Mud Hen Memories

by Jerry Debruin and John O'Brien

Local authors and long time Mud Hen fans Jerry DeBruin and John O’Brien with Mud Hen Historian John Husman have finalized Mud Hen Memories, a lasting keepsake of baseball experiences shared in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971072302
• ISBN13: 9780971072305
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Bwd Publishing
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

the right tool for the job

I reviewed baseball books for "Baseball Hobby News" for ten years. During that time I read countless books about the minors, both teams and leagues. These books fell into two categories. Some were meticulously researched and written with an almost scholarly sense of detail and professional journalism. Others were not."Mud Hen Memories" falls into the category of "not." Giving only six pages to the history of baseball in Toledo from 1883 to 1955, it focuses on the Hens since their return in 1965 as a Yankee AAA team and gives year-by-year coverage, featuring team photos and highlights, down through 2000. It outlines the performance of the team with an utterly dismal record, a playing facility called "The Dump," and a fan base both wafer thin and dubiously devoted.Never once is there a question as to why this is true, and has been for so long. Why did the general managers keep their jobs for so long, given their terrible record, both in wins and attendance? Why was their field, a dreary former racetrack at the county fairgrounds, tolerated for so long?Why did changing major league affiliations several times, never, ever, improve things? Why do the Tigers, their parent club since 1987, have such a propensity for drafting players who never fulfill their supposed potential? What role or blame do the Hens have in failing to develop the talent they are given, such as it is?Instead the book (a soft cover, large format presentation, similar in size and weight to one of Bill James' old yearly abstracts) gives endless game details that would almost certainly be forgotten on merit, plus player responses to what they remember about their Toledo playing days. These include such things as Jim Lindeman's, "Nothing against the Hens, but I did not enjoy my stay in Toledo."Why then, the five star rating? Because this book perfectly captures the mind and spirit of Toledo, my hometown. Though I have not lived there since I left for college in 1966, I still return nearly every summer, and a Mud Hen game is often included. Toledo is a place that not merely tolerates the sub-mediocre, but often manages to affirm and even revel in it. As such the Mud Hens are at least as representative of Toledo as the relentless-need-to-win Yankees are of New York or the endlessly guilty Red Sox are of Boston.There is something cosmically appropriate about fans like Mr. O'Brien, who attends every home game and makes cookies for the players. I am comforted knowing that, when Phil Hiatt set a Hen record with 42 homers in1996 and was totally ignored by every major league club (his 26 errors and 180 strikeouts being why), Mr. O'Brien was there with cookies, adulation and a desire for Hiatts' autograph.