Category: Uncategorized

“1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK”

The author:
David Krell

The publishing info:
University of Nebraska Press
384 pages; $34.95
Released May 1, 2021

The links:
The publisher’s website
At Bookshop.org
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com
At The Last Book Store in L.A.
At PagesABookstore.com
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
Note: The author has a website but the book is not listed

The review in 90 feet or less

Year after year after year, we find ourselves lured into fixating on one certain year in baseball.

Check your calendars. Then check your interest level.

Many an author has taken on a challenge to revisit the historical impact of one team in one particular season, or one particular World Series. Magicians such as David Halberstam could compose “October 1964,” or a Tom Adleman can tackle “Black and Blue: The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys and the 1966 World Series that Stunned America” released in 40 years after it happened in ’06.

Others find more of a challenge to connect dots with a broader approach – a start-to-finish environmental impact report on how the game endured amidst all that was going on. But without a real foundation of believe ability, they can sound like a publisher’s marketing department filling in the blanks of a Mad Lib press release:

(Fill in the Year) was the most (Important/Pivotal/Astonishing/Awful/Eye-Opening/Prodigious/Rare/Phenomenal/Incomprehensible/Marvelous/Jaw-Dropping/Shocking/Surpring) season baseball has ever (experienced/seen/endured)! Go back to see how (list the events) reshaped the sport (like never before/never to go back/pushing it into the next century).

Nostalgia, and history, and “where you when when …?” can be compelling enough to sell. Especially if that was right around the time of your birthday. What was happening in the game, and around it, when you landed here?

Continue reading “Day 24 of 30 baseball book reviews in 2021: Where were you in ’62? Or, does it really matter?” →

“Double Plays and Double Crosses:
The Black Sox and Baseball in 1920”

The author:
Don Zminda

The publishing info:
Rowman & Littlefield
344 pages
$36
Released March 10, 2021

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Indiebound.org
At Bookshop.org
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com
At The Last Book Store in L.A.
At PagesABookstore.com
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com

The review in 90 feet or less

The 20 things we learned, never considered possible, might have forgot and are now reminded, or we were just duped into thinking otherwise as they related to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal and its proceeding consequences, thanks to Don Zminda’s quest to clarify and rectify how things went south for the southside of Chicago’s American League after it gave away a World Series to the Red Legs:

1 >>>>>
Of the eight Chicago White Sox under investigation for game fixing and eventually banned from the big leagues – outfielders “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Oscar “Happy” Felsch, pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude “Lefty” Williams, third baseman/infielder George “Buck” Weaver, shortstop Charles “Swede” Risberg, utility infielder Fred McMullin and first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil – three of them had Southern California ties. When the initial investigation into what happened was independently launched by team owner Charles Comiskey, agent went to L.A. to interview Weaver, McMullin and Gandil.
Gandil turned out to be the MVP — Most Vulnerable Patsy.

Continue reading “Day 23 of 30 baseball book reviews in 2021: Oh, it very much is so: How the ’19 Black Sox were fixing to keep things going into in the ’20s … and more roarin’ stuff” →

“Baseball’s Who’s Who of What Ifs:
Players Derailed en Route to Cooperstown”

The author:
Bill Deane

The publishing info:
McFarland Books
324 pages
$39.99
Released March 17, 2021

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Indiebound.org
At Bookshop.org
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com
At The Last Book Store in L.A.
At PagesABookstore.com
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Target.com

The review in 90 feet or less

It’s official: There will be no curious case of why Mike Trout will be able to muscle his way through the front door of the Baseball Hall of Fame someday with a lifetime pass.

No doubt, his WAR-boggling achievements amassed by the yet-to-turn 30 year old Angels centerfielder – a three-time American League MVP (’14, ’16, ’19), the 2012 AL Rookie of Year, eight-time All Star (nine, if one was played in ’20), two-time All-Star Game MVP – are the obvious bullet points toward his resume building. A Twitter feed called Mike Trout Slash Line even lets us know on an at-bat basis what his career numbers are trending. There may be some otherwise vague set of guidelines about what constitutes a Cooperstown-caliber career, which continues to baffle writers such as Forbes’ Bernie Pleskoff, but Trout can’t reasonably be pooh-poohed.

But as of the 2020 campaign, Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs.com pointed out last July, Trout has satisfied the Hall of Fame’s eligibility rule 3(B) of having played in “each of ten (10) Major League championship seasons.” (even if there’s some gray area about what a “championship season” entails — didn’t 1994 end without a championship?).

Continue reading “Day 22 of (at least) 30 baseball book reviews in 2021: Woulda, coulda, didn’t … failed execution and the rules of Cooperstown residency” →

“Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and
the World Series That Changed Baseball”

The author:
Luke Epplin

The publishing info:
Flatiron Books/MacMillan
390 pages
$29.99
Released March 30, 2021

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Powells.com
At Vromans.com
At The LastBook Store in L.A.
At PagesABookstore.com
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Target.com
At Indiebound.org
At Bookshop.org

The review in 90 feet or less

Jackie Robinson, 1947, Dodgers … The MLB’s first Black player, and the bigs’ first Rookie of the Year, helps propel his team to first in the National League. But they lose in seven games to the Yankees in the World Series, and their first (and only ) title in Brooklyn won’t come until eight years later.

We suspect you’ve got a pretty decent grasp of that piece of history.

Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson sharing a laugh pic.twitter.com/e7ZwJifEV7

— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) April 2, 2021

Larry Doby, 1947, Indians … The MLB’s second Black player, and first in the American League, arriving about three months after Robinson tests the waters, doesn’t make quite the statistical splash — just 29 games, 32 at bats, a .156 average — and Cleveland manages a fourth-place finish in the junior circuit.

Then comes 1948.

Owner Bill Veeck ups his game, adding Satchel Paige onto his staff to join up with Bob Feller. Magic happens in a city where, just a few years later, a local R&B radio disc jockey will coin the phrase “rock-n-roll” and introduce the profound licks of Black-influenced music to be embraced by his white listeners.

Doesn’t that seem like a much more entertaining story to tell after all these years?

Before Cleveland rocked, Cleveland rocked the boat with its own fab four.

Continue reading “Day 21 of 30 baseball book reviews in 2021: Life after April 15, ’47: When Cleveland’s colorful 48ers made its mark” →

“The Great Bambino:
Babe Ruth’s Life in Pictures”

The author: Sam Chase
The publishing info: Centennial Books, 192 pages, $19.99, Released March 9, 2021
The links: At the publisher’s website, at Powells.com, at Vromans.com, at The Last Book Store in L.A., at PagesABookstore.com, at Amazon.com, at BarnesAndNoble.com, at Indiebound.org, at Bookshop.org.

The review in 90 feet or less

Picture this: A photo book of Babe Ruth. Big and glossy. Nothing real in depth. Highlights of his career and all that sort of stuff.

Instant seller? Depends on who’s buying. But if “Yankees” is in the title …

Today in 1927, Babe Ruth contracts syphilis in the morning, beats it with his will power by 1:00 pm, eats 14 hot dogs and gets the shits, then cranks two homers that night to impress a prostitute. pic.twitter.com/9BZZ9z2BgG

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) April 10, 2021

A tweet we came across the other day kind of sold us (again) on the idea that if all you had was a picture of the Bambino with some text-adjacent real estate, someone will glob onto it in hopes of gleaning new information. It can be a fatal attraction.

Or, an opportunity for Babe to have some good, clean fun:

Nice to see Babe Ruth wasn't above making the same joke we've all made at one time or another. pic.twitter.com/0sV7apvx9K

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) April 24, 2021

Actually, today is annual Babe Ruth History Day according to those who establish these sort of thing. We were not aware of it until we were in a Ruth photo excavation process of our own to see if photos in this new collection were as un-rare as they appear to be. Had we been more perceptive in our perusal of “The Great Bambino,” we would have seen on page 149 the story about how baseball commissioner Happy Chandler declared April 27, 1947 as “Babe Ruth Day,” as it was obvious Ruth wasn’t going to live much longer with cancer. Ruth appeared that day at Yankee Stadium to be celebrated before 60,000 fans — but it’s not the famous photo you may recall of him standing at home plate with his No. 3 pinstripes and his former teammates lined up along first base. That was June 13, 1948, two months before he died at age 53. That photo is on pages 146-147.

So even if there’s no real official Ruth anniversary of note, no historical feat to celebrate, why not hold this publication up as the latest example of his staying power?

It also brings up the idea: What if someone was to put a book together of all the images produced of Ruth over the years that were created just to sell another book.

It could include:

Continue reading “Day 20 of 30 baseball book reviews in 2021: On National Babe Ruth History Day, he’s ready for his next close up, and more tired Yankees titles” →