If nothing else, I hope this post opens the door for you as a sports fan to actively seek out more used book stores and thrift shops. For $2 I stumbled upon "The National Pastime", edited by John Thorn, published in 1987, and it is from there that my next few posts will be rooted.

The first article in the book is a long-forgotten interview of the late Marty McHale, who pitched for the Red Sox and the Yankees from 1910-1916, and finished off 1916 with Cleveland. Here is a link to his baseball-reference page.

Like many ballplayers of his era, McHale found other work in the offseason, and his offseason job, which he claimed he loved just as much as baseball, was as a vaudeville performer. He even had a stage act with Hall of Famer "Turkey" Mike Donlin.

While this link is to a different collection of writings, it is the same article that can be found in "The National Pastime." Baseball fans who want to know what the game was like at the turn of the century will find this a must read, and I can say it is the finest interview I have read in quite some time. The article begins on page 253.


--Matt