The Baseball - Zach Hample

The first half of The Baseball is about the history of the ball. All the different varieties, sizes, and materials it’s been made out of, and the response to each. The method by which it was accepted fans would keep balls hit into the stands, which wasn’t allowed widely until about 1920, because the owners didn’t want to pay for more baseballs. There’s a section on the complete process a baseball is made by today, and there’s a part about various stunts with baseballs, stories about people being hit by balls, either in the stands or on the field of play.

Some of that I found interesting. I hadn’t heard about Babe Ruth catching a ball dropped from an airplane, or Bob Uecker borrowing a marching band’s tuba and trying to shag flies with it (and the Cardinals getting stuck with the bill for a dented tuba). The chapter about how the dimensions and composition of the ball have changed over time could be largely summed up as: Offense declines. Sportswriters muse on introducing livelier ball. Offense increases. Sportswriters bemoan introduction of juiced ball (or “rabbit ball”). Baseball execs insist there is no difference in the ball, as do the manufacturers. Ballplayers insist they can tell there is a difference. Both sides enlist scientists to perform tests involving, variably, cannons, hacksaws, X-ray machines, and a variety of other implements. Repeat.

The second half of the book is about how to get your own ball at a game, as Hample has gotten over 4,600 balls at various games. Mostly during batting practice or warm-ups, but a ball is a ball. There’s suggestions about when to arrive, how to get to the lower levels if you didn’t buy a ticket, how to ask players or coaches, how to build a device you can lower into the bullpen or wherever to get a ball, that kind of thing. I skimmed that part. Getting a ball isn’t really a huge part of my interest in going to games these days, on the rare occasions I even go. So it wasn’t terribly relevant to my interests. For a person more intrigued by the subject, I think they’d find the book informative and entertaining. Hample has a very casual writing style. Some of his “footnotes” are a one word, sarcastic exclamation, and in another, where he gives tips on how to get past ushers, he muses on whether he should be encouraging criminal behavior, but concludes it’s OK, because who reads the footnotes?

‘Of all the wild theories about slumps, 1968 rang in the most outrageous. As offense plunged to historic lows, people went nuts trying to figure out why. One theory that emerged was that the balls were less lively because the yarn was less resilient because a metallic chemical element called molybdenum had been introduced to the diet of sheep in order to prevent a specific type of skin ailment and had therefore made the wool less fluffy.’