Book Review
Even though the 2010 World Series is entering its final phase now that the playoffs are over, baseball fans don’t have to wait until spring training to get their “fix.”
“Roadside Baseball” (2003, Sporting News division of Vulcan Sports Media, Inc, St. Louis, MO, $16.95) by Chris Epting, maps out places where fans can find historic traces of a stadium, a home plate, a players’ home and a museum that recounts memorable moments.
An ardent researcher and appreciator of baseball and interesting culture landmarks, Epting divides up the places he has uncovered by geographic locations across the United States and into Canada.
All a baseball fan has to do when traveling to Florida or Arizona to escape winter weather or to any US destination to see friends or family is leaf through a state’s chapter to see what historic baseball location is nearby.
Even an armchair traveler who reads through the chapters will be saying, “I didn’t know that.”
In a foreword by Emmy award winning announcer Joe Buck, the sportscaster says: “Even if you consider yourself the foremost authority on the history of the game, this book can’t help but put a smile on your face. It put one on mine because its pages are filled with information that I thought I knew but really didn’t; stories of which I was totally unaware and now am glad I know.”
Speachless.
For us Cubs fans there is always ‘next season.’ That is what gets us through winter.