Touching base with Safe at Home author Richard Doster
July 25, 2008 at 1:15 pm by Helen Herbst in A&E, Events, News
Local writer Richard Doster has just published his first novel, Safe at Home. Safe follows Jack Hall, a sportswriter in small-town Whitney, Miss., during the 1950s. Both Hall and the town are transformed when the 17-year-old black baseball player Percy Jackson is signed to Whitney’s minor-league Bobcats. Doster is also the editor of byFaith, the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church. He comes to the Decatur Library on Mon., July 28 at 7 p.m.
Safe at Home is your first book. Where did you get the idea to write it, and what kind of research did you do?
A few years ago major league baseball celebrated an anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s life. I don’t remember if it was his birth or death or signing with the Dodgers, but it piqued my interest, motivated me to explore what he’d gone through.
Second, every summer my wife Sally and I take a minor league baseball trip. We love the Atlanta Braves, but there’s something especially charming about minor league baseball. It’s more intimate, you’re close to the players, the people, the promotions, sometimes even the food is homier than you find in the big leagues. If you’re a baseball fan, you savor that kind of experience.
And third, during one of these swings we were at an arts festival in Asheville, N.C. This might have been five or six years ago. A vendor there, a young African-American couple, was selling items that commemorated the Negro leagues — photographs, plaques, T-shirts … Some of these things displayed the logos for the Detroit Stars, the Homestead Grays, Indianapolis Clowns, Kansas City Monarchs…. And it all was signed with the vendor’s tag line: “For the brothers who played, but didn’t get paid.” A portion of the profits, I think, went to a group who provided for Negro league players and their families.
Those things, I think, came together and got me thinking about black players, breaking the color line, and minor league baseball. And then, once I came across a few good source materials, I saw it was a fascinating story.
I understand you spent a lot time talking to minor-leaguers to prepare and promote for this book. Do you have a favorite minor-league team?
I don’t have a favorite minor league team, but Sally and I have been doing a lot of traveling this summer to promote the book. We’re in Hickory, N.C., now, where I’ll be interviewed on the play-by-play broadcast for both the home team Hickory Crawdads and the visiting Delmarva, Md., Shorebirds. We’ve done similar events in Mobile, Birmingham, Frisco, Texas, and Asheville. It’s such a great experience, being in the booth with the play-by-play guys in these smaller markets. The whole setting has a charm and intimacy to it — a kind of authenticity that’s just not present in big league parks. So, while I don’t have a favorite team, I sure have a warm spot for minor league baseball.
How long have you lived in Atlanta?
We’ve been in Atlanta for 19 years.
Are you a Braves fan?
We love the Braves. In fact I didn’t become a baseball fan until we moved to Atlanta in 1989. Before then, neither of us (Sally or I) was a knowledgeable fan. But being in a major league city for the first time (the Braves barely qualified then; they were 63-97 that year and finished last in the division) we thought we ought to have the experience. We went to a few games and started listening to the Braves broadcasters: Don Sutton, Pete Van Wieren, Skip Caray, and then, a season later, Joe Simpson. The chemistry between these guys was infectious. They were likable, and play by play, situation by situation they taught us the game.
Early on, we liked the announcers as much as the game … our affection for baseball is a direct result of the Braves’ announcers. Pete Van Wieren, the professor; Skip Caray, the crusty curmudgeon; Don Sutton, the patient teacher who has something nice to say about everybody; Joe Simpson, the average player who relates to everyman. They were always welcome guests in our home. Before the 2007 season the television networks busted up this team. We’re still grieving.
You worked in advertising for 25 years before you became editor of byFaith magazine. How would you sum up Safe at Home in one sentence of ad copy?
Safe at Home offers a glimpse into small-town southern life in the 1950s, and it shows — through the lives of a no-name writer and a ballplayer who’s never played in front of more than a few hundred people — how life in America changed… one small town at a time.
Why do you think that Safe at Home is an important work to read?
I hope readers will take away an enjoyable reading experience. I hope, as they get into the book, they come to care about Jack and Rose Marie and Chris. I hope they’re pulling for Percy and empathizing with Walter and Roberta. Beyond that, I hope they come away with some appreciation for what anonymous people, living ordinary lives, have accomplished. It’d be nice if they thought about how baseball players — guys who lived and played out of the media spotlight, helped to change the country — not from the platforms of New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, but in all the small towns that dot Dixie.
Richard Doster will be at the Decatur Library on Monday, July 28 at 7 p.m. to read and discuss his book. The reading is sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book.
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