Peter Schilling will be at Barbara's Bookstore (Halsted and Roosevelt) on April 25 at 7:30 to discuss his debet novel The End of Baseball.  I don't know much about this guy, except that he is NOT the German synth-pop from the 80s.  I just thought I would give you guys a heads up on this baseball related event in and around the South Side of Chicago.   Also, I hear there will be complimentary beer and Cracker Jacks.  Here are a couple blurbs about the book:

Publishers Weekly (Monday , February 25, 2008):
With this debut, sportswriter Schilling has written one of the best baseball novels since Howard Frank Mosher's "Waiting for Teddy Williams". Using actual events, Schilling has fictionalized a fantasy scenario in baseball history and the integration of black players into the major leagues in 1944. Bill Veeck Jr., a Marine veteran from a prestigious baseball family, buys the Philadelphia Athletics in 1943, becoming the youngest man to ever own a major league club. Veeck is a genius at publicity and promotion who wants to win the World Seriesbut using black players. He signs the best of the Negro League to the Athletics, against all conventional feeling and the opposition of Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the vicious commissioner of baseball. The Athletics romp through the 1944 season behind the on-and-off diamond antics of real-life stars like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Roy Campanella, with Veeck struggling to raise money, avoid race riots and flummox Judge Landis. This exciting, fast-paced story is a fine commentary on baseball lore, race relations, and American sentiment during World War II, and it will have the reader hanging on every pitch, wondering how Veeck and his players will overcome racial discrimination to prove they can play in the major leagues. "(May)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Brief Description:
Hungry for a pennant, young Veeck jettisons the team's white players and secretly recruits the legendary stars of the Negro Leagues, fielding a club that will go down in baseball annals as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Here are the behind-the-scenes adventures that bring this dream to reality, and a cast of characters only history's pen could create: the players themselves-the tragic Josh Gibson, the remarkable but self-centered Satchel Paige, the Cuban wonder Martin Dihigo, the veteran stalwarts Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, and Buck Leonard, and the rising stars Roy Campanella, Artie Wilson, and Dave Barnhill--plus Walter Winchell, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and J. Edgar Hoover! The End of Baseball is the most rollicking, free-spirited baseball yarn in years, the unvarnished truth of that incredible season and the men who lived it.

Defensive Indifference:

"This book sounds weird."

I realize that it's only one game but Ozzie missed an opportunity to let his actions speak for all of his Spring Training talk.  There were three very questionable calls by the umpires today, which clearly effected the outcome of the game.  Ozzie came out three times, nodded politely, and proceeded back to the dugout every time.  While I don't think it's necassary to pull a Bobby Cox every time there is a questionable call, or that arguing calls will get you better calls later, I do believe that Ozzie led with his mouth on this one.

All spring we heard Ozzie saying that he's going back to old Ozzie.  That he's going to be setting a fire under these guys.  Immediately he has the opportunity to fight for his men, especially Crede who was clearly upset, and he does absolutely nothing.  I don't think this necessarily hurts the team but I do think Ozzie held the match to light the proverbial fire under the asses of this team.

Instead, Ozzie laid down and died.

How do you feel?

Now, I know we're all too "old" for this kind of thing, or shouldn't be worried about such superficialities during a tense playoff run, but I'll try this anyway.  Besides, it's raining so much that nobody is coming into my place of employment, so here goes...

If you were on the Sox, what song would you have them play as you came up to bat?  Or do you have better suggestions for any of the guys on our team?  Remember that they only play about the first twenty seconds of it.

I don't know if you could see on television but there was a fire somewhere outside of the stadium that eventually filled the place with smoke (especially up top where I was), which I think caused the incredibly soar throat I have this morning.  Anyway, baseball...

If the Sox had gone past the fourth and still hadn't scored I think it would've been time to get a little nervous.  But luckily they woke up and realized that Mark Redman All-Star is, when all is said and done, a Royals pitcher.  The eight run inning had everyone getting into the action except Jermaine Dye (saw one pitch and it hit him) and Pablo Ozuna (who I guess did have a sacrifice).  The Sox have had opportunities for huge innings like this a lot lately and have not taken advantage (second inning, 1st and 3rd, no outs, and get no runs?), so it was nice to see them cash in when they had the other team down.

It was also good to get Dye and Joe Crede out of the game after the big inning.  I cannot remember the last time Crede grabbed some bench.  And althought I was highly disappointed I didn't get to see more of my favorite right fielder, and the sign a girl in our group had made went to waste, you don't want to see him go out there after being hit in the leg with a pitch.

What more can you say about a game like this?  We seem to be clicking on all cylinders again but it is bound to seem that way when KC's pitching comes up against an offense as powerful as ours.  I don't want to take three of four this series, I want the whole shebang.  An eight game win streak in August is ALWAYS good.  Then we'll take the show on the road for the Twins and Tigers.

And props to Brian Anderson for his 3-3, 1 BB, 2 RBI, 1 HR night that raised his batting average to .225!

Here's a little shameless promotion (only because some of you might be interested):

Barbara's Bookstore at 1218 S. Halsted (@ Roosevelt) is hosting a reading of "When Chicago Ruled Baseball" by Bernard Weisberger, which details the last Cubs/Sox World Series (100 years ago already!), on Wednesday, May 17 @ 7:30 p.m.

The second event, on May 25 @7:30 p.m. is a reading of "Say It's So: The White Sox Magical Season" by Phil Rogers of the Chicago-Tribune.  I'm sure you can guess what this book is about.

Hope a lot of people can make it to Barbara's for these events!