Baseball Quotations Dictionary; Elderberry Wine

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THE McFARLAND BASEBALL QUOTATIONS DICTIONARY
by David H. Nathan
McFarland & Co, Jefferson, NC
294 pages hardcover, $45
2000 (revised edition of book published in 1991)

     McFarland publishes a very large number of books about baseball.  This
was a featured book in their catalogue.
     It's a huge disappointment.
     Why was this book published?  It's not better than Paul Dickson's book
on baseball quotations, and it's ridiculously overpriced.
     There are no photos, illustrations, or other stuff.  Just 4271
quotations.
     The quotations are indexed by subject and by speaker, but not by year.
And do you know why they're not indexed by year?  Take this quote, from Aging
Gracefully:

2.  The worst of this is that I no longer can see my penis when I stand
up.--_Babe Ruth, Hall of Fame outfielder, on getting old and fat._

    When did Babe Ruth say this?  Did he really say this?  Was he misquoted?
Is this some slander that someone invented after his death?
     The whole book is like that!

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ELDERBERRY WINE

     OED has 1840 for "Elderberry wine."
     From a rare book in the New York Historical Society, THE PRACTICAL
DISTILLER (Harrisburgh, PA, 1809) by Samuel M'Harry, pg. 156:

_To make Elderberry Wine._  The editor is happy in introducing the following
receipts which he is confident is hardly known in America.  The great
quantities of the Elderberry, which yearly goes to waste, might with very
little trouble be manufactured into one of the most wholesome and agreeable
wines ever introduced into America.  To every two quarts of berries, add one
gallon of water, boil it half an hour, then (pg. 157--ed.) drain it, and add
to every gallon of liquor, two and a half pounds of sugar, then boil it
together for half an hour, and skim it well; when cool (not cold) put in a
piece of toasted bread, spread thick with brewer's yeast, to ferment.  When
you put this liquor into the barrel, which must be done the next day, add to
every gallon of liquor, one pound of raisins, chopped, and stir all together
in the barrel, once every day, for a week, then stop it close.  It will not
be fit to tap 'till the spring following the making; and the older the
better.