No comments about A Biographical Dictionary of Major League Baseball Managers.

1 comments about The Illustrated History of Mickey Mantle.

1. The sports world needs a definitive photo book about Mantle. This isn't it. The photos are very poor reproductions of familiar images found clearly reproduced in other books. Here, they look like 50th generation copies. I returned the book without reading it but noticed that a sequence of Mantle's great catch in Larson's perfect game is described as a catch against Boston! Schoor, a quality writer, should be ashamed of allowing his name to put on this disaster. Charging $36 for this work is a crime.

1 comments about Sawdust Trail Preacher: Billy Sunday (Faith's Adventurers).

1. What do we know of Billy Sunday? That, in the words of the song, he could not "shut down" Chicago, That as William Ashley Sunday he endured a difficult youth and displayed a temper always hard to manage. He also played pretty fair baseball for the Chicago Whitesockings and other major league teams. One season he batted .359. And he could run like a deer. Before his conversion, he cussed, drank and was a battler, taking no guff from anyone.
   
   Young Sunday came to his Lord in Chicago and never looked back. He understudied evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman from 1893 to 1895. He then became his own man, first as a lay preacher and after 1903 as an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church. He evolved his own style as a preacher, acting out skits on stage during his revivals, using simple slang-filled language, sliding across the stage as if stealing a base. By general consensus he had, before his death on November 6, 1935, persuaded more than a million men and women to commit themselves in writing to God.
   
   Billy Sunday's theology was short, simple and appealing: "With Christ you are saved; without Him you are lost." A leading ethical opinion of his was that "whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell." But Sunday also believed that God meant Christians to be happy, even merry. He innovated in the craft of evangelical and revival preaching, with emphasis on careful planning, attention to finance, and erection of inexpensive but safe temporary wooden buildings with sawdust strewn on the floors to hold down the noise. This led to the phrase "hitting the sawdust trail," used of persons who came forward during a revival, walking down a sawdust covered aisle to declare themselves for Christ.
   
   SAWDUST TRAIL PREACHER: BILLY SUNDAY is a little gem, only 93 pages long. It covers Billy Sunday's life in more than adequate detail for an introductory biography. It is a model for what its author means to do. And Billy Sunday left his mark on America and many, many individuals and families.

3 comments about My Favorite Summer 1956.

1. This book is one of the best books I have ever read. Not necessarily the best book ever written, but the best book I have ever read. It is my favorite book because it is about my favorite subject, baseball and of course the New York Yankees. Someone who does not like baseball or the New York Yankees as much as me would probably not like the book as much as me. But for a real baseball fan, it is a must read. The `50s were a great time for baseball, and the Yankees, and this book documents one of those spectacular seasons. To keep interested in this book, you must be a baseball fan, and at least like the Yankees in order for the book to be a good read. I say this because the Yankees are so good, that a lot of people despise them because they are so outrageously good. Either way I loved the book, it informed me on a time of baseball when I was not around to witness it, and now after reading the book, I feel I lived it. I felt like I was there, I watched Mickey win the Triple Crown, I watched the Yankees win the World Series. I was there. This was a great book, and I would recommend it to anyone with a heart of baseball, such as I do.



2. When I read this book I could not put it down. The detail of the 1956 season that Mickey goes into is unmatched because the words come right from the source, MICKEY! I think you must be a baseball fan to enjoy this book, but you definitely don't have to be a Yankee fan. I strongly dislike Steinbrenner's Yankees, but this is before he ruined the organization. Who doesn't have a small spot in their heart for the oldtime Yanks? This book tells you about the relationships between Mickey and Billy Martin as well as Whitey Ford, straight from Mickey's mouth!! Mickey hired the great Phil Pepe to help edit his book, and Pepe's editing always makes the reading just keep flowing. Outstanding read, and I recommend it to any baseball fan!



3. I enjoyed this causually written account of Mickey Mantles' summer of 1956. It's like sitting on the front porch with Mick as he tells you the events and feelings of what he and the yankees experinced that year,on and off the field.and he spares you his war stories by leaving it at "we went out and partied that night". He talks about his triple crown, his homerun race agianst Babe Ruth(also in the back is a season schedule of dates,hr's,pitchers faced,site, opponents, and runners on base).Mick also discusses the 1956 world series agianst the dodgers and descibes the perfect game by don larsen. Also there are game and team photos. i think you will enjoy micks account of his favorite year.

No comments about Mark McGwire: The Power Hitter (Sport Snaps).

2 comments about Behind the Mask.

1. Dave Pallone did something in baseball that, to my knowledge, no one else has ever done: he came out of the closet. Pallone wasn't a player, but rather an umpire. It cost him his job. Reading this book you will find that you are angered and uplifted. Pallone did not deserve the treatment he received from baseball. Pallone's treatment will be the reason that any others in baseball who are gay, remain in the closet. After all, we can't have anyone who is in team athletics acting in a non-acceptable manner... Funny isn't it that drugs, illegitimate children, murders, assaults, etc. are all acceptable behavior by professional sports, but homosexuality isn't.

   This book will provide you with an insight into something that is rarely spoken about. It isn't great literature, but then it isn't supposed to be. It is a biography of a person during a specific time. I recommend this book.




2. I have read this book a few times and am so glad that he was able to write it. This type of treatment needs to be shown to the world. How much longer will it be before people are accepted for their abilities without regard to their sexual orientation?

1 comments about Commy": The Life Story of Charles A. Comiskey (The Mcfarland Historical Baseball Library, 2).

1. I'm a big White Sox fan, so I thought reading about the founder of the club would be interesting. Well I was so wrong.
   
   Mr. Axelson is obviously a big fan of his topic. There is nothing in this book except what a great guy Comiskey was. Well that's all fine. But I wanted to read about the effort to place the new American League team in Chicago and the problems dealing with the National League team already in town, the building of Comiskey Park. Learn something about his family,especially his father the Alderman. All is covered in a few paragraphs and then we get back to how great a guy Comiskey was.The building of Comiskey Park is done in one paragraph, but I understand Comiskey was a great guy during it's construction.
   
   Also this was written pre-Black Sox so nothing about that black eye to the great guy is mentioned. It is also written in a flowery some times overly descriptive style, which I think is due to the author being a newspaper man. By the way did I mention Comiskey was a great guy?
   
   There is really little to learn here unless your interest is in baseball in it's very early years. And even then what you will mostly learn was the Comiskey was a great guy. Did I mention that Comiskey was a great guy?

2 comments about Thanks for Listening!.

1. If you love baseball and the Chicago Cubs, this book is for you. Jack Brickhouse was Cubs' baseball during the time I was growing up on the north side of Chicago and he was a welcome member of our family, through the TV and radio.

   Later in life, we became close friends and he was a mentor to me. A finer gentleman you will never meet. The book is a history of the Cubs from the mid-40's through the 90's and it also tells the story of WGN-TV, one of the nation's great independent stations.

   Hey! Hey! This book is a grandslam homer in the ninth inning.




2. THIS IS ALOT OF THIS AND THAT FROM VETERAN BROADCASTER JACK BRICKHOUSE. HIS CAREER IN CHICAGO IS LEGENDARY. HE GIVES A ALOT OF GREAT STORIES OF HIS CAREER, OPINIONS, LIFE IN GENERAL, AND SOME HUMOROUS LETTERS SENT TO HIM OVER THE YEARS. A VERY NICE READ FOR ALL BASEBALL FANS. RECOMMENDED.

1 comments about Paul Molitor: Good Timing: The Paul Molitor Story.

1. It isn't often that I here a fact or a story about Paul Molitor that I don't already know. He was my hero when I first saw him play on my 7th birthday, and as I graduate with a Master's degree 20 years later, he is still every bit the hero I remember. That is why it was such a nice surprise to find several tidbits brought to light by Broomer that I had never been aware of. There is no question that Molitor is the last of a dying breed of players who play the game the way it is meant to be played, and a review of his career from American Legion to his World Series MVP performance would be interesting for any baseball fan. Broomer's writing however, lacks imagination. The text of the book reads like a laundry list of where Molitor played ball during his life, and is all too briefly interupted by short quotes from the people who knew Molitor at various times during his life. I believer Broomer expended very little energy writing this book. However, any baseball fan would be excited to review the evidence of Molly's dedication to baseball, and his class on and off of the field. For the true Molitor fan, there are several outstanding photos of Molitor in his Golden Gophers uniform and throughout his professional career.

No comments about Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait.