pitchers of beer
Reviewed by Leslie Heaphy, Kent State University at Stark
16 May 2011 archive
Dan Raley has written an entertaining and well researched book that chronicles the life of the Seattle Raniers, a minor league club that meant a great deal to the city before the arrival of Major League baseball in the form of the Seattle Mariners. Raley grew up loving the Raniers and has an even stronger connection than most because his last memory of his father was when he took him to a game the day before he died. Raley wrote the book to preserve the history of the team but also to pay tribute to that memory. The photographs provided in the text come from Dave Eskenazi who grew up in Seattle, attended the Ranier games, and collected their memorabilia over the years. The two men teamed up and spent five years researching and writing this tribute.
Even the casual baseball fan will enjoy this book because, even though it focuses on a team in Seattle, the stories are entertaining and reminiscent of many other places and people. The writing style is engaging and the story flows from one tale to the next with no downtime. Raley begins with an entertaining tale of cops and federal agents descending on a dying team and demanding payment for unpaid bills in 1937. While everyone seems to be fighting over money, the game on the field provides a quiet but constant backdrop. This pattern will continue throughout much of the book with tales of events and people beyond the ball field but always returning to the players and their exploits.
The financially strapped Indians were purchased by Emil Sick who took a risk on the club. He renamed the team after his brewery and called them the Rainiers. Sick quickly turned around the fortunes of the team by spending money and bringing in the right players to attract the hometown fans. One of the key people he brought in, Edo Vanni, became a local fan favorite and stayed with the club in various capacities for many years. Sick also built his team a new park that opened in 1938 and quickly became as much a part of Seattle's identity as the Rainiers would become.
As the book progresses, readers are introduced to a series of local heroes who help the Rainiers stay afloat. The first is pitcher Fred Hutchinson who only played one season but what a season it was. Hutchinson drew in the fans and the scouts and went on to a successful big league career. Sick found a formula that worked and the goal would be to find a player with a personality the fans could adopt. Over the years, Rainiers fans came to cheer on such favorites as Joyner White, Jack Lelivelt, Bill Skiff, Dick Barrett, Joe Taylor, and Bill Schuster. There is also a fine chapter on the twenty-five year broadcasting career of Leo Lassen. He had a large following of fans who grew up listening to his commentary on the Rainiers and all their ups and downs.
The author does not shy away from some of the problems the team had over the years. The financial woes are talked about at various times throughout the book as are some of the scandals and problems players had at times. Much of the chapter on Joe Taylor extols his great skills but also explains that he never reached the big league level because he drank too heavily and too regularly to be able to make a solid contribution to any team.
The Rainiers final season in 1964 is the closing chapter of the book and a fitting way to end this tribute to the hometown team. The authors end with an appendix with all the players who made the roster for the Rainiers and then a short bibliographic essay that gives readers some sense of where the material for the book came from. There are no notes or citations throughout the book and some find that a fault but it is not written as a strict research text but a blend of memories and reminiscences along with facts. For those who love the game of baseball for the game and the characters that have played throughout its history, this book will be a delight. If readers have fond memories of hometown teams, this book may cause them to walk down memory lane themselves.
Raley, Dan. Pitchers of Beer, The Story of the Seattle Rainiers. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. Pbk, $26.95. Illustrations, 1 appendix and bibliographic essay.
Copyright © 2011 by Leslie Heaphy.