MAKE ME COMMISSIONER
A New York Times bestselling biographer and lifelong baseball devotee takes readers on an epic journey through the game that baseball has become— a heartfelt manifesto that’s perfect for lovers of the sport.
Jane Leavy has always loved baseball. Her grandmother lived one long, loud foul ball away from Yankee Stadium—the same grandmother who took young Jane to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought her her first baseball glove. It’s no coincidence that Leavy was covering the game she loved for the Washington Post by the late 1970s.
As a pioneering female sportswriter, she eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl, often at the expense of thrills, skills, and surprise. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: how much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture?
Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions, talking with luminaries like Joe Torre, Dave Roberts, Jim Palmer, Dusty Baker, and more. What Leavy uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball—and how to fix it—but also what’s right with baseball, and how it illuminates characters, tells stories, and fires up the imagination of those who love it and everyone who could discover it anew.
Jane Leavy may not be MLB’s next commissioner, but readers will come away wishing she would be.
– Booklist (starred)
No one makes me laugh and think and nod my head yes more than Jane.
– David Maraniss
Leavy is back to remind us why baseball is the best game and lovingly sculpts solutions to fix the national pastime.
– Dan Shaugnessy
Baseball’s broken, but don’t worry—Jane Leavy’s got the duct tape, WD-40, and a few wild ideas to fix it. A hysterical—yet practical!—take on saving America’s pastime before it turns into America’s nap time.
– Gish Jen
This book is a dream come true—a road trip through the world of baseball with one of the game’s most convivial commentators and finest writers. But please don’t make Jane Leavy commissioner; let her keep writing. Baseball needs her. And baseball fans need to read this book—to quarrel over it, to laugh with it, and to let it remind us why we will always love the game.
– Jonathan Eig
– Robert Pinsky
– Alex Edelman, award-winning comedian and writer
Leavy captures the frustrations of fans everywhere in this charming, resourceful plea to reinvigorate a sport that ‘forgot how to be fun.’ … [A]n ideal guide to this exasperating era […] Leavy’s blend of enthusiasm, knowledge, and iconoclasm prevails.