Make Me Commissioner - by Jane Leavy (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Make Jane Commissioner... Leavy has a voice demanding to be heard--and Major League Baseball should listen."-- THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A New York Times bestselling biographer and lifelong baseball devotee takes readers on an epic journey through the game that baseball has become-- a heartfelt manifesto that's perfect for lovers of the sport.

Jane Leavy has always loved baseball. Her grandmother lived one long, loud foul ball away from Yankee Stadium--the same grandmother who took young Jane to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought her her first baseball glove. It's no coincidence that Leavy was covering the game she loved for the Washington Post by the late 1970s. As a pioneering female sportswriter, she eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl, often at the expense of thrills, skills, and surprise. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: how much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture?

Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions, talking with luminaries like Joe Torre, Dave Roberts, Jim Palmer, Dusty Baker, and more. What Leavy uncovers is not only what's wrong with baseball--and how to fix it--but also what's right with baseball, and how it illuminates characters, tells stories, and fires up the imagination of those who love it and everyone who could discover it anew.

Review Quotes

NOMINEE

--2026 Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting

"Sports reporter Leavy provides a fervent critique of the current state of baseball.... The narrative is laced with Leavy's humor and lifelong passion for the sport (she wrote her first baseball story at 10 years old) and informed by conversations with star players and managers, such as Jim Palmer and Dave Roberts. This is a must-read for anyone who loves the game and hopes for better days." STARRED REVIEW--Publisher's Weekly

"Take her out to the ballgame -- and put her in charge. In Make Me Commissioner, acclaimed baseball writer Jane Leavy offers her fixes for the sport, in the form of a wide-ranging travelogue full of rich conversations."--The Washington Post

"Make Jane Commissioner... Leavy has a voice demanding to be heard--and Major League Baseball should listen."--The Wall Street Journal

"Leavy captures the frustrations of fans everywhere in this charming, resourceful plea to reinvigorate a sport that "forgot how to be fun." ... Irreverent analysis and fresh ideas from a baseball writer dismayed by the state of the modern game."--Kirkus Reviews

"The opportunity to read Leavy's prose about baseball is a gift to an audience already enthralled by her previous masterpieces: Sandy Koufax, The Last Boy, and The Big Fella, bestsellers all. The personal touch makes this one different but no less impactful, infused by a love affair with the game that began from her youngest years in her New York City backyard. ... The story of baseball is in the people that make the numbers, not in the numbers alone. Leavy gets it, and [Make Me Commissioner] is a home run. If you love baseball, don't miss it."--The Boston Globe

"A hysterical--yet practical!--take on saving America's pastime. Make her commissioner!"--Gish Jen, author of The Resisters and Bad Bad Girl

"Jane Leavy loves baseball. I love Leavy writing about baseball. On the heels of her definitive bios of all-time greats--Koufax, Mantle, and Ruth--Leavy is back to remind us why baseball is the best game and lovingly sculpts solutions to fix the national pastime."--Dan Shaughnessy, author of The Curse of the Bambino and Francona

"Reading this feels like sitting--in great, reasonably priced seats--next to your smartest, funniest, loudest friend for an entire game."--Alex Edelman, award-winning comedian and writer

"Jane Leavy may not be MLB's next commissioner, but readers will come away wishing she would be."--Booklist

"This book is a dream come true--a road trip through the world of baseball with one of the game's most convivial commentators and finest writers. But please don't make Jane Leavy commissioner; let her keep writing. Baseball needs her. And baseball fans need to read this book--to quarrel over it, to laugh with it, and to let it remind us why we will always love the game." --Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life and Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

"As a big-league storyteller, Jane Leavy has all the tools: wise-ass sense of humor, eye for detail, knack for dialogue, a major address book of large personalities--and she knows what she's talking about. The story she makes so lively, about what has gone wrong with what used to be our national pastime, just may be a story about our nation, too."--Robert Pinsky, three-time United States Poet Laureate

"No one makes me laugh and think and nod my head yes more than Jane Leavy when she is writing about baseball, the sport we both love. Fat chance they'll ever let her become commissioner, but her combination of joy, humor, intelligence, deep historical knowledge, and common sense about how to save the game is precisely what it needs."--David Maraniss, author of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

About the Author

Jane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called "the best novel ever written about baseball." She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to 1988, first in the Sports section, then writing for the Style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and The Los Angeles Times, and was anthologized in The Great American Sports Page: A Century of Classic Columns.