Luke Salisbury Books
The Answer Is Baseball was well reviewed and for years people wrote me about it, sometimes asking why I didn’t write a sequel. “The answer is” that book was a love letter based on thirty years of rooting, talk, remembering and dreaming. I don’t feel that way about baseball now. The best part was the covenant between past and present – the records, numbers, ghosts of the great, the continuity between Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and now. The palimpsest of tradition.
All this was obscured in the 1990s – the Enhanced Era – when steroids and human growth hormone and God-knows-what else, plus better sports medicine and strength training, broke the covenant. 70 home runs? 73 home runs? Sammy Sosa hitting 60 three times and not leading the league? This isn’t right. Roger Maris still holds the single season home run record for me (And my writing about it is my best). Hank Aaron, as dignified, brave and fine a gentleman as we are likely to see, is the all-time home run record holder. I don’t care how many anyone else hits, or the lies they tell about it.
I still watch. I love the Red Sox miracle of 2004. But as my baseball god, the legendary NYU professor Bob Gurland said, “Maybe we’ve seen the best of it.”
Praise for The Answer is Baseball
"Every time I think I know all there is to know about baseball something new hits me. Now along comes the absolutely brilliant Luke Salisbury. I'm learning and exploring and devouring each page. You will treasure this book."
— Larry King
"Essentially a book of baseball trivia arranged in question-and-answer format, this poses enough baffling queries that fans will find themselves caught up in the contest. For instance, what pitcher has enjoyed the highest winning percentage against the New York Yankees? (The answer will astound every follower of the sport.) What was the claim to fame of Louis Sockalexis and why did his promising career end so suddenly? Which brothers hit the most home runs in major league history and which brothers were second? Salisbury uses his queries to introduce brief essays on the game and has his say about the tragedy of Tony Conigliaro (the author is a Red Sox fan), the advent and collapse of the Players League and baseball card mania. About Salisbury we are told only that he “has a great author’s name, America is his heart, and baseball in his blood.”
— Publishers Weekly
"[This off-beat book helps] open the 1989 season. Trivia expert Salisbury’s intriguing questions tease fans before he gives answers about pitching, batting, rookies, streaks, and other records. Meanwhile, he weaves in diamond history, baseball cards, baseball families, and the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry. His book is a challenging test and happy browsing. Okrent (co-editor of The Ultimate Baseball Book, LJ 11/15/79) and Sports Illustrated editor Wulf step in with humorous tales–new and time honored. They carry their readers from baseball’s birth–not attended by Doubleday–to the 1986 Series in accounts that are happy fuel for the Hot Stove League. In Oddballs TV writer Shlain engagingly portrays the pranksters (e.g., Roger McDowell) eaters, and drinkers (Ruth, Boog Powell et al . ), along with assorted showoffs, hotheads, stuntmen, and even eggheads. His close-up portraits of Ted Williams, Pete Rose, Oil Can Boyd, and Bill Lee are winning touches. The best of these three is Salisbury’s, while the others rate consideration."
— Library Journal
— Larry King
"Essentially a book of baseball trivia arranged in question-and-answer format, this poses enough baffling queries that fans will find themselves caught up in the contest. For instance, what pitcher has enjoyed the highest winning percentage against the New York Yankees? (The answer will astound every follower of the sport.) What was the claim to fame of Louis Sockalexis and why did his promising career end so suddenly? Which brothers hit the most home runs in major league history and which brothers were second? Salisbury uses his queries to introduce brief essays on the game and has his say about the tragedy of Tony Conigliaro (the author is a Red Sox fan), the advent and collapse of the Players League and baseball card mania. About Salisbury we are told only that he “has a great author’s name, America is his heart, and baseball in his blood.”
— Publishers Weekly
"[This off-beat book helps] open the 1989 season. Trivia expert Salisbury’s intriguing questions tease fans before he gives answers about pitching, batting, rookies, streaks, and other records. Meanwhile, he weaves in diamond history, baseball cards, baseball families, and the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry. His book is a challenging test and happy browsing. Okrent (co-editor of The Ultimate Baseball Book, LJ 11/15/79) and Sports Illustrated editor Wulf step in with humorous tales–new and time honored. They carry their readers from baseball’s birth–not attended by Doubleday–to the 1986 Series in accounts that are happy fuel for the Hot Stove League. In Oddballs TV writer Shlain engagingly portrays the pranksters (e.g., Roger McDowell) eaters, and drinkers (Ruth, Boog Powell et al . ), along with assorted showoffs, hotheads, stuntmen, and even eggheads. His close-up portraits of Ted Williams, Pete Rose, Oil Can Boyd, and Bill Lee are winning touches. The best of these three is Salisbury’s, while the others rate consideration."
— Library Journal