Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress

In the spring, I love to warm up to the upcoming baseball season by reading a book about the sport. It could be of a player, team, league, whatever, just as long as it's about baseball.

This year, even though the season has been suspended, hopefully not cancelled, due to the Coronavirus, I still went ahead with this tradition by reading Baseball Americana.

Baseball Americana is a lavishly illustrated history of America’s favorite sport, compiled from the unparalleled collections of the Library of Congress, now available from Smithsonian Books. From baseball’s biggest stars to street urchins, from its most newsworthy stories to sandlot and little League games, Baseball Americana tells the history of baseball’s hardscrabble origins, rich cultural heritage, and uniquely American character.

The book follows baseball from it's earliest days, the days before it's supposed invention in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, NY (yes, many years before that fabled story), to the 1970's.

Almost everything a person could think of is included in this book. What's remarkable and perhaps the most enjoyable thing about Baseball Americana, are all the photo's of people, fans, baseball cards, advertisements, and much more.

The book also points out some interesting facts which I never knew, such as the story of Jackie Mitchell, Jackie as in the female version of the name. Despite the fact there was a woman's major league in the 1940's, and smaller leagues around the continent, Jackie's story involves playing on a men's team.

Jackie was a 17 year old pitcher who, apparently, could throw a very nasty curve ball. On April 2, 1931, she was signed by the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts. On this day, after spring training, the New York Yankees visited Chattanooga for an exhibition game before the season started.

Jackie started the game for the Lookouts. The first batter she faced? The one and only Babe Ruth, who swung and missed on the first two pitches and was called out while watching the third strike fly by him. He tossed his bat in disgust.

The next batter? Non other than Lou Gehrig, who struck out swinging on all three pitches. She walked the next batter and was pulled from the game.

And that was it for her minor and major league career as two days later, the commissioner of baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, declared her contract null and void and barred woman from baseball. A disgusting decision to be sure. This is the picture shown in the book, before the game, with Lou Gerhig, Jackie Mitchell, Joe Engel and Babe Ruth.

For any baseball fan, this is a great read, one I highly recommend.

Reinvention: Changing Your Life, Your Career, Your Future by Arlene Dickinson

 My wife, Teena, read Reinvention: Changing You Life, Your Career, Your Future by Arlene Dickinson. She did a review of it and recommended it to me.

At fifty-seven, Arlene Dickinson’s life was turned upside down. Her company was on the brink of disaster. Her sense of herself as a strong, confident leader was in tatters. She was overwhelmed by feelings of loss, fear, and shame. Five years later, her business is booming, she’s never been happier or more excited about the future, and she’s raised tens of millions of dollars and built a whole ecosystem to help other entrepreneurs.

How did she turn things around? By following the process she’s always used to transform underperforming companies—only this time, she used it to transform her own life. Applying business principles to her personal life helped her figure out very quickly where she wanted to go and how to get there. Having a clear set of practical steps to follow kept her on track when emotions threatened to derail her progress.

In Reinvention, Dickinson shares this blueprint for locating your sense of purpose, realistically evaluating your strengths, assessing opportunities outside your comfort zone, and charting a bold new path. Whether you have a big career dream to achieve, or you need to rebuild after a personal setback, this step-by-step plan for reinvention will help you change your own life—for the better.

I thought it was good. It's not just a self help book, but a story of how Arlene dealt with a disaster in her life. She had to change the way she thought of herself, presented herself and surprisingly, how to build and keep confidence. I really appreciated a line near the end of the book: ""Don'y deny the world the contribution that only you can make. Whether that's being a better parent, or a better executive, or a better artist ... "

My hope, when I read a book of this sort, is to be able to get something out of it. I did which made it an enjoyable and worthwhile read for me.

About Arlene Dickinson

Arlene is a venture capitalist on the hit CBC TV show Dragons' Den, the co-host of  The Business of Life Podcast and the #1 bestselling author of Persuasion. Dickinson is the owner and CEO of Venture Communications, a company she grew from a small local firm to one of the largest independent agencies in Canada, and the founder of District ventures, Canada's top accelerator for entrepreneurs in the food, beverage and health sectors.