FRANTIC FRANCIS, How one coach’s madness changed football

new from University of Nebraska Press, by Brett Perkins

If anyone was ahead of his time, as Perkins writes in this aptly entitled work, it most certainly was the bow-tied Francis Schmidt. Well before his death in 1944, frantic Francis had made his mark on the game, a mark that – if you connect the dots – extends to the modern game. He worked 18 hour days and his diagramming of football plays quickly became his trademark. He reached the top of the profession at Ohio State in the 1930s, but he was ultimately his own worst enemy and his mania shattered his career. At 54 years of age, Schmidt was no longer the rising star; four years later he was dead. Yet decades later his legacy lives on. If you see a play that you believe had never been seen before, think again, think Frantic Francis.

HEAVEN IS A PLAYGROUND

third edition, with a new introduction by the author, University of Nebraska Press, by Rick Telander

A classic in 1976 when first introduced, and a classic still on the inner city’s phenomena of playground basketball at its finest, fueled by the diverse personalities of its many participants. The author spent a summer interacting with, and even coaching, playground superstars at Foster Park in Brooklyn. But even the best of them, such as the legendary Fly Williams, cannot escape the realities of the slums. In this third edition, Telander provides an interesting retrospective of the game and the era.

It’s a very poignant retrospective at that, combining life and death and confronting the passage of time – as when the author attends the wake of Rodney Parker, a central character in Heaven is a Playground. Hyperactive and always in the mood to wheel and deal, Parker’s death in a way symbolizes the end of an era: where have you gone Herman The Helicopter, Albert King, Derrick Melvin, Mario Donawa and, of course, The Fly.

There’s very little pretense in Telander’s effort, very little if any condescending comments, no hyperbole, just the raw, stark reality of life on and off the playgrounds of the city streets. You’ll come to love some of the players and, like Telander, also come to struggle in figuring out just what makes them tick. If you’ve never read Heaven is a Playground, better late than never.

THE WIZARD OF WAXAHACHIE, Paul Richards and the end of baseball as we knew it

Southern Methodist University Press with the foreward by Brooks Robinson and introduction by Tony LaRussa, by Warren Corbett

Remember the oversized catcher’s mitt that was used to help contain the great knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm? Have you heard too much of the pitch count in today’s game, and have you been annoyed by the constant lineup changes of some managers, such as Tony La Russa? Do you recall the greatness of the third baseman Brooks Robinson? If so, think then of Paul Richards, the wizard of Waxahachie, Texas, who was involved in all of this and more in a remarkable baseball career that included stints as a player, manager and general manager. Richards, always the innovator, was the first to actually introduce on-base percentage back in the 50s, though it was known then as batting average plus walks.

Corbett, the author, does a marvelous job portraying Richards. His extensive research unearths many equally marvelous anecdotes. For one, there is the time the Hall of Famer Ty Cobb dropped an easy fly ball in right field, one that fell right into his hands. This impressed upon Richards not to fret about physical errors, and that all his concentration and effort should go into the mental aspects of the game. We learn that the taciturn Richards didn’t like a couple of nicknames bestowed upon him. He didn’t like “Sleepy” from his childhood, and he didn’t like “Tex,” which was later given to him by teammates.

As much as he loved the game, Richards probably enjoyed golf even more. Thus his death on a golf course on May 4, 1986, after completing his second round of the day, couldn’t have been more appropriate. The newspaper obits, however, referred to him as Waxahachie’s most famous baseball player, manager, and authority. In the end, he was a baseball man.

MIRACLE COLLAPSE: The 1969 Chicago Cubs

new from University of Nebraska Press with the foreward by Don Kessinger, by Doug Feldmann

Miracles in sports are usually connected with a champion or a championship season, as in Buster Douglas’s stunning KO of Mike Tyson or the amazing run to the world championship by the beloved New York Mets in 1969. But were it not for the miracle collapse of the equally beloved Cubbies, under Leo Durocher, then there would not have been the Miracle Mets.

In Feldmann’s wonderfully researched treatment, the collapse of the Cubs is chronicled in nine chapters, no doubt to match the nine innings in a regulation baseball game. The Cubs season is brought back so well that it seems as if the team’s huge eight-and-a-half-game lead in August dissipated only last year, and as the vise tightens Durocher, the manager, comes this close to banishing reporters from his clubhouse. Feldmann reprises all the bad omens that befell the Cubbies, including then legendary Black Cat incident at Shea Stadium.

By Sept. 11 the Cubs, loaded with much more talent than the Mets, were now in pursuit. In the 13 days from Sept. 3 to Sept. 15, the Cubs went from having a five-game lead to a four-and-a-half-game deficit. Even more startling, the Cubs were in first place 155 days, the longest hold on the top spot ever for a team not to win the title. But the season was not a total disaster for the Cubs, who drew 1,674,993 to Wrigley Field – a record that would stand until 1984 when the ancient ballpark would see two million customers for the first time. The Cubs, who looked unstoppable, collapsed in miraculous fashion. This is a must read for Cubs fans old and new, Mets fans old and new, and baseball fans old and new.