A Book of Baseball Moments: An Exclusive Guest Post from Joe Posnanski, Author of Why We Love Baseball

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The excellent question is: How did I manage to pick only 50 baseball moments for my book, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments? 

Well, there are two answers. I’ll give you the more philosophical answer first. This is the first book (of the seven I have written) where I actually had the title before I even came up with the structure of the book. Usually, titles don’t come until after I have done all the writing. I didn’t name my first book, The Soul of Baseball, until months after I had written the last chapter.

But I knew this one would be called Why We Love Baseball. And that title was my guide from beginning to end. It led me into writing a book of magical, legendary, hilarious, heartbreaking, ridiculous and touching baseball moments.

Before I started writing, I scribbled down a list of baseball moments, hundreds and hundreds of them, every kind of moment I could come up with. And then, I went through the list, one by one, and asked only one question: “Does this moment help explain why we love baseball?” 

That was it. I wasn’t looking at how dramatic the moment, how significant it was in baseball history or anything like that. All I wanted to think about was: Is this Why We Love Baseball? 

And the list narrowed itself down. It was surprising to me how many famous baseball moments did not quite fit that description… and how many silly and seemingly trivial moments fit it perfectly.

For example, I knew that I had to get in the moment where a baseball conked off the head of Jose Canseco and bounced over the fence for a home run. That was a relatively meaningless play in a relatively meaningless game between Texas and Cleveland; there are thousands and thousands of baseball moments that were more important in the grand scheme of things. But I can hardly think of any moments that better describe why we love baseball. In fact, my friend Mike Schur told me that if I didn’t put the Canseco play at No. 1, the whole book is illegitimate.

Spoiler: It is not No. 1. And Mike says the whole book is illegitimate.

The second answer to how I narrowed the book down to 50 moments is more direct. I cheated. I do indeed count down 50 moments in the book. But in between the countdown chapters, I stuff in many, many more moments using every author trick I could come up with. In all, I actually count 108 moments in the book, which is fitting because 108 is a good baseball number. There are 108 stitches on a baseball. The Chicago Cubs had a 108-year drought between World Series victories. Physicists estimate that Nolan Ryan threw the fastest pitch ever at 108 mph. 

Yes, I think 108 might be the best baseball number. But it wouldn’t have looked as good in a title.