Once Around the Bases: Bittersweet Memories of Only One Game in the Majors

Once Around the Bases is a collection of per sonal reminiscences of men whose dream was realised. There a re approximately 150men living today whose baseball career c onsisted of one game, but they were all still major league b aseball players. '

Sometimes sad, sometimes triumphant, Once Around the Bases is a nicely told study in perspective: one man's dream--making it to the Majors --is another's failure--getting to play in only one game. Richard Tellis profiles 40 of the roughly 150 of those still living who may have sipped "a cup of coffee" (baseball lingo for a short stay in the Majors), but never got to gulp it down. Their tales are alternately proud, such as White Sox catcher Dutch Fehring holding his ground and tagging a sliding Lou Gehrig out at the plate, and poignant, such as Yankee pitcher Roger Slagle, flush with the adrenaline of hurling two perfect innings in his debut, casually rolling the ball to a young fan sitting behind the dugout. "He was happy as I was at the time," Slagle recalls. "It wasn't until I got in the clubhouse that I realized I had given away my game ball.... I never dreamed that I wouldn't get the chance to pitch again." He did get it once, though, which separates him, and the others featured in Once Around the Bases, from the overwhelming majority of baseball dreamers.