Pub. Note: This is a May 25 post by Mike Flynn, retired publisher of the Puget Sound Business Journal, in his popular “Flynn’s Harp” blog. It’s about plans for a new baseball book, from the fans’ perspective, by Nick Del Calzo. As Mike notes in the post, Nick is my former fraternity brother (Theta Chi) at Bowling Green (O.) State University in the late ’50s. Nick has asked me to serve as editor of the baseball book.
Nick Del Calzo’s idea for a baseball memory book didn’t come about, as might be presumed, in this COVID-19 period, when many fans of the sport fear memories may have to sustain them if months, or longer, have to pass before they can again go out to the ballgame.
Rather, the plans for his book of stories and photos titled My Baseball Story. The Game’s Influence On America, began being framed in Del Calzo’s mind more than a year ago, with his conviction that “baseball is about life.”
And his intent is to tap the stories—not of players or games or statistics—but of those whose experiences provide “stories of how baseball transcends the field and affects lives.”
Del Calzo’s idea for a commemorative book on baseball won’t be the first of its kind for the Denver marketing executive. His Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty, originally published in 2007 and twice reprinted to add new recipients, was a New York Times Best Seller.
We met late last year, after an introduction by Steve Crandall of Seattle’s ProMotion Arts, whose father, Bruce Crandall of Kitsap County, was a Medal of Honor recipient and among those included in Del Calzo’s Portraits of Valor publication. I’ve written about Crandall’s heroic role as a helicopter pilot, flying 19 times into a battlefield death zone to carry in supplies and to carry out wounded from the Battle of Ia Drang.
Del Calzo shared with me what he hoped to collect in the coming months.
“For more than seven decades, I’ve never lost the vivid memories of when my older brother took my sister and me, when I was 11 years old, to Yankee Stadium in 1948 to see Babe Ruth lying in state, as more than 100,000 people filed by to pay their last respects.”
I told Del Calzo I had both a good memory and a bad one about baseball. The latter was when my dad, filling in as field umpire, cost me the American Legion batting title in Spokane as a Junior in high school by calling me out on an infield hit, when I clearly beat the ball to the first baseman’s glove by two steps. He was not going to take a chance of being accused of favoritism!
The good memory was when, in 2006 soon after I retired as publisher of the Business Journal, Mariners CEO John Ellis and President Chuck Armstrong let me throw out the first pitch at a game.
Armstrong had counseled me that the ball always comes in lower than you intend it to, when you throw from the pitcher’s mound, explaining that people who aim for the catcher’s mitt usually bounce the ball.
“Aim over the guy’s head, and it will come down toward the mitt,” he counseled. “And don’t pay any attention to the crowd or the noise. Kick the dirt on the mound a bit and focus on that for a few seconds before you look up and throw.”
It turned out to be good advice. The pitch—that Armstrong later joked “looked like a slow changeup”—went into the catcher’s mitt.
Del Calzo has other books that have received memorable reviews, including The Triumphant Spirit: Portraits & Stories of Holocaust Survivors, published in 1997, with the writing done by the daughter of a holocaust survivor. The Medal of Honor book was a joint endeavor with the Medal of Honor Foundation, which retained Peter Collier to write the stories.
Nick’s already collected several stories to provide examples of what the baseball book will include. One is by NASA astronaut Mike Massimino who, on his first space flight in March of 2002, wore a jersey of his beloved New York Mets. Two months later, when the Mets visited his hometown of Houston, Massimino took his wife and daughter to the ballpark and then-Mets manager Bobby Valentine asked Massimino to sign a picture.
Del Calzo has another Seattle connection. He was a college fraternity brother of Larry Coffman, founder and owner of MARKETRING, the long-time print and online publication for the local marketing and advertising community.
The baseball story that I’ve always found most compelling was of the three-year-old boy whose father took him to the first Tacoma professional baseball game in 55 years, as the then-Tacoma Giants played their opening-day game.
That ignited a life-long affection for Mikal Thomsen with his hometown team that has lasted the 50 years. Since then, he grew up and became a cellular-industry’s icon. When the now-Tacoma Rainiers team came up for sale, Mikal led a group that bought the franchise.
Nick’s book will include at least 100 personal stories, submitted by individuals—both regular fans and professional writers—whose lives were touched by a baseball experience. He has begun a social-media campaign to solicit the stories.
Offered Del Calzo: “With the great uncertainty facing the 2020 baseball season, what better time to reflect on how the great game of baseball has had an influence on our lives, both as individuals and as a society.”
(Editor’s note: If you have a story you’d like to submit for consideration, go to www.mybaseballstory.com to complete the submission form.