The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

I've just started "The Art of Fielding"; great, great book!

Just an FYI - Aparicio Rodriguez, the author of the book within the book, is modeled after Luis Aparicio, one of the all-time great shortstops, who played for the Chicago White Sox in the late 50's to 60's, which is when I first began to play and follow baseball. Did you know, that in those days, there was only one game a week televised, on Saturdays, as "The Game of the Week"? The World Series was played in the day, and I remember pleading (to no avail) with my mom to let me stay home from school in the sixth grade to watch the Dodgers and the White Sox meet in the World Series. I had to listen to the games surreptitiously on my transistor radio.

The first game I attended was in 1959 when the Dodgers first moved to Los Angeles and were playing in the Coliseum, a setting that overwhelmed the game, being much too large. All I remember was that we were so far away from the field that it was hard to discern the players. The first game indelibly etched on my brain (and which was the second I attended) was in August of 1961 when Mantle and Maris were chasing Babe Ruth's home run record. My grandfather, a lifelong baseball fan who still lived in Los Angeles at the time, got tickets for the Yankees vs. the Los Angeles Angels, who were playing in a little bandbox of a stadium in LA, named Wrigley Field, built by the same Wrigley's who built Chicago's same, and which was the previous home of minor league baseball in LA. My grandpa took my mom (also a lifelong baseball fan, taking after her father) and I (we rode the train from Oxnard), and to this day, over 50 years later, I still remember my first glimpse of the green grass when we entered the stadium proper - it was as if I entered heaven. :-)

My grandpa really knew how to watch baseball, and imbued in me several habits which I practice to this day, the first being to be at the stadium when it first opened and to proceed directly to the lower level seats to watch batting practice. We did so on this day, and I ended up 10 feet away from Mickey Mantle, watching him hit ball after ball into the stratosphere.