SANDLOT STORIES
Book Review by George Vrechek
SCD reader Steven Hayes Young recently brought to my attention the book Sandlot Stories co-edited with Marcella Parsons. SCD readers and advertisers are among the 44 people who each contribute a short story to the 168-page compilation. Using only a few pages each, writers recall their fond memories of the self-organized sandlot games of their youths. The tales are generally void of adults, uniforms, box scores, and umpires. The rules of baseball are creatively altered to account for the trees, streets, houses, and ditches that framed the “sandlots.” Not surprisingly there are ample references to baseball cards and autograph collecting. While the stories are predominately centered on sandlot baseball, it is an easy transition to understand why collectors are nostalgic about the cards and autograph collecting as well as the sandlot baseball games. The Baseball Hall of Fame has added the book to its library as a chronicle of sandlot baseball.
The stories have a definite West Coast flavor with contributors coming from California, Nevada, Washington, and Japan. A few Midwesterners and New Yorkers add to the mix, but it is the West Coast orientation that is a pleasant break from the many endeavors dealing with Mickey, Willie, and the Duke. A few samples that connect to SCD:
• Transplanted New Yorker and SCD subscriber Allen Statler describes the variations of street ball games played in “… the Summer of ’47.” You had punch ball, stick ball, and whiz ball depending on the ages of the participants, the urban environment, and the equipment available. Statler also later had the 1950 and 1951 Bowmans to keep track of the players imitated in the games. He has since become quite the collector of Reggie Jackson memorabilia.
• Hobbyist Dave Sutton’s memories are of trying to get in games with his older brother and then seeing his brother collect and trade cards. It rubbed off. He has also become a Reggie collector.
• SCD advertiser Bill Corcoran played sandlot ball while growing up in Syracuse. Bill and his buddy made a point of playing everyday; it was often just the two of them and a lot of imagination. At night they would go see the Syracuse Chiefs practice and then play. By being at the park early they were able to get autographs. Autograph collecting became a life-long pursuit leading to Bill’s idea of going after the hard to find players. Bill has traveled the world of baseball and obtained the “tough ones” developing a huge inventory of baseball autographs.
• Pete Dobbins writes about thirty-nine years of collecting autographs of big leaguers with his dad, the late hobbyist and photographer Dick Dobbins. Pete had the advantage of having photos of the players taken by his dad and some easier access to the players. However, he had to be assertive and persistent in getting players like Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, and Reggie Jackson to sign at Candlestick or Oakland.
Sandlot Stories is an easy read, thanks to Marcella Parsons’ editing. Several other women (Suzanne Lee, Connie Young Yu, “Grandma Mary”) add considerably to the mix with stories about being accepted in playing with boys or in new surroundings. While the stories are similar, it is interesting to see how the boys and girls from backgrounds ranging from China, Japan, the West Coast to the East Coast, had so much in common re-inventing the rules of baseball for the sandlots of years ago.
Sandlot Stories by Marcella Parsons & Steven Hayes Young, 2003 ARose Books, $10.95
 Picture
shows Allen Statler and Dave Sutton at Lefty O’Doul’s in San Francisco
after the Giant’s Event announcing Sandlot Stories
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