Kevin Baker: The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City

The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City — Kevin Baker — Knopf Publishing – 9780375421839 – Hardcover — 528 pages — $35.00 — March 5, 2024 — ebook versions available at lower prices

I am guessing that anyone who knows me well will be aware that baseball has been a lifelong passion. I’ve written baseball poetry and stories, interviewed former players, and talked to writers about baseball many times over the years. I’ve read hundreds of baseball books, and published a few as well.  Among the legion of great baseball novels, Kevin Baker’s Sometimes You See it Coming is one of my all time favorites. And of all the nonfiction baseball books I’ve come across, his newest book, The New York Game is among the very best.

In this The New York Game, Kevin tells the history of America’s greatest city through the lens of America’s greatest game. He is a masterful story teller, weaving together multiple strands of cultural, political, economic, and geographic history to create a brilliant tapestry from the beginning era that baseball was invented in the New York City environs, through its glory years, ending with World War II (and leaving us waiting for the sequel that will cover the 80 years since).

One element that sets this book apart from so many other books about baseball history is that Baker seamlessly writes about the often overlooked stories of Black and Hispanic baseball players and particularly the crucial importance of the Negro Leagues in American sports history. Race and sports reflect back all the flaws and foibles of the American experiment in sometimes painful and jarring ways. Understanding (and facing) how baseball – its ownership, management, players, and fans – dealt with race and racialism over the course of American history is crucial to understanding who we are today.

Even readers who think they know all about New York City baseball will learn from this book, and will enjoy Baker’s stories about the game, always cast in his fast-moving, highly literate style. There are so many stories, vignettes, portraits and analyses, it is impossible to list them all, not just the already famous, but many figures even those of us who have studied baseball or grew up in New York will have heard of before.

I’ve interviewed Kevin twice before for Writerscast, including for his excellent socio-political economic book about modern New York City, The Fall of a Great American City. (co-published by City Point Press and Harper’s Magazine in 2019).

I cannot recommend this new book more highly, even for those who do not identify as baseball fans. Not only will you gain a deeper understanding of the history of our largest and most dynamic city, you’ll be entertained throughout by a master storyteller. It’s one of those rare books you will have trouble putting down once you start reading.

Author website

Buy the book.

Writerscast interview with Kevin about The Fall of a Great American City

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Kevin Baker: The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence

The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence – Kevin Baker (foreword by James Howard Kunstler) – 9781947951143 – City Point Press/Harper’s Magazine – Hardcover – 176 pages – October 8, 2019 – eBook editions available at lower prices.

Kevin Baker has been one of my favorite writers for many years. He authored a wonderful baseball novel, Sometimes You See It Coming, based loosely on the life of Ty Cobb, but set in the modern day. I have read that book at least twice. Later, I was fortunate to work with Kevin on a project for the History Channel, and I have long appreciated his nonfiction history writing as well. When I read his essay in the July, 2018 issue of Harper’s Magazine, where Kevin often publishes on current affairs, called The Death of a Once Great City, I felt strongly that this story needed to be read as widely as possible. Kevin’s perceptive observations about New York City and its modern real estate-based problems, resonated with my own experience of the direction that modern American culture is moving. His piece seemed to me important enough to be made into a book.

Harper’s John MacArthur and Lynn Carlson agreed with my thinking, and together with Kevin, we worked out an arrangement for publication of an expanded and enhanced version of Kevin’s original essay to be published in book form by my imprint, City Point Press. I am very pleased to have been able to work with Kevin and Harper’s on what is now called The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence.

This is the story of what is happening today in New York City and in many other cities across America. It is about how the crisis of affluence is now driving out everything we love most about cities: small shops, decent restaurants, public space, street life, affordable apartments, responsive government, beauty, idiosyncrasy, each other. This is the story of how we came to lose so much—how the places we love most were turned over to land bankers, billionaires, the worst people in the world, and criminal landlords—and how we can – and must – begin to take them back.

I think this is an important story and hope my listeners will agree. I do not usually talk to writers about books I have published myself for Writerscast, as I do not want this podcast to be about the books I publish rather than the books I read. But in this case, since I came to this book through the original essay that I did read, I think it is meaningful to present my conversation with Kevin for your listening enjoyment.

Kevin is a terrific writer, and this book presents a strong case for rethinking our approach to modern urban life. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and many other cities are all suffering through the same sorts of real estate crises. I was not alone in being moved by Kevin’s piece in Harper’s – the magazine has reported that the original essay was one of the most read of all pieces it has ever published and has “gone viral” online to reach a vast audience.

This story affects us all and challenges us to rethink how we approach the public good.

Kevin Baker grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, graduated from Columbia University in New York City in 1980, and since then has earned his living as a writer and editor. Dreamland, part of Baker’s New York‚ City of Fire trilogy was published in 1999, Paradise Alley issued in 2002, and the third and final volume of the trilogy, Strivers Row, was published in 2006. Kevin was the chief historical researcher on Harold Evans’ best–selling history, The American Century, published in 1999. He wrote the monthly “In the News” column for American Heritage magazine from 1998-2007, and has been published in the New York Times, the New Republic, Politico.com, New York magazine, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and of course, Harper’s magazine, among other publications. He is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow for nonfiction. Kevin is married and lives in New York City.

You can purchase books featured on Writerscast from indie bookseller, RJ Julia. Buy The Fall of a Great American City here.

Visit Kevin Baker’s website here.

Visit City Point Press here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Kevin Baker: Luna Park (Graphic Novel)

978-1401224264 – paperback – Vertigo – $14.99

Luna Park is an outstanding first graphic novel by historian and novelist Kevin Baker.  Baker is certainly well-known for his best selling New York City based trilogy of historical novels (Paradise Alley, Dreamland and Strivers Row).  And recently he was the consultant for the History Channel’s extremely fine mini-series, America: The Story of Us, as well as being the author of its companion book.

Luna Park is centered on a former Russian soldier, Alik, who fought in Chechniya now living in Coney Island, working as the enforcer for a small time Russian mobster.  He is addicted to heroin, and haunted by his memories of the horrors of the war and his own part in it.  He desperately loves the prostitute Marina, whose daughter is held captive by the mob boss as a way to keep her under his control.

Alik comes up with a desperate plan he has convinced himself will save Marina, her daughter and himself.  It’s at this point that the story takes a turn, as Alik discovers he is destined to repeat his past lives repeatedly, including a few pasts the present Alik does not know he had.   There are flashes from present- day run down Coney Island to the Russia of 10 years ago during the Second Chechen War to an earlier time period in Coney Island, when the area was at its peak as an amusement park that really was amazing to behold.

Baker keeps us traveling with him throughout, even though the story is complex, the pain palpable and the suffering of the characters in their struggles seems to never let up.  The work of the artist Danilej Zezelj is perfectly suited for this story.  His art is dark, powerful and energetic, and adds tremendously to the strength of the story.  DC Comics deserves praise putting Baker and Zezelj together, it’s a terrific collaboration.

Kevin Baker and I talked at length about this, his first graphic novel, both in the context of his work as a fiction writer and historian, and of course his deep interest in the City of New York, especially its seamier areas like Coney Island, as well as how writing a graphic novel in collaboration with an artist is different from other types of writing.  we were able to range widely about a number of other subjects, making this conversation one I hope listeners will particularly enjoy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download