University of Nebraska Press

Guest blog from UNP author Rob Fitts

Rob Fitts, author of University of Nebraska Press title Wally Yonamine, is our guest blogger today, posting about the 75th anniversary of the 1934 All-American tour of Japan. Additional posts will appear on Fitts’ personal Web site throughout the week:

Seventy-five years ago yesterday, nearly 500,000 Japanese had lined the streets of Ginza to welcome Babe Ruth and the All American ballplayers to Tokyo.  Rows of fans, often ten to twenty deep, crowded into the road to catch a glimpse of Ruth and his teammates.  The pressing crowd reduced the broad streets to narrow paths just wide enough for the limousines to pass.  Babe Ruth rode in the first open limousine.  At 39, he had grown rotund and just weeks before had agreed to part ways with the New York Yankees.  His future in professional baseball was in doubt but his god-like charisma remained intact.  To the Japanese he still represented the pinnacle of the baseball world.  Millions followed his exploits in baseball magazines such as Yakyukai and Asahi Sports.  Sharing the car was his former teammate Lou Gehrig—The Iron Horse—now the world’s greatest player. 

The rest of the entourage, distributed 3 or 4 per car, followed: Connie Mack, the venerated 71-year old manager of the Philadelphia Athletics;  Jimmie Foxx, the Athletics burly third baseman known as “The Beast;” Earl Averill, the Snohomish, Washington native who had been the first American Leaguer to homer in his debut at bat—sportswriters tagged him the Earl of Snohomish when he played well and Big Ears on his off days; the slick fielding, power hitting second baseman Charlie Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers; Yankees goofy ace Lefty Gomez, who claimed to have invented a rotating goldfish bowl to ease the pain of tired fish, and his Broadway actress wife June O’Dea; former batting champion Lefty O’Doul, who had fallen in love with Japan during a 1931 tour; and a gaggle of lesser-known stars.   Only one player didn’t seem to belong—a journeyman catcher with a .238 career batting average named Moe Berg.  Although he was not an all-star caliber player, his off-the-field skills would explain his inclusion on the team.  Berg was a Princeton and Columbia Law School graduate with a gift for languages (causing a teammate to quip that Berg could speak a dozen languages but couldn’t hit in any of them) who had already visited Japan in 1932.  Berg would eventually become an operative for the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, and many believe that his tour of Japan was his first mission as a spy.

Confetti and streamers fluttered down from well-wishers leaning out of windows and over the wrought- iron balconies of the avenues’ multi-storied office buildings.  Thousands waived Japanese and American flags and cheered wildly.  Cries of “Banzai!  Banzai, Babe Ruth!” echoed through the neighborhood.  Reveling in the attention, the Bambino plucked flags from the crowd and stood in the back of the car waiving a Japanese flag in his left hand and an American in his right.  Finally, the crowd couldn’t contain itself and rushed into the street to be closer to the Babe.  Downtown traffic stood still for hours as Ruth shook hands with the multitude. 

Ruth and his teammates stayed in Japan for a month, playing 18 exhibition games against Japanese opponents in 12 cities.  But there was more at stake than sport.  Japan and the United States were slipping towards war as the two nations vied for control over China and naval supremacy in the Pacific.  Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the goodwill generated by the tour and the two nations’ shared love of the game could help heal their growing political differences.  Many observers, therefore, considered the all stars’ joyous reception significant.  The New York Times, for example, wrote: “The Babe’s big bulk today blotted out such unimportant things as international squabbles over oil and navies.”  Connie Mack added that the tour was “one of the greatest peace measures in the history of nations.”  But the shared love for a sport would not be enough to overcome Japan’s growing nationalism and fanatics’ desire for war.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the 1934 All American tour of Japan, over the next month I will post daily updates on this remarkable event.  Follow Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Moe Berg and their teammates as they travel through Japan, China, and the Philippines.   The story contains international diplomacy, espionage, attempted murder and, of course, baseball.  See updates on my personal blog. For more information on my upcoming book, Banzai Babe Ruth! Baseball Diplomacy and Fanaticism in Imperial Japan, forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press, click here.  

Guest blogger: Kate Flaherty

Frequent University of Nebraska Press blog contributor Kate Flaherty recently read The Blue Tattoo by Margot Mifflin and Searching for Tamsen Donner by Gabrielle Burton. The two books -- both invovling journeys west gone awry -- are among her favorite UNP titles this season. Read on:

How to Have a Roadtrip Without Leaving the Couch, by Kate Flaherty

My favorite offerings from Nebraska this spring are The Blue Tattoo by Margot Mifflin and Searching for Tamsen Donner by Gabrielle Burton. While both books are different in scope—the first is a biography, the other more of a biography intertwined with memoir—the similarities between them are striking, and not just because they both look at the role of pioneer women in mid-1800s America. I was particularly captivated by how each author dispels myths and misconceptions in order to better understand the complex realities of these women’s lives in the west.

In The Blue Tattoo, Margot Mifflin deftly traces the amazing history of Olive Oatman, who at thirteen was part of an ill-fated Mormon pilgrimage to California when most of her family, including her parents, were massacred by Yavapai Indians in what is now the American southwest. Taken captive by the Yavapai, Olive was then traded to the Mohave who took her in as one of their own. She lived as a Mohave and spoke their language, ultimately assimilating into the tribe so deeply she was given a chin tattoo just like other young Mohave women and, Mifflin believes, freely underwent a sexual initiation as well. When Oatman is finally “rescued” Mifflin shows how after grieving the loss of her first family following the massacre, Oatman must deal with the loss of her second family, as she is taken from the Mohave and thrust overnight back into the white pioneer world.

Christgau on Capitol Hill, and Kokomo Joe events

A little over a week ago, John Christgau (author of Tricksters in the Madhouse, The Gambler and the Bug Boy, the upcoming Kokomo Joe and others), testified before Congress, and we here at the University of Nebraska Press asked him to write a guest blog about his experience doing so. Here’s what he had to say:

The weekend before last, I testified with others at a hearing in DC before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration.  The issue was H.R. 1425, or the “Wartime Treatment Study Act,” a proposed and long-overdue bill that would establish two fact-finding commissions. The first would study the internments and restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on certain European Americans and European Latin Americans during World War II. The second would study government policies limiting the ability of Jewish refugees to come to the United States before and during the war.  I was asked to testify because my book ENEMIES (which will be republished by Bison Books this September) was the first book on the subject of so-called “enemy aliens” during World War II.  The hearing was a gratifying yet disturbing experience. 

More March Madness (what else did you expect from the publishers of The Madness of March?)

We here at the University of Nebraska Press celebrated opening day of March Madness with a little party including such basketball staples as brackets, a free throw contest, and little smokies. And let it be known that we’re in good company:

 

This, for those of you who don’t recognize it, is President Obama’s bracket. Go Louisville!
As our regular readers know, UNP author Alan Zaremba (The Madness of March: Bonding and Betting with the Boys in Las Vegas) is in Vegas, watching the games and blogging up a storm. Here’s an excerpt from a post from last night:

…When Duquesne and Virginia Tech played their NIT game this evening a young man to my left twisted himself into contortions with each basket. Virginia Tech prevailed in double overtime by 8, which allowed the fellow to exhale since the spread was 7 1/2. Prior to the final buzzer, he bolted upright when Duquesne--then down by ten--connected on a three point prayer. This made the game suddenly a seven point spread and, judging from the reaction, nourished the young man's fledgling ulcer. Fortunately, a series of foul shots saved his day.

You can view more posts on Alan’s blog.

In non-March Madness UNP news, Leslie Carol Roberts, author of The Entire Earth and Sky, has a 7:30 p.m. book reading/signing tonight at Powells on Hawthorne in Portland. The book, which explores various themes pertaining to Antarctica, has attracted lots of attention, so if you’re in the Portland area, this is an event worth checking out.

Also, the University of Nebraska Press Facebook group now has more than 100 members! This page has info on UNP books, events, authors and more (as well as a few choice pics). If you’re a fan of our books, or of our blog, show your support by joining the group.

And one last general publishing tidbit for this morning: Publishers Weekly is reporting that George W. Bush will write a biography titled Decision Points. The title comes from a GWB nickname “The Decider.”

That’s it for now!

The first of several excerpted March Madness blogs, and a sneak preview of what's to come

Alan Zaremba, author of The Madness of March: Bonding and Betting with the Boys in Las Vegas, is in Las Vegas as I write this. He’s keeping his own blog through the weekend, and I’ll be pulling stuff from his blog and posting it here, because he writes a mean running commentary on the chaos that is March Madness in Las Vegas. Here’s a post from last night:

I am back in Las Vegas for March Madness, having arrived last night, March 17th, to the quiet rustic country sounds of Las Vegas. Not. I imagine that St. Patrick's Day is not the night to come to Las Vegas if you plan to sleep easily in a hotel room despite being 23 floors above the strip.
If the economy is affecting Las Vegas there were no discernible signs last night. My hotel was completely sold out, the lines at the registration counter were large and the armies of revelers on the strip something from a Saturday night at the height of prosperity. I heard a police officer chatting with a visitor and caught a piece of the conversation. "This never gets old" he said as he negotiated the walkway dodging a remarkably diverse population of people in green.

Las Vegas this weekend is hosting a beer distributors’ convention. Go figure.

If you want more, check out Alan’s blog, which he’ll update many, many times between now and Sunday.

In other news, I just finished speaking with John Sorensen, one of the editors of The Grace Abbott Reader. If this week is about March Madness, next week will be about the Abbott sisters (Friday is Abbott Sister Day, by the way). Stay tuned.

Guest blogger: Kate Flaherty

Lopate and Loren: Two Reasons to Fall in Love with the Essay All Over Again
By Kate Flaherty

Let me begin by telling you I love essays. I was one of the two kids in my high school English class who was sorry when the Emerson and Thoreau unit ended. My favorite scene in the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder did not have to do with her move to the great plains in a wagon or riding a wild mustang or meeting her true love Almonzo, but instead with when she was able to go to high school and write her first composition (her topic was “ambition”).

And when I first began working at Prairie Schooner, I loved everything in the magazine—poetry, interviews, stories (what can I say, I’m a bookworm)—but the essays were my favorite sons and daughters. Sydney Lea, Paul Mariani, Nancy Willard, Linda Pastan, JoAnn Beard, Maxine Kumin—these writers were the scientists of literature, examining nature or people or truth with a microscopic eye and sharing their discoveries with their readers. It didn’t matter to me if the essays were about tramping around in the Vermont woods, following the descent into madness of a brilliant poet, attending a wedding in an Iowa cornfield, or dissecting the meaning behind the random murder of a family member in Detroit. I loved the attention to detail, the connections writers made between one world and others, the thoughtfulness of their meditations, and the fact (and yes, fact is an important word in the world of the essay) that it all was real.

So it should be no surprise I was thrilled Bison Books has republished the collection of essays Against Joie de Vivre by Phillip Lopate, one of the modern masters of the essay form, and republished a collection of essays about poet and literary nonfiction writer Loren Eiseley, Loren Eiseley: Commentary, Biography, and Remembrance, a collection that originally was a special issue of Prairie Schooner edited by Hilda Raz. These are two distinctly different essay collections—the Lopate book is a collection of essays by Lopate, and the Eiseley book is a collection of essays by other writers about Eiseley—and yet they appeal to me for the same reasons. The work in these two books makes me want to revisit writers or worlds I have loved, seek out new writing or new worlds I have yet to discover, and meditate on my own writing and the world I live in right now.