SSTN Interviews Jeffrey Orens

By Paul Semendinger

April 10, 2025

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Today I share my interview with author, and SABR member, Jeffrey Orens.

Please tell our readers a little about yourself.

I'm a retired business executive who has authored two books in my seven years of retirement. The most recent is called Selling Baseball: How Superstars George Wright and Albert Spalding Impacted Sports in America, published a few weeks ago. It's about the birth and maturation of the game in the mid- to late-1800s as seen through the intertwining careers of George & Albert, who were superstars on the field and then went on to hugely successful careers in the sports equipment business. Booklist gave it a Starred Review, so it's developing some interest.

For something completely different, my first book, The Soul of Genius: Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and the Meeting that Changed the Course of Science, was about these two geniuses and their gathering with other scientific luminaries in the early nineteenth century to try to reconcile the clash that was developing between classical Newtonian physics and the upstart Quantum Theory of Einstein and Max Planck. It's more a story of the human side of the characters, their successes and failures, and pursuit of scientific answers along the way.

What do you most enjoy about writing?

The chance to entertain while educating the readers. I write in a style that tries to make even the most complex situation accessible to the average reader, bringing the audience into a very human drama that needs solutions, whether technical or personal. Research is the key to it all, delving deep into history to find facts that illuminate the picture.

Do you have any current writing projects you are working on?  Can you tell us about them? I'm in the early stages of a project related to a bygone Olympics and figures that made history, both in sports and on a very human level. I think it will make a great book.

I cannot wait to hear more about that book!!!

Why are people so drawn to baseball and its stories, legends, and people?

Baseball is a sport that's at the very center of who we are as a country. It evolved as our nation grew, winning us over by its action, where the game can turn on any individual play, its teamwork and its opportunity for everyone to play. Many of its stories and people are legendary, but just as many are not. Yet all are part of who we are, playing by customs and rules that evolve to suit our needs of the moment

What is your favorite baseball book?

Can't beat The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. The story of baseball at the beginning of the nineteenth century, told by two dozen players themselves. Some whom we cherish and some who we've heard very little about, but all who loved the game and made it better for their playing it.

Outside of baseball, what is your favorite book and/or who is your favorite author?  (You can list as many as you wish.)

I'm a historical non-fiction writer, so my favorites lie in this genre. Two of the very best are historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and journalist Erik Larson. Goodwin's Team of Rivals, about Lincoln and his Cabinet made up of rival personalities, shows how confident Lincoln was in bringing together differing opinions to come up with the best solutions to the complex problems created by the Civil War. Larson's The Splendid and the Vile is a masterwork of history that reads like a novel. It covers a few years in the early 1940s, Churchill, his family and advisors struggling to withstand the firestorm of the Nazis at the beginning of WWII. Even though we know how it all ends, the suspense as the early years of the war unfold is palpable.

There's a lot of talk about baseball needing to be "fixed."  Is baseball broken?  If you were the Commissioner of Baseball what change(s) (if any) would you make to the current game?

In a sense, baseball is always "broken." Not that it needs fixing, it just needs to evolve with the times, as it always has. What great recent additions pitchcom and the pitch clock have made to keep baseball from slowing down. A "golden-at-bat," using a team's best hitter for one specific at-bat at any time during the game, is certainly an exciting idea. Baseball has been changing rules and coming up with new concepts since it came into being as an organized sport in the early to mid-1800s; why stop now?

I love to talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Which former Yankee most deserves to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame?

The Yankees, my favorite team, certainly have more than their fair share of Hall of Famers. But I think Andy Pettitte deserves election, not only because of his regular season pitching stats, but his superlative post-season play.

What is the greatest baseball movie of all time?  (Yes, you can list a few!)

So many from which to choose. Field of Dreams is a classic. Bull Durham is loads of fun. And Moneyball is a real-life lesson in baseball evolution.

What is your favorite baseball memory?

The first time I watched the Yankees on TV. It was 1963 and I was eight years old. I saw a World Series game at my friend's house in color and I had never seen a color TV. It didn't matter that they lost to the Dodgers (which they did four consecutive times) - - the grass was the strangest color green I had ever seen!

Please share anything else you'd like with our audience.

My daughter and I share a special bond as fans of the Yankees, and she's bringing up her 7 year-old daughter with that love as well. My granddaughter's favorite expression when she sees the Yankees load the bases is, "Time for a Grammer Slammer!"