Ninety Feet from Fame: Close Calls with Baseball Immortality

by Mike Robbins

Journalist and baseball historian Mike Robbins tells the gripping stories of dozens of players who came this close to baseball immortality. Their stories are dramatic, sometimes moving, even blackly funny—and they're virtually unknown, even to die-hard fans. Robbins offers gripping accounts of the games, series, seasons, and careers that fell excruciatingly short—from forgotten near-heroes of the postseason such as Hal Smith and Chuck Hiller to players such as Harlond Clift (a great player trapped on a terrible club) and Jose Cruz Senior (a power hitter in a stadium that favored pitchers) who missed out because they spent their careers with the wrong team, in the wrong park, or in the wrong era. Robbins also tells the stories of players who missed their chance to join the all-time greats because of injury, illness, or other interruptions—the likes of Smokey Joe Wood (injured thumb) and Eiji Sawamura (killed in World War II). Baseball fans will come away with exhilarating and sometimes heartbreaking stories, as well as a list of names, a treasury of surprising numbers—and a deeper sense of the men who have played the game.

Genres: Baseball

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2004

Reviews

[Anthony M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exactly that: stories. Dozens of them. And they are good. Very good.

I have heard the passed-down version of many of these events, the Reader’s Digest version, if you will. However, Robbins goes much deeper and gives the reader a lot of pertinent details about what really happened. He is very good at pointing out where the ironies exist and why the irony of baseball has no match in other sports. And, of course, many of the stories I read about for the first time, which made it a sort of discovery for me.

As the title suggests, so may milestones (300/400/500 HRs; .300 BA) were barely missed, and many times for one in a million circumstantial reasons… the kind that make one groan.

Occasional humor, especially about the player, Pete Burg, who, if not for the gimmick of 3’ 7” Eddy Gaedel, would have been the shortest player (5’ 1”) in the game. The author says: “Tragically, Burg’s time in the majors was, yes, short. He played only 12 games for the Braves at third and one, inevitably, at shortstop. But he managed to hit [well]…when he got his chance, which might have earned at least a (sorry) small amount of recognition. Perhaps Burg’s, uh, shortcomings were in the field where he committed eight errors in 13 games.” The title of that section was called LITTLE RESPECT.

[Larry Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Lots of information and a variety of types of close calls.

Four stars only because it seemed to have far more close calls from the first 100 years of baseball than from the last 75 years.

Close calls are mostly fairly short stories all around a single theme. As an avid baseball fan I was unfamiliar with many of the stories, which was a good thing.

However, I did not find it so compelling that I read it straight through over time. I actually put it down, read another book for a few days, and picked it up again. The second time/half was better for me than the first.

But a good read.

[Hugh Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a baseball fan's dream. More stories and trivia than you can memorize in a lifetime are herein contained. Players like Hal Smith, who hit a key home run to give the Pirates the lead in the 8th inning of Game 7 in the 1960 World Series finally get their due in credit. Like all other achievers, these baseball players who nearly attained fame met varied fates in later life. Some transitioned successfully into the business world and lived productive later lives. Others turned to alcohol and drugs and died penniless and sad. Life is like that: people meet a variety of adversities and some rise above while others descend into ignominy. It pays to remember that life is not fair and each of us needs a higher purpose than the numbers on a scoreboard.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to give this book 5 stars, as it introduced me to a host of characters in the lexicon of baseball who were wholly unknown to me. However, a book this good should not have taken me three months to finish, and maybe I was just too busy to give it my full attention, but the sidebars in the book were very inconvenient and often forced me to flip back several pages to read.