Garagiola stresses virtues of the game in new book

Joe Garagiola has a gorgeous house. But quite recently, a river ran through it.

“Our water heater broke,” he says. “I tell ya, I looked in the garage, there were waves in there. We cleaned it up. Or thought we did. I go down to my office, there’s this drip-drip-drippin’ on my big bald head ...”

Marooned on the high ground of his Paradise Valley basement, in the shadow of commemorative cartoons and weight machines, the former catcher fields calls on his new book, “Just Play Ball” (Northland, $21.95), and its call to re-imagine America’s pastime.

'ROUND THE HORN

Tonight, Changing Hands Bookstore will host Garagiola as he discusses “Just Play Ball.” At 81, Garagiola has gone 'round the horn — from playing ball in the streets of St. Louis with childhood friend Yogi Berra, to hosting NBC’s “Today,” to living at the forefront of American popular culture. But “Just Play Ball,” his third book and first since 1988, puts Garagiola back between the base paths, voicing baseball’s virtues in a cynical age.

“I’m tired of hearing about steroids and human growth hormone, and all the negative things,” he says. A glass-half-empty approach, he believes, overlooks baseball’s virtues. “That’s the way things are these days. You always hear about the guy who started the fire, not the guy who put the fire out.” Drawing from his various positions as catcher, commentator, character and fan, Garagiola breaks the game into a mosaic of tiny anecdotes. “I’ve never been much of a statistics guy. I agree with Vin Scully: 'Statistics are like a lamp post for a drunk — something to lean on.’ ”

Baseball’s heart, he believes, lies more in the well-told tale. His stories of quirky managers, superstitious players and odd twists of fate create a funny, insightful portrait of baseball as it moves from pepper games and painted billboards to free agency and Jumbotrons. “I can’t be objective about baseball, but I think it’s the best sport going,” he says. One reason is size. “You see a football player these days, he’s 360 pounds,” he says. “You put an elevator in that guy’s butt, he could be a condo. Baseball still has room for little guys who play big. (Red Sox second baseman) Dustin Pedroia, who played for ASU, is a great advertisement for that.”

a gorgeous house

Garagiola is an advertisement for little guy who made good. After catching for the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs and Giants, he retired, at 29, for want of cash. “I never made more than $12,000 a year as a ballplayer. I had a wife and my first baby on the way. I thought, if I could make $20,000, I’d be all right.” He did all right, leveraging his knowledge and wit into sportscasting, then NBC’s “Game of the Week,” then “Today” and beyond. “I think, when we’re born, God gives us a Certificate of Ignorance — the good kind of ignorance,” he says. “I was too dumb to know I couldn’t do things. If I’d stopped to think I’d be guest hosting 'The Tonight Show’ for Johnny Carson, or that my first guests would be the Beatles, I’d have wet my pants.”

Garagiola remains happily dry these days — no thanks to his water heater. He pounds the phones from his office-in-exile, working causes close to his heart: a state-of-the-art library for children at St. Peter’s Indian Mission School on the Gila River Indian Community; his ongoing battle against spit tobacco; and now, the book. Each caller hears about his in-house waterway: “Oh, you wouldn’t believe it here ...” But the tale improves with each telling and, in time, he’ll pull a funny story from the wreckage.

Right now, he’s out to prove that, despite its river of recent misfortunes, baseball is still a gorgeous house. “The great thing about baseball — and I don’t want to get preachy about it — is that, once you step in that batter’s box, it’s all up to you. That’s what I tell my kids at the reservation. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, or what they’re wearing. You could have your father’s pants on, and a dirty old shirt. But in baseball, more than anywhere else, you’re in the game.”

BOOK SIGNINGS

What: Joe Garagiola signs “Just Play Ball”

When: 7 p.m. today

Where: Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Drive, Tempe

Information: (480) 730-0205

What: Discussion, Q&A session and book signing

When: 2 p.m. Saturday

Where: Borders, 2402 E. Camelback Road, Phoenix

Information: (602) 957-6660