Book Review: Ed Stevens: The Other Side of the Jackie Robinson Story

With Major League Baseball's celebration of Jackie Robinson's debut earlier this month, a lesser known version of that historical day has been illuminated by the voice of Ed Stevens.

Ed Stevens - The Other Side of the Jackie Robinson Story / Tate Publishing

Who is Stevens, and why should you care about his story? He is the man who faced the following question for the past 60 years, "How did you let a black man take your job?"

Stevens was the starting first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1946 season, placing second on the team in home runs. He rightfully bested a handful of Dodger hopefuls during their 1947 spring training to earn the starting nod at first base. Stevens was ready to go on Opening Day, until a last minute decision by Branch Rickey to insert Jackie Robinson befuddled the upstart from Galveston, Texas.

"The Other Side of the Jackie Robinson Story," details the never before told story of the man who was displaced by Robinson. Stevens is one of the last living Dodgers who was there for Robinson's debut, and gives an excellent behind the scenes look from the perspective of a talented ballplayer who was pushed aside by the Brooklyn Dodger organization so that Robinson could take the field.

Bitter Stevens is not; he shows no ill will or animosity towards Robinson. "The Other Side," presents the unheard emotions of a man who returned home to the heavily segregated South to face the snickers and sneers of people who could not understand how a white man "let" a "ni--er" take his job.

Read More

A Bitter Cup of Coffee | How Douglas Gladstone's book goes to bat for MLB retirees

A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB and The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve
Douglas J. Gladstone -
Word Association Publishers, 2010.
192 pp.

For the 874 retired Major League Baseball players who played between 1947 and 1979 that did not play long enough to qualify for a pension, they have been left with an awful taste in their mouths over the amended vesting requirements of the 1980 contract. Players who entered Major League Baseball after 1980 have only needed one day of service credit for health benefits and 43 days to be eligible for a retirement allowance.

Douglas Gladstone's new book, "A Bitter Cup of Coffee", released in April 2010 by Word Association Publishers, details the plight of the aforementioned players, many of whom are of retirement age, in their quest to get the Major League Baseball Players Association to retroactively amend the vesting requirement to include them. In an April 2010 interview with the author, Gladstone reveals his impetus for championing the causes of those that came along too early.

"I hope that my book would in some small way, change the landscape for these guys," Gladstone said. "These 874 guys, they're dying at a rate of three per month. They're not getting any younger. Given the economy, alot could use pensions to supplement their income. These guys were dues paying members, and now they're being told that all of their contributions went for naught."

His journey began innocently last year with an interview of Jimmy Qualls, who was the young rookie that broke up Tom Seaver's perfect game in 1969. Gladstone described how he was stumped by Qualls when discussing the subject of a pension.

"Last year was the anniversary of Tom Seaver's "imperfect game" and I did some research, knowing that Seaver now has this large vineyard in Napa Valley, but that Jimmy Qualls had it hard after baseball," he said, "It seemed to be a perfect David vs. Goliath image, Seaver went to the Hall of Fame, and Qualls is struggling.

"For the piece, I interviewed Qualls and we had two to three sessions of about 30-45 minutes each. In the last one, he just innocently said, 'Mr. Gladstone, I had a great career in the show. I'm happy, just a country farmer. I just wish I had received a pension.' I knew a little bit about vesting. I asked him why he thought he deserved one when he wasn't clearly vested. He said, 'you don't understand, it's not as cut and dry. Number one, I could accept that it was not mine to begin with. Number two, in 1980, they gave instant pension eligibility, and they never changed the vesting requirements. In 1997, MLB conferred as charitable donations, payments to veterans of the Negro Leagues. I just think it's unfair that they never retroactively amended it.'"

Gladstone wanted to find out if there were other players out there who felt strongly about baseball's failure to include their predecessors in their pension amendments. He wasn't aware they gave Negro Leaguers these pensions, but this book isn't about race. According to him, this is an issue of legal interpretations.

"To me this is an employment and labor law issue," he said. "You can't give a pension to people who had no contractual relationship with this employer."

While some may argue that because Major League Baseball coded the payments to the Negro Leaguers as charitable contributions that a precedent wasn't set, but how were they funded ahead of members that actually paid into the system?

A Bitter Cup of Coffee seeks to answer why these men have been rebuked by their own union and fellow family of baseball players. With the large salaries going to current players who are immediately vested into the pension program, couldn't they spare a little bit of their future earnings for those who paved the way before them?

With the issues of retroactively adjusting the vesting requirements on the table for the 2011 collective bargaining negotiations, Gladstone has posed the following questions to the current union reps.

"I would ask every ballplayer who has been a player rep since 1980, to look into their heart, and look into their soul and say to them, why didn't you do this?" he said. "Is it a question that you didn't want your piece of the pie diminished? Would paying these guys detract from the revenue share stream that you are going to get? I would hate to hear that come out of the mouth of any current ballplayer. I really hope that isn't the current prevailing attitude. The other question I raise, is have these guys even been told about this? The guys on the pension committee, they really believe to a man, that Donald Fehr and Marvin Miller to a lesser extent, never told these guys about the situation. Whatever occurred, either scenario is reprehensible."

Let's see if during the next series of contract negotiations that the MLBPA rights this wrong. Gladstone's A Bitter Cup of Coffee is definitely one that will fire up discussions in hot stoves across the country.

Read More

Satchel Paige: The Story Of An American Baseball Legend

NPR program Fresh Air recently conducted an interview with Larry Tye, the author of the biography, "Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend." Tye's book was a New York Times best-seller in 2009 and gives great insight into the life and career of one of baseball's greatest players and characters, Leroy "Satchel" Paige. Click here to listen to the audio of the interview.

Read More

Book Review: Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost - Lew Freedman

"Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost"
Lew Freedman
McFarland Publishing, 2009
210 pages


This week Mark Buehrle set a Major League record for consecutive outs with 45. His tremendous feat came on heels of pitching a perfect game, followed by almost another six "perfect" innings in the next game. Without fail during the media coverage of Buehrle's streak, Harvey Haddix's flirt with perfection 50 years prior was ushered to the forefront of baseball discussion. Chicago-based sportswriter Lew Freedman recreates the events of May 26, 1959 with his new book, Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost, placing the reader in a box seat for all of the action.

Imagine pitching not only nine innings of perfect baseball as Buehrle did, but pitching 12 in an extra inning game, only to lose in the end. To add insult to injury, 30-something years later, a minor rule change strikes your no-hitter from the record books. Such is the story of "Hard-Luck" Harvey Haddix.

Follow Haddix as he battles flu-like symptoms to silence the bats of greats such as Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron. Freedman keeps the reader on the edge of their seat as the game tightens with each zero placed on the board. Every inning, you receive insider commentary from Haddix's teammates as he records another trifecta. As the game goes along you hope that the Pirates can string together a few of their 12 hits off of Lew Burdette to push a runner across the plate.

You are clued into the mind of Manager Danny Murtaugh, dissecting each move as you approach the later stages of the contest. Will Murtaugh summon ace reliever Roy Face? Will a pinch-hitter appear for Haddix in the late innings? Conspicuously absent from the lineup was the injured Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, opening the door for Roman Mejias to start. Mejias would later gain infamy on a key play during the early stages of the game. Would the result have been different with the Puerto Rican star in the lineup?

In between the description of the game's events, Freedman delivers insightful profiles of the players on the field for Pittsburgh, allowing the reader to gain a look at lesser known players that contributed that day such as: Bob Skinner, Dick Schofield, Dick Stuart, Rocky Nelson, and Smoky Burgess.

Sadly, no footage of this game exists. The Pirates were on the road and the local TV station KDKA chose to show a speech of vice-president Richard Nixon instead of the game between the Braves and the Pirates. This is why this book excels. With the recently released footage of Don Larsen's perfect game, the mystique of what actually transpired has been diminished. It is no longer a story told by only those who were there to witness it. Freedman's script of Haddix's game and its surroundings only enhance the legend of Haddix's duel with Burdette. If you want an illumination of one baseball's most magical games, Freedman serves up a winner in detailing the greatest game ever lost.

Read More