How is "Baseball: The Movie" Doing?

I don't know, but here's how I'm doing.

I don’t love it when writers open a post by apologizing that it has been so long since their last post. As a reader, I can tell you: It’s not keeping us up nights. But here I am, apologizing. This has been an exceedingly busy time for me. Also, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to move forward with the Substack now that the book tour is essentially over (there are two more events coming, and I’ll post about them below). I’ve got some ideas, and I’ll probably announce something soon. Until then, ya know…sorry.

Someone asked me recently, “How does it feel to have your book out there in the world?” I responded by asking them how much time they have. Then we talked about how authors do so much press around the release of their book, but they rarely get to talk about how it actually feels. It’s a complicated thing. You spend years of one’s life on a single work, finish it on a deadline (not because it’s actually finished), and then let the world weigh in on it. When you’re finished with it, they start with it. In many ways, Baseball: The Movie is my past. I wrote it in the last years of my marriage. So much has happened since then. It’s so strange for people to pick it up, look at the name on the front cover, and talk to me about it. In a way, that’s not me anymore.

For starters, there are the mistakes. I should have predicted this, but baseball quibblers have come out of the woodwork to point out the errors in the book. Are there a lot? I don’t know what a lot is. But some readers feel that there are a lot. I mistakenly wrote that it was Vin Scully and not Jack Buck who called Kirk Gibson’s famous home run in the 1988 World Series. I wrote that the Baltimore Orioles were a major league team when Babe Ruth played for them, when in fact they were a minor league team. Apparently, I referred to Janet Reno as the first woman Secretary of State, when I meant Attorney General. Did I actually confuse her for Madeleine Albright? No, but I was going back and forth on which one I was going to cite as a sign of progress for women in politics in the ‘90s, and I must have gotten confused.

I’m not sure I should be highlighting these mistakes. Odds are that you didn’t notice them, or if you did, you were kind enough not to confront me with them. They eat away at me a bit because I know I would have caught many of them if I had a little more time. One of the hardest things about writing and reviewing a book is simply seeing what’s on the page. “To see what is in front of one’s nose requires constant struggle,” wrote George Orwell, and while I think he was talking about politics, he was first and foremost a writer who no doubt struggled with revisions. I did three or four full revisions before I turned in my manuscript, and I caught mistakes on every one. No doubt I would have caught more—if only I had more time.

So there’s time, and then there’s tone.  Some readers have complained that the book is “too woke.” I anticipated this. Baseball is a conservative sport, and many fans don’t like it when social justice is introduced. They don’t understand that the lack of social justice isn’t baseball, it’s bigotry. They didn’t like it when Jackie Robinson broke the color line, and they don’t like it when Latino players give their postgame interviews in Spanish, and they don’t like it when I note that The Sandlot erases Negro Leagues history. This response was inevitable, and I don’t wish I had softened my critiques, but I do think I could have made some of my arguments a little more eloquently. Maybe I could have persuaded some of these unenlightened readers over to my way of thinking. Instead, I wrote with the view that this was my first book, and maybe my last, and I was going to write what I meant, goddamit.

I’m still proud of that. Baseball: The Movie is a pure expression of my being. It’s about the things I love in the ways that I love them. And I’m thrilled that so many people have responded well to it. Yet this nagging dissatisfaction is there and will always be there. That I could have done better if I had more time or more experience.  It’s a hard, complicated thing to talk about, which is probably why no journalists ever ask about it and authors aren’t so keen to initiate a discussion on it. I wonder if it’s the reason authors move on so quickly to the next project. To avoid thinking about the last one and trying to wrestle these conflicting feelings into a single narrative. We can do it with the lives of others, but it’s hard to do with ourselves.

So I’m not going to rush into my next book. Yes, I have an idea. Two, actually. I’m exploring them on paper right now, but there’s no urgency to get the proposal into fighting shape. I have all the time in the world, and I’ll use that time to live in these contradictions. To feel my feelings about Baseball: The Movie. More importantly, I’ll voice them. In the last couple of years, I’ve come to believe in radical honesty as a means to better relationships and personal happiness. Holding in feelings is toxic: for you, for those around you, and for the world. I apologize for the short sermon, but I really believe we’d all be better off if we just shared what was on our minds. This post represents a snippet of what’s on mine.

Oh, and to answer the question literally: It has only sold about 2,000 copies so far, which is better than 95% of books that get published and worse than I had hoped.

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The aforementioned events are:

On September 8, I’ll be a the Rialto in Raleigh, NC to introduce a screening of John Sayles’s Eight Men Out, one of the best baseball films. I don’t think you can come to this one, as it’s for members of The Cinema, Inc. only. If you live near Raleigh and want to join The Cinema Inc., which arranges private screenings year-round, you can get more info here. 

This one you can come to! On October 3, I’ll be at Yale Film Archive for a FREE screening of Moneyball. After the film, I’ll be in conversation with the great Bilge Ebiri of Vulture. Bilge is one of the most knowledgeable critics around and an all-around great guy. If you’re anywhere in the area, you won’t want to miss this. There is no registration. Just show up. More info here.