The Off Season
Plus: The Golden Buttons!
Dear All,
This is the latest episode of Don’t Press That Button, a newsletter about books and music and movies and cats and baseball and whatnot. As the name would indicate, we are very cautious about buttons around here. Buttons are tempting, but so are a lot of things.
Claw machines come to mind. I find claw machines very, very tempting. Have you ever won anything from a claw machine? I have! I’ve won some perfectly wonderful shit from claw machines. I’d go so far as to say that we are living in a Golden Age of Claw Machines. Some people don’t know that. But with claw machines, if the stuffed animals are packed too tight, or — more commonly — if the claw has a weak grip, it’s hopeless and you can’t win and that sucks. So, you need to take a close look at the whole apparatus. Is the claw machine going to play fair?
Same goes for buttons. We want to understand what the button does before we smack that thing.
We play fair here: the button below simply subscribes you to this newsletter. That’s it. And it’s free! If you’re new here, and you’d like to stick around, you can safely do so by clicking on it.
Some Baseball Reading
I won’t pretend that current events don’t have me a little down in the mouth. Maybe you feel the same way?
My first instinct at moments like these is to fall back onto baseball, but we find ourselves in the nightmare canyon between the end of one season and the beginning of another. Probably the thing I love most about baseball is the way that, during the season, it organizes my life. Game time is a horizon point; even if I’m not planning to watch, I’m certainly going to want to check in on the score. You can always look forward to baseball.
Luckily, there are still books about baseball! They can’t sort out my existence for me, but they entertain me and help keep me occupied while I wait for the season to come around again. Here’s a (noncomprehensive) list of some good nonfiction ones1. If you have a baseball fan in your life, the answer to your holiday shopping dilemma might well be here:
Power Ball by Rob Neyer — I believe I recommended my friend Rob’s book in a previous episode of DPTB, but I’m not afraid to give it a curtain call. It’s a witty, searching chronicle of a single regular season game in 2017, and if you follow the game closely, you’ll find it especially interesting in relation to the rule changes that were introduced in 2023 and 2024. I suspect that this book was passed around the MLB Commissioner’s office.
Hall of Name by D.B. Firstman — You will marvel and cackle at D.B. Firstman’s investigation of baseball names. There is so much delight in these pages.
Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets’ First Year by Jimmy Breslin — Here’s a taste:
“The bartender put in a couple of fistfuls of ice chunks into a big, thick mixing glass and then proceeded to make a Tom Collins that had so much gin in it that the other people at the bar started to laugh. He served the drink to the Babe just as it was made, right in the mixing glass.
Ruth said something about how heavens to Betsy hot he was, and then he picked up the glass and opened his mouth, and there went everything. In one shot he swallowed the drink, the orange slice and the rest of the garbage, and the ice chunks too. He stopped for nothing. There is not a single man I have ever seen in a saloon who does not bring his teeth together a little bit and stop those ice chunks from going in. A man has to have a pipe the size of a trombone to take ice in one shot.”
Foul Balls by Alison Gordon — Alison Gordon was a groundbreaking beat reporter for the Blue Jays in the late seventies and eighties, and — you might be sensing a theme here — her memoir of the time is as funny as they come. I can’t stand that this book is out of print, and I have to believe that will change in the not-too-distant future. It’s too important. In the meantime, it’s worth the trouble of digging up a copy, I promise.
The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball and the Art of Pitching by Ron Darling — This book has a nifty structure, stepping from particular innings (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) at particular moments throughout Darling’s career. It shows him discovering and mastering his craft, then at the height of his powers, and finally, beautifully, faltering at the tail end of his career in the 9th.
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James — No list of baseball texts is complete without a Bill James book. Open it up to any page and get lost.
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter — My absolute favorite book about baseball, and a terrific document of American life in the early twentieth century. The stories the players tell about their lives are as fascinating as their recollections of the sport in its dead-ball era.
The Latest
My friends at Oblong Books are now taking preorders for signed copies2 of the Self Help graphic novel that collects the first five issues. With Self Help: Lie Another Day, the concluding arc of the series — also five issues long — arriving at comic stores around the same time, here’s your opportunity to catch up with Jerry Hauser and his great big mess. Important note: these will be signed just by me. My co-writer Jesse Kellerman and all the other members of the team are unfortunately too far away.
My local store, October Country, has a few signed copies of the single issues if you’d like to get in touch about having one shipped to you. Again, these are just signed by me.
There will always be digital copies of the comic.
Will there be any in-person appearances? I hope so! We are working on that. Please stay tuned. Jesse and I are scheming to put at least one or two together. Suggestions for comic stores and/or conventions to visit are certainly welcome!
2024 DPTBers Awards: The “Gold Buttons”
I was just about to send this newsletter out when it occurred to me that I’m legally obligated to make a 2024 best-of list. Fine! Let’s inaugurate the DPTBers — the “Gold Buttons” — the newsletter’s official award. We have three honorees:
Best Kitten: Marmur
This was not a close competition.
Best Book: James by Percival Everett
It’s as stunning as you’ve heard.
Best Song: “Archbishop Harold Holmes” by Jack White
Listen and tell seven friends!
All right, all right, all right! That’s all I have today, and probably for the remainder of the year. Thanks for subscribing.
In case you ever have a question or a comment or just want to say hi, if you reply to the email, I will see it. I’m over on Threads and Instagram, too, if you’d like to follow along there.
Until 2025,
Owen
We’ll save baseball fiction for somewhere down the line.
They have signed copies of most of my other books, too, and signed books by many other writers, as well.