When someone creates something widely regarded as a classic of its kind, the impulse to go back and touch it up should be stubbornly resisted. Even if you are its creator, there is something in the way your work engaged the public that no longer belongs to you alone. Whatever that is, it should be respected.
Back in 1967, a beat reporter named Leonard Koppett put out a book about baseball that crystalized the way many people thought about the game. The Thinking Man’s Guide To Baseball took in a range of topics, analyzed them in depth, explained why managers and players did what they did, detailed the roles of owners, umpires, media, scorers, and more. It was thoughtful, original, and highly praised.
I wish I had gotten to read that, but I didn’t. Instead I had this 1991 revision, a grab bag of sententious truisms with zero flow and an occasional 1990s player sprinkled amid heaps of anecdotes spotlighting players from much older times.
