the right team or the right manager, until the realization becomes too clear to ignore. Sometimes it comes in anger, sometimes in relief, sometimes with advice and guidance from parents or wives who see the reality before the player can admit it to themselves. Especially in the pre-war years, the minor leagues were much deeper and larger than they are today, and players crisscrossed the country up and down through the levels and leagues in small towns searching for the season that would get them noticed or pay them enough to feed a wife and a young family while they chased the dream to the last day. It is these stories that are most poignant and interesting.
Of course, the men telling their stories are mostly old men now, with memories dimmed by the years between (Tellis inserts statistics from box scores to correct them) and shaped by the nostalgic tendency to remember the good. But the good prevails as most remember their one day on the diamond with little regret for the months and years that followed away from baseball as they built their lives around families, places, and steady jobs that provided the good. Stories with happy endings aren't written in a day, they are written over a lifetime well lived and well loved. Tellis tells those stories.
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July 25, 2024There are a few books on this topic, and this is probably the best one. The only problem is that the stories can get a bit repetitive, because of the limited subject matter (in case the title and basic description don’t make it obvious, this book deals exclusively with men who played in one – and only one – game in the major leagues. I know that might sound extreme, but it’s a lot more common than most people probably realize).
It also gives the book a tinge of sadness, because no matter how promising the start, you know exactly how every story is going to end before you’ve read a single word.
Still, the author did a great job of locating players from a variety of eras, and indeed, there is a surprising amount of variation to the stories. And now that I think back, I guess not every story is sad. For example, as I recall, the book starts off with a college player who got picked up by a team as a bullpen catcher, who never really expected to play, and then he did end up making it into a game. So it’s not all “there was issue x with the major league team’s starting rotation, so I got called up from the minor leagues to make a spot start, and I never made it back” (which is far and away the most common way guys end up making it into only a single game).
I would definitely recommend it only for hardcore baseball fans and stat nerds, but it is fun, and you’ll learn a lot.
It also gives the book a tinge of sadness, because no matter how promising the start, you know exactly how every story is going to end before you’ve read a single word.
Still, the author did a great job of locating players from a variety of eras, and indeed, there is a surprising amount of variation to the stories. And now that I think back, I guess not every story is sad. For example, as I recall, the book starts off with a college player who got picked up by a team as a bullpen catcher, who never really expected to play, and then he did end up making it into a game. So it’s not all “there was issue x with the major league team’s starting rotation, so I got called up from the minor leagues to make a spot start, and I never made it back” (which is far and away the most common way guys end up making it into only a single game).
I would definitely recommend it only for hardcore baseball fans and stat nerds, but it is fun, and you’ll learn a lot.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2017
I gave it only 2 stars, since many of the players' stories were so similar. Often brought up either at the tail end of a baseball season, or given an early April chance, they were returned to the (then many leagues) of the minors to play and wait until either quitting for stable jobs and family, or until an injury spelled early retirement.
The book has 4 chapters, from 1929- modern divided by eras. The early era interviews I enjoyed the most. For general readers choosing a couple interviews per era would suffice.
I wish more of the interviews would've gone into how much the minors gave players real help and experience versus how much the "seasons in the sticks" simply wore out arms, legs, and patience.
The book has 4 chapters, from 1929- modern divided by eras. The early era interviews I enjoyed the most. For general readers choosing a couple interviews per era would suffice.
I wish more of the interviews would've gone into how much the minors gave players real help and experience versus how much the "seasons in the sticks" simply wore out arms, legs, and patience.
October 7, 2024
A good baseball book that looks at the unique players who only played in one major league game. The author reports on 40 players who were interviewed. Interestingly many of the stories are very similar and somewhat depressing so for the causal fan this book would be hard to get through. Definitely an interesting topic.
May 2, 2019
A collection of 40 similar stories about players that played in only one big league game for a number of different reasons. I almost gave up on the book several times finding it often to be both boring and depressing not to mention full of arcane baseball trivia. Perhaps this would be better appreciated by a more ardent fan of the game.
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April 11, 2012Sad book, great stories
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews