We began talking about this book soon after we published our last book, Paths to Glory, in 2003. Several projects intervened in the past twelve years, but we continually explored and shaped the themes in these pages via conversations, emails, and research. By the middle of 2012 we had both finally cleared the decks so that we could focus on this effort.
To provide us with an inside view, a number of current and former front-office executives generously spent time discussing baseball management and how it has evolved: John Schuerholz, Roland Hemond, Peter Bavasi, Pat Gillick, Bill Neukom, Tal Smith, and Sig Mejdal. Bill Fischer and Dr. Steve Korcheck offered firsthand insights into the Kansas City Baseball Academy. We also need to thank Marc Appleman, Adele MacDonald, Ethan Morss, and Rob Garratt for helping coordinate our interviews.
Several people read early drafts of one or more chapters: Vince Gennaro, Marc Gullickson, Bill Lamb, John Mathew IV, Tom Simon, Lyle Spatz, Steve Steinberg, Stew Thornley, Steve Treder, Mike Webber, Arnold Witt, and Mark Witt. Their comments helped immeasurably, and we hope they will agree that the version in these pages is an improvement.
We also acknowledge the efforts of Gabriel Schechter, who retrieved files from the Baseball Hall of Fame Library several times over the years for each of us. When we spent two days in Cooperstown in 2013, we were treated royally at the hall by Tim Wiles, Tom Shieber, Freddy Berowski, Maura Coonan, and Paul Vinelli.
Some of our research on the pace and shape of baseball’s integration, and the demographics of the game over the past seventy years (discussed in chapter 9), has been published on the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) website (most recently in 2013). Subsequently, we received quite a bit of useful feedback and suggestions from several people, including Michael Teevan and Pat Courtney (both from Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s Office), Tyler Kepner (New York Times), Paul Hagan (mlb.com), Adam Reiss (CNN), and Bob Nightengale (USA Today). Our presentation here is better for it.
Pat Kelly at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Sarah Coffin with the Boston Red Sox, Dennis Goldstein, David Eskenazi, and Howard Starkman eased the process of finding relevant photographs. Curt Nelson provided both images and insights for the Kansas City Baseball Academy. Cliff Blau provided an expert, professional fact-checking review.
We are both active members of SABR and have been continually educated by hundreds of conversations or email correspondences with fellow members. Those who have helped answer a question or two over the years specific to this book include Ron Antonucci, Dave Baldwin, Sam Bernstein, Jeff Bower, Sean Forman, Steve Gietschier, Tim Herlich, Bill Hickman, Kevin Johnson, Jonah Keri, Bruce Markuson, Gary Mitchem, Peter Morris, Rod Nelson, Rob Neyer, Bobby Plapinger, Jacob Pomrenke, Tom Ruane, John Stahl, Brad Sullivan, Mark Wernick, and Joe Williams.
Rob Taylor, Courtney Ochsner, Tish Fobben, Joeth Zucco, Annette Wenda, and the rest of the team at the University of Nebraska Press have been helpful and encouraging throughout the process.
Finally, we would like to thank our families—Jane, Maya and Drew; Suzy, Charlie and Joey—for their support through the many years of this project.