[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

In high school in the 1950s I used to go to the school library every day during study hall... a free hour to study, I guess... sady, I didn't use the time to study, I would read the sports pages in the New York Times... and some way, some how, I found a baseball book written for teenagers by Duane Decker... he wrote about 15 or 20 books each covering a player for the mythical major league Blue Sox... each player featured in the book has some problem, baseball or character flaws that had to be dealt with and overcome... I read them all... not great literature, but a teenage boy that played baseball loved them... at 15, I didn't know great literature... at 80, I don't know if I would recognize it now.

Duane Decker is one of the best writers of juvenile sports fiction, where his main character also teaches a lesson in personal character. In The Grand Slam Kid, Bucky O'Brien, the lesson is about winning by contributing rather than winning by glorious personal action.

Come early 2000s, I discovered a game called OOTP3... I went to the public library and found as many of Duane Decker's books as they had and re-read them, so I could incorporated all of the great Blue Sox players into my Islandian Pro Alliance dynasty league... I even included the legendary Blue Sox manager Jug Slavin in my league... I tried to make each player's ratings as accurate as possible for inclusion in the IPA... the Blue Sox greats came alive in my dynasty league... they were randomly assigned to teams.

Eddie Lasky, former all-star shortstop, injured and became star pitcher.
Sam Sloat, pitcher
Pete Gibbs - catcher
Tweet Tillman - catcher
Bucky O'Brien - catcher
Stretch Stookey, first baseman
Bud Walker, second baseman
Flash Devlin, second baseman
Johnny Madigan, third baseman
Vic Scalzi, third baseman
Andy Pearson, shortstop
Slick Hammill, shortstop
Russ Woodward, center fielder
Vic Valenti, center fielder
Yank Yoland, pitcher
Kenny Willard, black outfielder
Marty Blake, first baseman
Mike Jaffe, a mediocre pitcher, who became a fine outfielder.
Chip Fiske, right fielder
Augie Marshall, right fielder

Check out some of the titles here:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/lis...4.Duane_Decker

Sometimes it's just fun to come to these boards and be reminded of similar experiences we had growing up. This so reminiscent of my youth going to the school library, late 60's early 70's, and finding and reading a series of books about football players. I hadn't thought of it in many years until reading Eugene's post. Try as I might I could not remember the titles or the authors. I only knew they were about players for the LA Rams ( check out my avatar ). Yes I was a Rams fan despite living in Iowa.

So I googled a bunch of phrases trying to come up with what these books were but, no joy. Then a title popped up in my head, "The Runningback" which made me recall "The Quarterback", "The Receiver" etc. I googled and there it all was. Tex Maule was the author...

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Boo...BoClfUQAvD_BwE

https://www.amazon.com/Quarterback-N.../dp/B000X1NCGK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Maule

Unfortunately looks like they are only collectors items now. Too bad not on Kindle, I'd certainly buy at least one to relive old times.

Sorry to distract from the baseball but EC brought back a rush of memories and I wanted to say thanks.