Review Fix chats with Called Up: Ballplayers Remember Becoming Major Leaguers author Zak Ford, who discusses the process behind the book and more.
About the Author:
Zak Ford is a chapter leader with the Society for American Baseball Research and serves on the advisory committee of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He lives in Cameron Park, California.
About the Book:
To reach the majors, a ballplayer must not only possess natural ability and world-class skills but must also overcome nearly insurmountable odds. The journey is not possible without extreme dedication. Along the way mentors play a large role, and circumstances must align. For an elite few, years of effort and perseverance culminate with putting on a big league uniform.
Drawing on original interviews with more than 100 players who debuted between 1961 and 2018, this collection presents their first-person stories of how they were called up to play Major League Baseball.
Review Fix: What was the writing process like?
Zak Ford: So what I would do is I would actually reach out to the players and interview them,. Then I would take the transcripts and I would edit those transcripts into story form. So they read as first person narratives. So I wanted to also have it read as though it’s spoken word. So when you are reading it, you may see some grammar slips. You may see me and him instead of him and I are going instead of going stuff like that, but I wanted to make sure it was consistent. So when readers read these stories, it’s almost like they’re hearing it.
Review Fix: Any stories not make the book that were special? Can you share?
Ford: There actually were a few that I wasn’t able to reach out to and get releases because the players had passed since The first ball player that I interviewed for this book was a guy by the name of Kuno Bergen that came up with the Cubs in 1961, I believe it was. And he was a very special connection because when I was a teenager, I interviewed a lot of old Pacific Coast League ball players and he was one of the guys that I interviewed as a teen. So it was kind of cool to kind of come full circle and interview him as the first person for this called up book. But unfortunately, by the time it came around to getting releases a few years after the interview I conducted with him, his health had deteriorated and he was in a assisted living and memory care facility in the area and I unfortunately wasn’t able to track him down or any of his relatives to get a release to include him in the book.
Review Fix: What’s your favorite story in the book?
Ford: It’s funny because I would interview players over the course of, I want to say three years about, and I’d talk to a ball player and I’d go, oh, this is a great story, it’s one of the best stuff I’ve ever heard. Then, I talk to another ball player a week or two later and go, oh, this is a great story. This is one of the best I’ve ever heard- and it wouldn’t like that for about three years. Obviously, there are some stories that I gravitate to a little bit more than others. I’m a big Giants fan, guys that came up with the Giants in the late eighties, early nineties. Definitely love those stories. There are a few stories also where guys just had a lot of trials and fibrillations. There’s one guy by the name of Jim Rushford and the story that had a great story or that he had multiple stints in the independent ball.
Wasn’t drafted out of college, but got an opportunity with the brewers and had a meteoric rise through the brewer system and got a cup of coffee. I believe it was in 2002 with them. So that was a great story. A guy by the name of Mike Belfiore came up with the 2013 Orioles. He actually had three call-ups before he got into a single major league game, and the first batter he faced was David Ortiz, who actually hit a home run off of him. He said, obviously at the time he was a little bit upset, but a decade or 12 years later now definitely makes for a great story.
Review Fix: What’s made this journey a special one for you?
Ford: Well, it was the first book that I put together and I learned a lot. I’m working on my next book now and the experience that I had through this called up book, putting that together has definitely helped me out for this one. And it was something that, as I’d indicated earlier, I wanted to write a baseball book since I was a kid. So it was something that I was able to accomplish. It gave me a large sense of accomplishment and glad that it’s out and it’s been fairly successful and I’ve enjoyed the process.
Review Fix: Who do you think will enjoy this book the most?
Ford: Baseball fans. But I do think that regardless of whether or not you’re a baseball, I think you will be somebody that enjoys these inspirational stories. It doesn’t necessarily require a baseball fan to appreciate these stories of dedication and perseverance. What else can you say about the book to entice readers? It’s a collection of 109 first person player stories about going up to the major leagues, getting that call up and making your debut. So it’s going to be a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, how it felt when they got that news, they achieved their boyhood dream, what it was like during the orientation process, walking into that big league clubhouse for the first time, how it felt when they took the mound or into the batter’s box or ran out of the field that very first time as a big leaguer. And it really connects these ball players to the human interest side of baseball stories.
And we’ll give readers an appreciation for all the hard work that goes into achieving that dream. And hopefully the readers will be able to connect to these stories and these ballplayers as human beings and not just ballplayers.
Review Fix: What’s next for you?
Ford: I’m working on a book through McFarland. It will be called Next Up. So it’s going to be on the post playing careers of baseball players. A lot of fans may have the misconception that ball players can just kind of sail off into the sunset, and that’s not the case for the vast majority of them. They will need to have careers after baseball. So it will talk about how they saw the writing on the wall, how they wrapped up their baseball careers, and how they found that next passion or that next career that they inevitably needed to do after baseball. They all achieved a great dream, a huge accomplishment of becoming a major league baseball player, but the reality is a lot of these guys do need, the vast majority of them need to have something after baseball, whether it be financial or just to keep them busy or primarily financial. But I’m excited about this project. I have pretty much wrapped up my interviews for that and turned in the transcriptions in the story form. I plan to have the manuscript into McFarland by the end of October, so hopefully sometime by the end of 2026 we’ll have a final book.
Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?
Ford: It’s been a fun process to work on my book projects, and I hope that my book projects give readers a greater sense of ballplayers as human beings and not just machines that are out there on a ball field. I think a lot of fans get this misconception that they don’t face the same trials and tribulations, same challenges that a lot of us do, and that’s not the case. Ballplayers are very human. So I always try and tell my stories or help them tell their stories in a way that humanizes them in a current baseball writing trend. World of statistics and academic style research. I like stories that humanize ballplayers as opposed to dehumanize ’em.
Review Fix: Where can people go to find out more about you?
Ford: I am pretty active on Facebook is actually the one, the social media platform that I’m most active on, but almost any other social media platform. They could be able to find me if they go to ZakFord.com. They’ll be able to find some information about me and my projects as well.
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