Book Review - Shades of Glory
Shades of Glory tells the history of African American Baseball.
It's obvious that there was a tremendous amount of research that went into this book.
I believed I was pretty familiar with a lot of the players and stories of the Negro Leagues
but I learned a lot from this work. Sprinkled throughout the book are numerous sidebars about
many of the best players. There were many tales I had not heard about, such as the legend of
Cool Papa Bell, about whom it's said could turn off the lights and be in bed before they went off.
I was surprised to learn that this story is actually based on true events!
The Negro Leagues were innovators in many ways. Did you know that the first night games were
played in the Negro Leagues?
Whereas most of the books I've read have dealt mostly with the players themselves and their
accomplishments, Shades of Glory details the history of the leagues themselves. How they came about,
the economic problems, how the various incarnations of leagues came and went. It details a lot of
the business side of the history that I knew nothing about. It's also quite enlightening as to just
how much baseball brought communities together in both the white communities and very much in the
black communities. There was a time in the past when baseball played a huge part of American life.
Towns and companies had teams and huge numbers of people followed their local teams.
Sadly, as much as Jackie Robinson and the integration of Major League Baseball did for our country,
there were also casualties. The Negro Leagues quickly died due to mostly economic reasons; the fans
started going to see the Major League teams with black players and not following the Negro League teams.
Black-owned hotels and other businesses lost a lot of business once the other businesses started opening
their doors. But most of the old negro players who missed out on playing in the majors don't express
a lot of regret. They are thankful for getting to play baseball!
Shades of Glory goes much more into the business side of the history of the Negro Leagues than
it does the actual players and their statistics, but it's filled with some remarkable accounts and really
opens your eyes as to the struggles of the African American players in the early days of baseball.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in baseball history and some of the greatest players
who never made it to the major leagues.
Last Updated ( Friday, 18 September 2009 15:21 )
Book Review - Hell Bent
Thursday, 17 September 2009 11:22 | Author: Dan |
Hell Bent is the latest Brady Coyne mystery and it's a good one. Last Updated ( Friday, 18 September 2009 15:24 ) Book Review - Hitting in the Clutch
Friday, 18 September 2009 15:12 | Author: Dan |
Billed as a Baseball book for the Maxim crowd, Hitting in the Clutch is a rowdy, crude, hilarious look at what really goes on inside the clubhouse and on and off the field among professional baseball players. This books is a HOOT! I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a fictional Ball Four, written during the 2004 Arizona Diamondbacks season. Clutch, the fictional author of the book, and his buddies are a lot like high-school boys, always cracking one-liners, talking crude and looking for monkey. It may be fiction but I thoroughly believe a lot of it is likely to be the way some ballplayers really are (or do I just want to believe it?). As crude and rude as Clutch is, I found myself actually caring about him by the end of the book. It's one of the funniest books I've read in a while. Run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore (or better yet, click on the image above!) and get a copy. You won't be sorry. Highly recommended! 5 stars! Last Updated ( Friday, 18 September 2009 15:41 ) |
Book Review - The Deceived
Thursday, 17 September 2009 11:40 | Author: Dan |
The Deceived by Brett Battles is a suspense thriller about a "cleaner", a freelance operative Last Updated ( Friday, 18 September 2009 15:23 ) |
