‘Lost nine’ a good find Mining the forgotten past of New England ball players BY CHIP YOUNG

As the fashion neophiliacs ("Brown is the new black") might have it, obscurity is the new fame. This is the theme of Will Anderson’s baseball book, The Lost New England Nine.

For readers who are still playing The Beatles (The White Album) day and night and sending fan mail to Yoko Ono, the "nine" in this title refers not to a revolution, but the number of players on a baseball team. Anderson has dug deep into the past, resurrecting the career and high points of players from New England, who he believes have been unfairly ignored, at each spot in the field. The normal — and arguably sane and reasonable — response to this is, "Get a life, big guy." But in his defense, it should be noted that Anderson lives in Maine, which is always a credible explanation for eccentricity and behavior that evolves from spending either too much time alone at home, or drinking mini-brewery beers and counting teeth at the local Down East lobster pound and VFW Post.

To his credit, Anderson made his job even harder by demanding that his "lost" all-stars be all but abducted by aliens, never to be seen even at obscure and embarrassing baseball card signings, which thrive on trivia-freak personalities. These time-warp nerd love-ins rival Star Trek conventions and the Bush administration for proof that we are indeed evolving backward. (Thanks here to Galaxy Quest and Paul Krugman, and condolences to Charles Darwin.) The other key credential was that they had to actually have played at some point for either the Boston Red Sox or the long-gone Boston Braves of the National League, who went on to become the Milwaukee Braves, and then the Atlanta Braves, in case you’re scoring at home.

But give the man credit. He has done his homework. I am a less-than-closet baseball freak, more familiar with the past than the present, more capable of rattling off the starting lineup of the ghastly 1957 Philadelphia Phillies than the 2003 National League All-Stars who played in the loathsome Bud Selig’s midsummer night’s farce. More than half of Anderson’s picks for top lost New Englander at each position, and his honorable mention selections, are strangers to me. The author seems to have spent those frozen winters reading the Baseball Encyclopedia the way a monk scours the Bible, following it up with a good deal of legwork.

In fact, the only Rhode Islander chosen as a member of the first nine, outfielder Johnny Cooney, would have been easily unrecognized by yours truly, if my good friend and golfing buddy Lee Cooney wasn’t related to baseball-playing Cooney family members — who celebrated Johnny’s achievements.

Other players mentioned have local ties as well, including the late pitcher Chet Nichols, who I met at a Pawtucket Red Sox game with Ben Mondor years ago. Strangely, Anderson doesn’t note that Nichols finished second in National League rookie of the year voting in 1951, just behind some obscure guy named Willie Mays, but we’ll forgive him. There are also fond memories locally of former pitcher Max Surkont, who owned an eponymous bar in Central Falls after retiring from the big leagues, with a record of having struck out eight straight hitters while with the New York Giants. Among those born elsewhere in New England, there was former catcher Birdie Tebbets, who earned a philosophy degree at Providence College and went on to manage the wonderful Frank Robinson/Vada Pinson-era Cincinnati Reds, as well as the Milwaukee Braves and Cleveland Indians; and old-time Brown catcher Fred Tenney, who was turned into a first baseman in the majors, and managed in the bigs. (Doesn’t everyone know a mere visit to Vo Dilun ups your baseball IQ 50 points?)

The result of all this is a very entertaining piece of work for baseball fans, as well as regional historians. But the love of the American pastime element has to be there, because Anderson errs at times on the side of sometimes numbing detail and a writing style that would make a 1920s sportswriter cringe. Am I wrong that you can only call an outfielder a "flyhawk" once in your life before they repossess your Royal typewriter, or refer to a team managed by Casey Stengel as "Stengeleers"? Yes, this certainly fits the tone of the book, which would be a nice touch if it were shorter, but at 135 pages, you’re begging Anderson to return from his private field of dreams a tenth of the way through. Ditto for the details.

Anderson makes a more concise case for including the honorable mentions in the capsules than the protracted testimonies for his starting nine. Under the sardonic category of "That’s more information than I really needed to know," was the fact that on June 8, 1941, Johnny Cooney and the Boston Braves lost the first game of a doubleheader, 5-1, and won the second (the "nightcap"), 13-1, with Johnny going three-for-four.

That’s not to say this isn’t a very nice idea and a fun book to read. It is. The old photos are enough to conjure up the baseball past that Anderson, myself, and many others long for. And his selective quoting from sportswriters of the day frame many of the players’ talents and how they were appreciated in the day — and subsequently forgotten — very nicely.

As one reads along, you begin to think of similar players of this era who may find the same fate of slipping between history’s cracks over the long haul. If Rocco Baldelli breaks his leg next year, what will future generations know about the purported new DiMaggio? But given the new glut of statistics, Internet access, videotape from crib-to-grave, and the aforementioned neophiliac obsession with B-movie character actors and second-string shortstops from Latin America (You slipped past ’em, Chico Fernandez), it’s unlikely that anyone with the stats and on-field credibility of the lost New England nine will fade into forgotten status again. So turn that baseball cap around — so the bill is forward, folks — and tip it to Will Anderson. I just wish the damn thing would fit in my beach bag, because you couldn’t find a better way to spend the summer, reading about the unsung heroes of baseball. Unless, of course, it’s sitting on the porch with a cold one in your hand and the Sox on the radio.