72 STORIES

Taking us out to the ballgame.

Any number of rock and rollers have acquired unhealthy habits during their time on the road. Lee, the lead vocalist and bassist for Rush (and author of My Effin’ Life), picked up a hobby: collecting baseball memorabilia. On tour in the 1980s, the self-described “naive, white, Jewish, Canadian nebbish” happened upon a shop in Kansas City called the Legacy. He writes, “I left the store that day with not just a humble bag of swag, but something more profound: a lightning bolt had struck me, galvanizing me to delve even deeper into the game that I already loved.” This delightful book showcases the items, most of them baseballs, that Lee collected over decades. Scores of warmly lit photographs display balls bearing signatures of the sport’s greatest players, including Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams; above his name, Mickey Mantle wrote, “He was safe asshole!” Some of them, like one from the 2006 World Series, are pristine, as if fresh from the factory. Most are yellowed and scuffed, showing their age. One from 1908—signed to “Mrs. N. Pearl”—looks to have been roasted in an oven. You can practically smell the old leather and infield dirt. More than mere objects to amass, the balls, many graced by fine, antique penmanship, hold history in them. Lee writes, “I fell in love with the idea that baseballs could tell a story, not of the players alone but the actual moments in the games that distinguished them. Evocative stuff!” To his credit, Lee is aware of the impermanence of his role in this hobby. He has donated hundreds of baseballs to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, helping draw attention to that institution. “Let’s face it,” he writes, “you never truly own these things anyway; you’re merely paying for the privilege of minding them for as long as you can before handing them on to the next caretaker.”

An inviting tour of our national pastime, led by a rocker with an infectious love of the game.