The Last Manager by John W. Miller

The Last Manager by John W. Miller is a solid book subtitled How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball. Miller is a magazine and newspaper writer and provides an in-depth look at the Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1968 to 1982, averaging 97 wins a season. 

Weaver is often remembered for his theatrics, getting thrown out of ninety-six big league games, but also a brilliant baseball mind, espousing the importance of the first step left or right for infielder, and how that step should come before the ball hit. He was a Moneyball-style manager long before that came into vogue, preaching the importance of on-base percentage, defense, and not wasting outs, with many of these ideas memorialized in the The Oriole Way, a manual to how to play the game.

Looking at situational stats was another innovation of Weaver's, seeing how a batter did against a certain pitcher or vice versa. He championed the idea of using a radar gun to measure pitching, especially the difference between speeds of fastball vs. off-speed pitches. Also, before Cal Ripken Jr. played shortstop for Weaver, players at that position tended to be smaller and not expected to be huge run generators. 

Also covered by Miller is both how the MLB manager has changed through the years, going from being an omnipotent face of the organization to one who gets along with rather than leading by fear their much more highly-paid players. He notes how the ubiquity of baseball also changed with the advent of television. Before that, entertainment had to be gone to so attending minor league games was more popular than when people were able to stay at home and watch tv. The drop in leagues and teams during this time was precipitous. 

Miller provides a thorough biography of Weaver, from him growing up in St. Louis, through his never realized dreams of making it as a major league player, his managing career that started at thirty-seven years old, and death in 2013. He was also the only manager to hold a job both in the five years before free agency in 1976 and in the five years after. Along with Cal Ripken Jr., other famous players Weaver managed on the Orioles included Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, and Jim Palmer. 

Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen

Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen is a work of nonfiction that chronicles the separate fatal bear maulings of two nineteen-year-old women August 13, 1967 at Glacier National Park in Montana. There had been no fatal bear attacks in the 57 years of the park prior to that night, and the book came out of a 1968 Sports Illustrated story by Olsen. It's an account of the park, the maulings, likely why they happened, and what came after.  

Despite National Park Service regulations against feeding bears, park workers would leave out garbage so bears would come rummage through it, and tourists would watch from the Granite Park Chalet. Also, there were a number of bear incidents that summer, including cases of a bear acting abnormally and aggressively near Trout Lake, which should have had the Park Service on alert and taking action. 

Much of the book centers around the Chalet, where garbage was left out for bears to create a tourist attraction, and where one of the girls was killed in a campground a quarter mile away. Julie Helgeson of Albert Lea, MN, was mauled along with her friend, who suffered serious but not critical injuries. There was a doctor who was at the chalet that tried to save Julie, but she had lost too much blood by the time she was found. Twenty miles away at Trout Lake a different bear, likely the one who had been scaring campers and acting oddly, killed Michele Koons of San Diego.

A large portion of the book recounts the events of that night, and Olsen also covers the hunts for the bears that killed the two girls. The bear that was killed near Granite Park Chalet had an injured paw that would have caused constant pain, and circumstantial evidence showed it was the bear that had killed Julie Helgeson. The bear that was killed near Trout Lake was confirmed by physical evidence as the bear that killed Michele Koons.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah is a compelling novel about Leni Allbright, her parents Cora and Ernt, and them living in Alaska.

The family in the the mid-1970s moved there from Seattle, onto a a piece of land that was gifted to Ernt by his platoonmate in Vietnam, where Ernt spent time in captivity and came back from with PTSD, a drinking problem, and short fuse to anger. 

Early teenager Leni, her mother that she had a close bond with, and her erratic at best father found themselves across Kachemak Bay from Homer, in the fictional town of Kaneq, woefully unequipped for the harsh winters. People in Kaneq, where less than thirty people lived year-round, included Marge, a former attorney in charge of the general store, Bo Harlan, whose deceased son gifted the land to Ernt, and Tom Walker, whose family including youngest son Matthew and wife Geneva. The teacher at Kaneq's school would come into town, noted as being right near Sadie Cove, from her home in Bear Cove, with both real places in Kachemak Bay.

It's a compelling book, one with maddening decisions made at times by Cora, but those decisions also heighten the drama. Each member of the family loved each other, but Cora's love for Ernt led her to her going along with his rash and often dangerous choices. His issues were compounded in winter, with the onset of harsh conditions and short days of sunlight. The title of the book came from a Robert Service poem and it's a bit melodramatic, but also a lovely book. The author acknowledgements in the back note that Hannah moved to Alaska with her when she was young. Her parents started the Great Alaska Adventure Lodge, where three generations of their family has now worked.