Book Review: Tales from the Giants Dugout

Tales from the San Francisco Giants Dugout
by Nick Peters
Sports Publishing L.L.C., $19.95
200 pgs

Several books in the Tales from the Dugout series have already been reviewed for At Home Plate. The Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals, Angels, and the Braves bullpen have been covered. Next up…the San Francisco Giants.

First, let’s look at the author. Nick Peters is certainly qualified to write about the San Francisco Giants. He had left field bleacher seats for the first West Coast major league game, and he has been writing professionally about the Giants since 1961…first for The Berkeley Daily Gazette, then for the Oakland Tribune and now for the Sacramento Bee. He has also written or co-authored five books on the Giants, including The Giants Encyclopedia and Giants Diary.

Next let’s establish that while the cover title reads Tales from the Giants Dugout, the title page spells it out a little more clearly and lets us know this book actually Tales from the San Francisco Giants Dugout, and that is also how you can find the book at amazon.com. New York Giants fans…sorry, but you’ll have to find a different book.

Tales from the Giants Dugout’s organization is very logical and well laid out. The first chapter is ‘In the Beginning, Horace’, and the next four chapters cover the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. A chapter on spring training follows, and then chapters on the Giants-Dodgers rivalry, Candlestick, an interesting chapter called ‘The Bad and the Ugly: Taunts and Tussles’, and a chapter on postseason adventures and misadventures. The book closes with a chapter each on several Giants heroes…Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Cepeda, Gaylord Perry, Will Clark, and Barry Bonds.

Tales from the Giants Dugout is an apt name for this book. It is definitely not a stodgy treatise filled with names, dates, places, and stats…although you will find all of those components in there. It’s all about short anecdotes just like you’d probably overhear players swapping in a dugout (or maybe a clubhouse), from hearing the crowd at the last game played at the Polo Grounds chanting

“We want Stoneham.
“We want Stoneham.
“We want Stoneham…
“With a rope around his neck,”

to seeing pitching coach Dave Righetti console a weeping (OK…bawling!) Livan Hernandez after Game 7 of the 2002 World Series. The stories are all very easy reading, and none runs more than a few paragraphs long. These stories run the gamut from the obscure (like Giants groundskeeper Matty Schwab tweaking the area around 1st base with soft peat moss and water in 1962 to eliminate the Dodgers threat in base-stealing champion Maury Wills) to the famous (find out why Juan Marichal attacked Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat at home plate in 1965). Find out what famous Giants stories have been exaggerated in the retelling. For instance, Stu Miller was not actually blown off the mound at Candlestick in the 1961 All-Star game. The gust of wind merely pushed him six or eight inches …but since he was already into his stretch, it was enough to draw a balk!

And quotes! Tales from the Giants Dugout is chock-full of quotes! Some of my favorites are about Candlestick Park, such as catcher Bob Brenley commenting on catching pop flies at the ‘stick: “It would be kind of like dropping an aspirin in a toilet, then flushing and trying to grab it with a pair of tweezers.”

Tales from the Giants Dugout is guaranteed to help while away those Rogers Hornsby-like winter blues. I give it 3 balls out of 4. Well…4 out of 4 for Giants fans!

Our Rating System is based on a four ball system as follows:
One Ball: Average. It has something to say but is nothing special.
Two Balls: Something men usually have - also means its a cut above average, and worth reading/owning.
Three balls: Stands out from its peers and is highly recommended.
Four Balls: More than just what two men have when hanging out together, it means it is an exceptional book that truly earns a walk - straight to the local book store to get a copy.