Baseball: Old-Timers & New-Timers with Richard Cuicchi

My guest is Richard Cuicchi. He’s a New Orleans baseball historian and the founder of the Metro New Orleans Area Baseball Player Database. Born in Shaw, MS, he has spent most of his adult life in New Orleans, and says he’s now a true “New Orleanian.”

After graduating from Mississippi State University, Richard came to New Orleans to work for the local utility in IT. As a husband & father of four, he took the traditional route to retirement. That is, 40 years of living within his means, staying out of debt and diligently contributing to a 401K.

After retiring in 2011, he wrote his first book, Family Ties: A Comprehensive Collection of Facts and Trivia About Baseball’s Relatives, which constitutes 20 years of research about baseball’s family relationships. He also started doing research and writing for SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), contributing to sports-related websites and a few magazines.

Additionally, he maintains The Tenth Inning website, which contains all his research, writings, and baseball interests.

In this episode, we talk about how he first started writing. Richard used to keep various lists of things about baseball—one in-particular about families piqued his interest. Once he realized just how much baseball family ties information he had, he started trying to put it in writing, which is what eventually led him to self-publishing his first book.

We also discuss what led him to write about my grandfather, John “Fats” Dantonio. A SABR member asked him to do a piece on “Fats” as part of a book on “replacement players” during World War II. He says that was the first time he’d written a story about any baseball player.

If you love baseball, this episode is for you!

Questions asked:

How were you able to retire? Was it a pension plan through work?
Were you targeting a specific age that you wanted to retire?
How did you get into writing? Is that something you knew you would do once you retired?
What did you learn about my grandfather?
Do you remember any stories that my Aunt Joanie told you about “Fats?”
Why don’t we have a Major League team [in New Orleans]? Is there talk of us ever getting a team here?
Why did the Zephyrs team change ownership/affiliation so much?
Did you follow Will Clark’s career closely?
Is Will Clark an a-hole? Why is that the perception of him?
What prompted you to write about “Nice Guys Finish Last?”
What’s the most interesting discovery that you’ve made in trying to connect players and relatives?
Why are you wearing a Yankee cap right now?
Do you have a favorite Yankee of all-time?
How did you feel about the old Yankee Stadium being torn down?
Did you collect baseball cards growing up?
Did you know Ron Washington?
What’s your interest in Comiskey Park and the White Sox?
How are you doing with your goal of visiting all the Major League parks?
Do you have a favorite park?
Do you think what happened to the old Yankee Stadium can also happen to Wrigley Field and Fenway Park?
Are you in favor of an electronic strike zone?
Can you talk about Babe Ruth’s connection to New Orleans?
Do you find that you’re just as busy in retirement?
What are you working on right now?
Do you find that your attention span has waned with the advent of technology?
Do you ever find yourself up late on Sunday night trying to meet your own deadline?
Do you invest in any sort of stocks?

Fun questions:

Favorite dish when you go to Italian restaurants?
Favorite Italian restaurant in New Orleans?
Social media – net negative or net positive for society?
If you could wake up tomorrow & have any number of Twitter followers, how many would you choose?
Favorite baseball website?
Did you subscribe to many sports magazines throughout the years?
Do you have a place where all of your indexed magazines & stuff are going to go when your time is up?
If I gave you $100,000 and forced you to invest it in one of these companies – Amazon, Apple, or Tesla – which would you choose?
Favorite baseball-related book?
Favorite baseball-related movie?