If you could please spread the word about my new book (below) to other
chapter members, I'd appreciate it. I'm in the Smoky Joe Wood chapter
in Connecticut. You can also reach me at dougmalan@... or
860-426-9031. Best wishes, Doug Malan


Connecticut Law Tribune managing editor Doug Malan's new book about
Muzzy Field in Bristol, Conn., is now available through online
retailers Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble and through the publisher,
iUniverse.

What makes Muzzy Field and Yankee Stadium two of the world's rarest ballparks?

They are the last athletic fields still in use that have hosted both
Babe Ruth and Vince Lombardi during their playing days.

This is one of many interesting details unearthed in "Muzzy Field:
Tales From A Forgotten Ballpark," the newly released 320-page book
that includes numerous photos, an index and a foreword written by
former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay T. Vincent Jr. (Excerpts
from the book are available at www.iuniverse.com.)

Baseball fans in the area may remember Muzzy Field as the site of
classic Yankees-Red Sox farm team battles in Double A in the 1970s and
1980s with players such as Buck Showalter, Dave Righetti, Jim Rice and
Wade Boggs or as the site of the Big East baseball tournament from
1985 to 1995.

But the history that few people know begins in 1912, the year of Muzzy
Field's creation, and includes stories of more than three dozen
current Hall of Famers and many more notable baseball and football
players.

Tucked away in the woodsy corner of a public park within the
once-gilded boundaries of a great manufacturing city, Muzzy Field
became home to one of the area's strongest semiprofessional baseball
teams that welcomed some of the greatest athletes who ever played the
game—from Ruth to Martín Dihigo and many others. The surging
popularity of football in Bristol brought Lombardi to town, as well as
several future Hall of Famers who helped shape the sport in the 1930s
and 1940s, including legendary Green Bay Packers wide receiver Don
Hutson and coach Earl "Curly" Lambeau. A more complete list of notable
players and coaches is available at www.muzzyfield.com.

E.M. Swift of Sports Illustrated called the book "a meticulously
researched retrospective into Muzzy Field and its legions of memorable
characters, from Babe Ruth to Vince Lombardi. For generations of Muzzy
Field fans, it's an invaluable historical document."

From the earliest days, the colorful stories of the great barnstorming
era of professional sports defined what has become the grand old dame
of New England ballparks. In "Muzzy Field," Malan relates many
little-known tales from a time when it was a bustling epicenter of
superb drama and a destination for the immortals of sport.

"Muzzy Field" is available online in hard cover ($31.95) and paperback ($21.95).


Douglas S. Malan
Managing Editor
Connecticut Law Tribune & GC New England
201 Ann Street, 4th Floor
Hartford, Conn. 06103
(Tel) 860-527-7900, ext. 642
(Fax) 860-527-7815
------------------------
SABR Notes are being sent to you because you are a member of the
Society for American Baseball Research. All members with an email
address of record receive membership-wide announcements from the
executive director. Members who are affiliated with local chapters or
research committees will receive email from those groups as well. To
modify your email address, committee memberships, or chapter
affiliations, log into the MySABR section of the members-only site:
http://members.sabr.org/members.cfm?a=mys

To contact the sender of this SABR Note email: mailto:LenLevin5@....