By Dan Schlossberg
September 2024
Special from the IBWAA, Used With Permission
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Note - This article was featured in the daily newsletter of the IBWAA, Here's The Pitch, and was published on September 20, 2024
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I love him as a writer. And I wish I had him as a teacher.
I’m talking about Paul Semendinger, a former North Jersey teacher and principal who appeared at Fair Lawn Senior Center earlier this week to talk all things Yankees, deliver a power point presentation, and sell copies of The Least Among Them, about players whose 15 minutes of fame came in the single major-league game they played while wearing Yankees pinstripes.
A regular contributor to the weekend editions of Here’s The Pitch that I edit, Semendinger has also written other books, including a collaboration with former Yankee Roy White.
And he really knows his baseball, even mentioning during his talk that astronaut John Glenn was the wingman for Ted Williams when the Hall of Fame slugger flew wartime combat missions.
What was best about the presentation was not the author’s extensive knowledge of baseball but his obvious energy.
He ran back and forth, once grabbing a No. 9 Yankees jersey while wondering aloud why the team had not retired that number in honor of Hank Bauer and Graig Nettles, and later using a glove and pitching rubber to illustrate how he throws when he plays senior baseball.
Semendinger needed no microphone, though the room where he spoke routinely holds 30 people for exercise classes. He graciously answered questions from the mostly-female crowd, some of whom participate in those classes but many of whom were obvious fans of the Yankees.
He could have continued longer, as the audience was enjoying his humor-filled talk, but time constraints — including the chance to sell some of his books afterward — held his presentation to an hour. There were no pitch-clock violations.
The Least Among Them is a novel concept, since it’s not easy to find information on players whose cup of coffee in the major leagues was still warm when they left.
There was one player, a pitcher named Hal Stowe, whose career was confined to one game because the Yankees replaced his benefactor, Casey Stengel, with no-nonsense coach Ralph Houk. There was another who got into the box score when the regular center fielder (not Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle) suddenly disappeared — as did his career as a Yankee after that day.
My favorite story concerned Elvio Jimenez, perhaps the only Elvio in baseball history. He could hit but couldn’t field and, in the days before the designated hitter, managed to find his way onto “Yankees rookie star” cards in both 1965 and 1969.
Semendinger, who comes from a family of teachers, must have been great in the classroom. He’s energetic, well-spoken, and a born ability to project his voice like a veteran actor (he ditched the mic the Senior Center had provided).
In short, he held my attention — which isn’t easy — and the normally-boisterous audience was patient and reserved.
They did buzz around his book table at the end, however, so he obviously did well in his sales pitch. Way to go, Paul.
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Former AP newsman Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers baseball for forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, and many other outlets. He’s also the author of Home Run King: the Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron and is on a book tour of his own. Email ballauthor@gmail.com for more information.
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