Slightly Better than Replacement Level
I didn’t grow up a Mickey Mantle fan. Not only was his career after my time, but other than some mentions on Seinfeld, he wasn’t present, or even mentioned, in the popular culture I consumed. As I dove deeper into baseball history, I never got the Mantle bug, so to speak. I accrued a cursory […]
Sometimes an author swings big and misses by only a little. Such was the case with Randall Sullivan’s first full-length baseball effort. The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR and America at the Crossroads has grandiose aims, and at times it teeters oh so close to meeting those aims. Unfortunately, at every turn, Sullivan simply […]
When it comes to my allegiances within Major League Baseball, it’s no secret that I’m a Chicago Cubs fan. That’s never stopped me from respecting the ability of the St. Louis Cardinals to be a contender year after year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t loathe the Cardinals, I do. But one […]
As Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series came to a close, I struggled with what I had just read. Mainly, I struggled with the idea that anyone could read David Pietrusza’s book and not find it terminally boring. When I finally turned to the last […]
I sat and stewed over this review for a few days. It’s not that I didn’t know what to say about Wrigleyworld: A Season in Baseball’s Best Neighborhood, it’s that I didn’t know how negative I wanted to be. There have been books I have disliked; those reading along know I have read a fair […]