Brooks on Books: 101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out

"101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out" by Josh Pahigian is a fun entry in the sports travel field. I enjoyed it very much as a pleasant, breezy read, but as a purchase or something for your permanent collection, it's kind of a tweener. This hardback is hefty enough to carry a $25.00 cover price but not big enough to be a coffee table book. It's useful enough as a source of ideas for baseball-themed road trips, but not detailed enough to be a comprehensive guide or road map.

The format is simple: 101 entries, in no apparent order, detailing the author's picks for interesting essential destinations for baseball fans. He avoids many obvious choices like, say, Wrigley Field itself, instead recommending the surrounding neighborhood of Wrigleyville.

Each entry offers a couple of pages of text; most offer a picture. Some choices are well known, such as the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York; but others are much more obscure, like Growden Memorial Park in Alaska, home of an annual Midnight Sun game, and the College Baseball Hall of Fame in Lubbock, Texas, which as of the book's writing was an exhibit at a library building on the Texas Tech campus. There are shrines and museums devoted to individual players like Bob Feller as well as some infamous locations like the Balco Labs site and the Alcor building where the frozen remains of Ted Williams are in storage.

There's a nice variety of places covered, ranging from ballparks to tombstones to restaurants, and any baseball fan with the coin and inclination to travel to these kinds of places ought to get at least one good road trip idea. Even the reader who is likely to stay in put will get some enjoyment out of the book. It's attractively designed, and Pahigian's text is engaging and enthusiastic. If nothing else, reading about these destinations will instill or rekindle an interest in the lore and the mythology of the game.

Is it worth 25 bucks? I'm not so sure about that. More pictures would make this a much more valuable package. I don't understand why a few entries have no pictures at all, and the image selection for those that do can be odd. For example, the entry on the St. Louis Walk of Fame doesn't show us the actual Walk, but presents a shot of Chuck Berry, Bob Costas, and Ozzie Smith at an induction ceremony. It's a nice pic, but I'd rather see what the text describes.

The format of the book gives the author little chance at depth, but he does a good job of summarizing the appeal of a particular place and putting it in context of the sport. Relevant info like hours of operation and admission fees are always included, and Pahigian tries to point out surrounding sites of interest and tips. But there is little geographical info or any advice on lodgings, traffic, and logistics like that. It's beyond the scope of the book and perhaps considered nonessential in this Google Maps age, but the lack of that material makes this more of a starter point than a solid travel guide. That's fine as far as it goes, but for 25 bucks...

If you can get it at a discount, I'd recommend this to any baseball fan, and it would make a nice gift, too. It's not a definitive resource, nor is it as detailed as it could be, but it is a charming survey of a host of cool baseball-related sites.