Book update No. 15 — change of scenery

March 24, 2010

I haven’t been getting out much lately. The book has completely taken over my life. I’ve taken three days off from it since December 16th, and as I mentioned last week on Twitter, I survived a stretch of voluntary home confinement that reached 153 consecutive hours. 

Well, today, at the suggestion of my girlfriend, I took my laptop up to the roofdeck and did some work there — and of course there’s photographic documentation:

I would’ve stayed longer, but it was a bit cold (56 degrees) and windy.

The book itself is coming along — not as fast as I’d hoped, but it’s getting there. Overall, I’m up to 61,194 words. Watching Baseball Smarter was about 64,000, and I still have a long way to go on the new one, so it’ll end up being considerably longer. Part Three (the how-to-snag portion of the new book) is currently up to 13,281 words. That’s the part I’m working on now. I recently finished a section called “Foul Ball Theory,” and now I’m trying to plow through a section about catching game home run balls. I was hoping to finish Part Three by Opening Day, but there’s no way that’s gonna happen. Even when I do finish that part of the book, I’ll still need to write a few more chapters that I skipped earlier. The whole thing is supposed to be done and totally edited by July 15th. (Ha.)

In other book news, I recently had two new baseball books sent to me by friends. The first is called The Baseball Codes by Jason Turbow, and the second (which hasn’t officially been released yet) is Rickwood Field by Allen Barra. Check ’em out:

I’m so ridiculously busy with my own writing these days that I don’t have time to read anyone else’s, but I did skim through both of these books, and I read a few sections, and I liked what I saw. If you own a copy of Watching Baseball  

Smarter, then you know I have a two-page section in Chapter 9 called “Unwritten Rules.” (I’m pointing to it in the photo on the right.) Well, The Baseball Codes is basically a whole book about guys breaking those rules, and it’s filled with colorful stories and quotes. Rickwood Field has a lot of great historical stuff. Yes, it’s a minor league ballpark, but it was also home to several Negro League teams and for major league Spring Training back in the day. Some of the biggest names in baseball history (Babe Ruth, Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Honus Wagner, Hank Aaron, etc.) played there, and there are some amazing stories about these players that I’d never heard. So…if you’re looking for an interesting read, you might want to pick up these books. And when I finally finish writing mine, I’ll be digging back into them.

Written by Zack Hample Posted in Dailies