Baseball, kids and a child's book to be appreciated by young and old

"A Glove of Their Own,"

by Debbie Moldovan, Keri Conkling and Lisa Funari-Willever,

illustrated by Lauren Lambiase

All summer long it happened every day at Edwards School Playground on Chicago's Southwest Side.

The grounder would stick in the shortstop's glove, he'd whirl and fire to the pitcher -- pitcher's hands "out" -- for the third out before the batter could step on first base, an old newspaper with the rock on top (so it wouldn't blow away).

The four-five-six guys in the field would run in for their turn at bat, and the team that had been batting took the field. Inevitably somebody from the team in the field flipped his glove to one of the guys who didn't have a glove.

That was baseball -- and still is -- in the free-of-all-cares world of kids and summer vacation, and it's what makes "A Glove of Their Own" more than just a nostalgia piece, although the first few paragraphs above are evidence that it certainly is that.

As good a growth- and person-building experience as organized sports can be when caring, trained, thoughtful coaches and supportive parents make them so, there's a special growing up that happens in pick up games -- games umpired not by adults but by children's sense of fair play, games not pressurized by league standings or playoffs, games in which kids don't have to "make the team" but just show up in order to get to play.

This colorful, child-sized book won't win any awards for plot, although it's cute enough.

It won't take a Newberry Award for creative writing.

Details in some of the illustrations will make the trained-eyed sports person wince: The hands of the batter separated on the bat? YIKES! The first baseman standing right in the middle of the base and the runner headed straight into him? Quick, dial 911!

But youngsters in the primary grades who like sports will love the story and its rhyming cadences. And the messages in this short, simple child's book are sure to sew seeds of generosity and caring for those less fortunate, like youngsters who have to play baseball without a glove of their own.

I can't wait to have my grandsons read it to me. -- bz

P.S. -- Franklin Mason Press, the publisher, has partnered with Danjulie Associates in a nonprofit effort to raise funds for sports equipment for needy youth. A portion of book sales are donated to selected youth sports organizations, and the company also will partner with groups to do book-selling fundraisers. For details, visit www.franklinmasonpress.org. And kudos to Jack Hannahan and Robb Quinlan, two Minnesota Catholic high school products, for their support of this worthwhile project.

Will 'Big Muddy Blues' be played for the St. Croix, too?

"Big Muddy Blues: True tales and twisted politics along Lewis and Clark's Missouri River,"

by Bill Lambrecht

With the St. Croix being designated one of America's top 10 most endangered rivers this week, folks who enjoy that luscious stream of water that separates some of eastern Minnesota from a chunk of western Wisconsin might want to pick up "Big Muddy Blues" and learn a few lessons.

Lessons about how the concerns of any number of people who care about and depend on a waterway can be at the mercy of political ambitions and organizations with clout.

Newspaperman Bill Lambrecht in a sense recreated much of the 1802-04 journey of discovery of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition, taking readers along the Missouri from near St. Louis up to the trout fishing haven in Montana where the river forms from three tributaries.

Lambrecht shows how the river has changed in the past 200 years -- and why. Much of the why falls on the shoulders of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the political maneuvering that led to the building of dams and dikes, of rerouting the Missouri from its natural course to ease barge traffic, of favoring the water needs of the lower river at the expense of native peoples and fishing interests in the Dakotas, among others.

Lack of enforcement of federal regulations -- an issue that needs to be addressed along the St. Croix today -- plays a role as well, but the biggest sin "Big Muddy Blues" points out may be our government's disregard for scientific findings. Research doesn't seem to hold much water -- pardon the pun -- if it means a member of Congress might lose a vote or two. And the empire that the Army Corps of Engineers has built for itself plays right along with the selfish politicians who can't look past the next election to see how the research they are ignoring affects real people and endangered species, even going to the point of getting researchers transferred to other parts of the country!

"Big Muddy Blues" was published in 2005 under the Thomas Dunne Books imprint of St. Martin's Press. It's worth finding today, before more dirty water goes over the dams. -- bz

Keillor brings Lake Wobegon's Fourth of July to hilarious life

"Liberty,"

by Garrison Keillor

Before another Fourth of July comes around, give Garrison Keillor permission to tickle your funny bone.

"Liberty" will test your housemates' willingness to allow you to laugh aloud for extended periods without calling for the men in the white jackets.

It's the story of an Independence Day celebration -- and the preparation for the big event -- in Lake Wobegon, the fictional Minnesota hamlet Keillor has made famous on public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion" show.

Those familiar with Keillor's weekly monologue will recognize many of the characters.

The hero of this fun read is mechanic Clint Bunsen. He's the architect of one of the most successful Fourth of July parades in the nation, but he's bruised a few egos along the way, and some of the townsfolk are out to depose him.

Some don't like, for example, that he's thrown out the cavalcade of farmers driving their John Deeres down Main Street and replaced them with more exciting acts -- the St. Cloud Shriners Precision Rider Mower Unit, for example -- and they are out to get Clint even though he's made Lake Wobegon's Fourth so spectacular that CNN is sending a crew to cover it for the second straight year.

No good deed goes unpunished

In typical Lake Wobegon fashion the culture of the town won't allow room for an individual to enjoy too much success, and no idea is ever allowed to be presented without its downside casting a dark shadow over any potential good outcome.

Keillor has the naysayers down pat.

In a lovely passage that describes those who accuse Bunsen of being a tyrant as he chairs the parade committee, Keillor's familiarity with Scripture and his insight into human frailty burst off the page:

"If they had been at the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus brought forth the miracle of the loaves and fishes, they would've thought, 'Did he wash his hands. Where are the napkins? How long was that fish cooked?'"

Sound familiar?

Fair warning: Keillor's imaginative libido has his hero stumbling off the marital-fidelity track, and some readers may be offended by some of the frank and explicit language in this Viking book.

On the whole, though, "Liberty" offers a commentary on humanity that points society in the right direction by shining a spotlight on those times when we and our neighbors fail to be all that the creator gave us the potential to be.

And it's hilarious. -- bz

Golf book offers chance to sharpen your short game with God

"And God Said Tee It Up!",

by Gary Graf

Gary Graf is not a theologian, nor does he pretend to be.

But he's done a whale of a job of research about both great memories in professional golf history and down-to-earth spirituality that move readers painlessly from the the fairway to reflecting on their own relationship with God.

The stories about golf's great moments and the detail that describes the particular holes at great golf courses like St. Andrew's, Winged Foot, Troon, Oakmont and Pebble Beach are likely to be gobbled up by sports fans.

When it comes to connecting those moment to faith, Graf takes more of a regular-guy, meat-and-potatoes approach. A scholar might take exception to linking which club to use to appreciating all the gifts God gives us, but you know, it's really not all that much of a stretch. And Greg Norman's dying -- in the Masters -- and rising to terrific success in several businesses is a good reminder of not only Jesus' dying and rising but our own.

As Graf writes, "Granted, Norman's fall and subsequent rise are but poor human analogies to something divine and mysterious. But each and every day we must die to something old and rise to something new. . . . Life presents us with the opportunity for rebirth, if we are open to it. As for Jesus, paradoxically his most devastating moment -- his crucifixion -- was the catalyst for his crowning glory."

Take a hole at a time

Each chapter heading is a hole on a golf course -- including the 19th, the post-match session in the clubhouse to congratulate and commiserate -- and that makes for 19 short reading sessions if you read a chapter at a time.

That would be a good way to play -- I mean, read -- "And God Said Tee It Up!"

You can only absorb so many golf facts and so much golf history in one setting before they become a blur, and that will give you time to reflect on the spiritual points that Graf offers for pondering in each chapter.

The stories of Lee Trevino, Payne Stewart, Arnold Palmer and more are good copy, as are the background anecdotes about the naming of holes called "The Pulpit" and "The Valley of Sin," the berms called "Church Pews," and the course called "The Sistine Chapel of Golf" -- Cypress Point Club at Pebble Beach, where "every hole is a work of art."

Thanks to Acta Publications for being willing to get "Tee It Up" into print. -- bz

What was it like to be pioneering man in the West?

"As Big as the West:

The Pioneer Life of Granville Stuart,"

by Clyde A. Milner II & Carol A. O'Connor

Granville Stuart, like thousands of others in the mid-1800s, dreamed of making it big in that great expanse of the western territory of the United States.

Stuart had yet a bigger dream than most; he wanted to be important, not just rich.

When mining for precious metals didn't earn as much of a fortune as he thought it should, he sought wealth and esteem in cattle ranching. Hobnobbing with the likes of Teddy Roosevelt as a founding member of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Stuart did well for himself -- but just for a while.

An ego as big as the West?

This meticulously researched account of Stuart's life story could double as an early history of the state of Montana. Stuart felt he had played a huge role in that history -- and it might be a recognition he deserved, too -- but his reach never quite realized his ambition, either in wealth or fame.

Rather than Stuart's life being "as big as the West," as this Oxford University Press title suggests, maybe it was Stuart's ego that was that size.

Along the way Milner and O'Connor's history bears important information about the land-grabbing practices and the abuse of native peoples, the assumed racial superiority of Caucasians of the time -- and ours? -- over Indians, vigilante justice, and the rise and fall of fortunes thanks to the boom and bust of the industries that were supposed to make millions for investors back down the Missouri and points east.

Stuart's ego surfaced in politics, too. Always feeling he deserved government jobs because of his work for the Democratic Party, Stuart wasn't shy about asking for positions in government at any level, and he was sometimes rewarded and other times ignored in his quests.

Who can explain how this failed rancher from the middle of Montana is, in the 1890s, appointed the U.S. minister to Uruguay and Paraguay!

Is this a great country, or what? -- bz