Congratulations to Brad Smith whose novel, Bill Crawford’s Double Play, has been added to the 2026 long list for the annual Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The list of 10 will be parried down to three, which will revealed in mid-May. The winner of the Medal and $25,000 prize will be celebrated at an annual gala dinner in Orillia, Ontario, in June.
Wendy Parker, who hosts the excellent SportsBibioReader blog, focuses on baseball and television in her latest post.
She also posted this thoughtful essay, which mirrors some of what I’m feeling about baseball these days, “The temptation of falling out of love with sports: Growing older, or perhaps viewing youthful obsessions differently.” I am often asked about baseball these days and have to admit I no longer follow the current game as much as I used to. I could tell you who was the second baseball for the Washington Senators in 1968 (Bernie Allen) but can’t name one player on the current White Sox.
The Beloit Daily News posted this feature about John Graf‘s new book, Simulating Satchel: A What-If History of Integrated Major League Baseball in 1934. Why that year? From the Daily News, “The 1934 season leaped out at me because of all the Negro League greats who would have been players in their primes that year,” according to the author. “Satchel Paige in real life turned 27 during the season and Dizzy Dean won 30 games. And there were a whole bunch of Hall of Famers among the Black players who I added to the 16 teams in what were the exclusionary majors. The simulation game I used to play the schedule — Strat-O-Matic — had all of those teams and players available to recreate what might have been.”
Frank Tursi will discuss his new book, Tar Heel Boys of Summer: North Carolina’s Major League Ballplayers, on Saturday, April 25, at the Core Sound Museum Store, 806 Arendell St. in Morehead City.
I wish I had these problems. From The Athletic, “Hate doing your taxes? Be thankful you don’t have to do an MLB player’s books.”