Sun City West author pens baseball book

As Major League baseball’s pennant races grow almost as heated as a Sun City West summer, Bancroft Press is out with Sun City West author Steve Wiegand’s biography of an unsung player who epitomized the game’s “Golden Era.”

“The Uncommon Life of Danny O’Connell: A Tale of Baseball Cards, ‘Average Players’ and the True Value of America’s Game” tells the story of a New Jersey kid who realized his dream to play in the big leagues throughout the decade of the 1950s.

Never a star, O’Connell was nonetheless a key player for four different big-league teams. Wiegand weaves the tale of what in baseball card collecting parlance is a “common:” a player who for 10 years showed up to work everyday and succeeded with his brains as well as his athletic ability. By the time his career ended, O’Connell had played more big-league seasons than 90 percent of all the players who have ever donned a big-league uniform; amassed more hits than 93 percent; been the most valuable player on his first team and his last; and got his picture on more than 14 different baseball cards.

Woven into his story is the story of how baseball uncannily mirrored America in the years following World War II, from its adjustments as the world’s undisputed economic superpower to its ongoing struggle to achieve racial equality. It also traces the birth and evolution of baseball cards, from being used to sell tobacco and bubble gum to fetching multi-million-dollar prices at auctions and routinely being part of Wall Street investment portfolios.

Most of all, it’s a redefinition and celebration of “average.” As sports announcing legend Bob Costas says of this book, “being an ‘average’ Major League baseball player means you’re better than 99 percent of all those who ever swung a bat … and it may just mean that your story is much better than your ‘average’ stats suggest.”

A veteran journalist and history writer, Wiegand is the author or co-author of 10 books, including “1876: Year of the Gun,” and three of the “Dummies” series on U.S. History, The American Revolution and The Great Depression.

“The Uncommon Life of Danny O’Connell” is available in hardback and e-book format at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores throughout the country.