Wits, Flakes, and Clowns: The Colorful Characters of Baseball

Sports historian Stewart (Remembering the Greatest Coaches and Games of the NFL Glory Years) examines larger-than-life baseball players in this fun and informative history. Detailing legendary jokesters and pranksters of the past 70 years, he lists 135 players and managers who craved the limelight while goofing off on the field and in the clubhouse, including pitcher Rube Waddell of the 1902 Philadelphia Athletics, who “waded into a Florida lake to wrestle alligators”; erratic outfielder Ping Bodie of the Jazz-era Yankees and Athletics, who once had a spaghetti-eating contest with an ostrich; and pitcher Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals, who remarked that he’d had his bruised head x-rayed and nothing was found. Tug McGraw, father of country singer Tim, loved to pitch water balloons from hotel windows, while Sparky Lyle, a Yankee reliever, occasionally sat on friends’ birthday cakes in his “birthday suit.” Other baseball greats who appears include Yogi Berra, Mark Fidrych, Bryce Harper, Satchel Paige, Manny Ramirez, Fernando Rodney, and Casey Stengel. Stewart wildly entertains in this offbeat history. (Mar.)