Slightly Better than Replacement Level
Baseball as fiction is always, in my opinion, hard for an author to pull off. The main reason for this is that the author doesn’t let baseball tell the story. Instead, they feel the need to insert some sort of extraneous element that isn’t really necessary to the story. Shadow Ball: A Novel of Baseball […]
On the whole, I really enjoyed Jules Tygiel’s effort. The concept is one that is right up my alley, and for the most part, it had me hooked from the get-go. There are times when it faltered and when Tygiel succumbed to classical tropes instead of actual investigations of history. Those moments were decidedly in […]
Virgil Trucks had a really good Major League Baseball career. The burly right-hander pitched in 17 seasons, amassed a 40.4 bWAR, won the 1945 World Series, and finished his career with a very respectable 3.54 FIP and 117 ERA+. Trucks also pitched five seasons in the minors where he was (surprise, surprise) very good. However, […]
I don’t like to start my reviews too negative, but that’s really hard this time around, The Best Team Money Can Buy is that bad of an offering. When I turned the final page I was left with the overriding thought that I didn’t have a single positive morsel to offer about Molly Knight’s tome […]
The Negro Leagues Are Major Leagues is an interesting concept. The title came on the heels of Major League Baseball’s decision to declare the Negro Leagues were major leagues. I’m not going to use this review to litigate that announcement, I’ve done that plenty on this site already. Regardless, a collection of essays discussing the […]