5 comments about Inside Power.

1. This is a very brief story about the earlier years of one of baseball's premier players, Gary Sheffield. It is written in very short chapters along the line of Jose Conseco's book, but is more about a maturing process than anything else. Dwight Gooden is Gary's uncle, and that must have been a riot growing up with a role model like that. Gary has alot of baggage he brings around that resembles a chip on his shoulder-- and seems to blame everyone else for any problem that comes along. Sometimes, you have to admit to yourself, that your life is better than most people's and let little things not bother you so much. Eventually, he learns this, and becomes a better person from the "inside". The Inside Power title is to signify his change into becoming a man from a kid. Gary Sheffield is/was one of the world's greatest hitters...when others talked of going 0 for 20, a bad streak for him was 0 for 3. It was an interesting book, but nothing really remarkable about it. You are not going to get any secret tips on how to bat or hit, but you will get a journey on how baseball will make you grow up or you will be very unhappy your entire career. How many people in this world would trade for a career like this guy instead of complaining about 90% of the time about trades and owners? The time he spent with Barry Bonds must have actually made him worse, and is interesting because it was at the wrong time in his career. When I think of Gary Sheffield, I think of a line drive double hit---HARD. guyairey



2. GARY SHEFFIELD DOES A GOOD JOB WITH THIS BOOK. INSIDE POWER IS ABOUT HIS LIFE AND CAREER. ONE THING I DID LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK IS LITTLE IF ANY PROFANITIES. I CAN ALSO APPRECIATE HIS HONESTY ON MANY SUBJECTS AND AGREED WITH HIM ON MOST. I FOUND SHEFFIELD TO BE QUITE HUMAN WITH A BIG EGO AND A BIG MOUTH. I AM GLAD HE HAS FOUND A LOVING WIFE AND GOD, BUT HE IS STILL A PAIN TO DEAL WITH AND A MAJOR HEADACHE IF HE DOESN'T GET HIS WAY. I ADMIRE HIS TALENT AND HE WILL AND SHOULD BE IN THE HALL OF FAME SOME DAY. GROW UP GARY AND BE MORE LIKE YOUR WIFE. I RECOMMEND THIS FOR ALL BASEBALL FANS.



3. one of best books I have read. So many life lessons and intriguing story



4. If you like baseball, then read this book. This book describes most owners and GM's are just business men. It shows really how cruel the Yankees baseball staff is and how great the players. It shows how baseball is unfair to a lot of players and how it is becoming more of a racist sport. This book also shows inspiration and how money isn't everything. This book also shows that Barry Bonds is a really egotistical power-hungry maniac(no offense Giants fans). This is a great book. I picked it up and i didn't put it down until I finished it.



5. Gary Sheffield Is one of My Favorite Players and David Ritz is One of Favorite Writers as well. bring there two Worlds together and you have a strong Book. what I dig about Gary Sheffield is that He is One of the very Few true Soul Brothers around who speaks his mind. I miss that from so many cats who are only too happy to grin and get the Money and Be Bought off. Sheff stays on the real.I dug what he said about his Grandpa I can relate to that. Great mentions of his Uncle Dwight "Doc" Gooden. a Strong Book from a Strong Minded Soul Brother.

5 comments about Rube Waddell: The Zany, Brilliant Life of a Strikeout Artist.

1. Being a big fan of turn-of-the-century baseball, I have waited a long time for a thorough treatment of Rube Waddell. I'm still waiting. Rube did some silly things during his lifetime, mostly to amuse himself and his teammates, who were often doubled over with laughter. For this, he has been called "crazy", and possibly semi-retarded. This author falls right in line with those conclusions.
   
   What he briefly mentions, almost as an aside, are the several well-documented lives Rube Waddell saved, in addition to possibly countless others too difficult to estimate. From carrying an injured teammate on his shoulders to a hospital (while everyone else stood around), and staying with him all night, holding cold compresses to his injured head, to preventing a fire in a crowded department store by dragging a dangerous, fiery stove out of it, Rube Waddell was very serious and clear-headed when someone else's safety was at stake. Several times he jumped into rivers to save people from drowning, once when it was just a log in the water. No matter, Rube acted instantly when he thought someone needed help.
   
   The author, like everyone else these past 100 years, mentions Rube's chasing after fire engines as evidence of his immaturity. Lost is the fact Rube wanted to get to the fires to help put them out, often at great personal risk. Connie Mack recalled the particular bravery of one firefighter combating a house fire, standing on the second story roof and pouring water down onto the fire. Suddenly he realized, that was his star pitcher!
   
   In fact, Rube contracted the illness that eventually killed him by working for many hours in freezing water up to his armpits, helping restore a broken levee. He didn't take a break to go fishing, or wander off to play marbles with kids.
   
   Other than doctors or possibly those who served in combat, probably no other Hall Of Fame player saved so many lives, took so many personal risks, and ultimately died in the effort to help strangers. I'm not saying Rube was a saint, and no author should treat him with that reverence, but to write Rube off as "zany", perhaps retarded, is really an injustice of large magnitude. Rube knew there was a time and a place to be zany, and a time and a place to be serious. When the chips were down, he was deadly serious.
   
   So I wait for an author to come along and realize that throwing a little white ball past a guy with a stick, in the grand scheme of things, really isn't as important as chasing a fire engine, to get to the fire, to save someone's life. Rube understood that.



2. Rube Waddell had a major league career that was not very long (13 seasons, but in three of those he played in 10 or fewer games), but as with Sandy Koufax, when he played in a full season, he could be dominating. Alan Levy makes the same argument in his book, and the record book bears this out: once leading the league in games pitched, once leading the league in wins, seven times leading the league in strikeouts (six consecutively) and a winning percentage of .574 despite playing for some bad teams (and some good ones, too). So why isn't he remembered as the Koufax of his day? Well, he played 100 years ago, so no one who saw him play is alive today. His contemporaries generally had longer careers with better teams, usually a single team (like Mathewson, Bender, Plank, Brown, etc.). And, Waddell seems to be looked at today as "a psychologist's dream," as someone who does sufficiently odd things or is odd himself, so that there is a question if we're dealing with a crazy person here. I don't believe that Waddell was "crazy" - I don't pretend to be a doctor, either, but the book does make a lot of mention to incidents that would seem to make Waddell out of the ordinary today. And that may be a fault of the world that we live in today, that characters aren't tolerated as much as they used to be. It's perhaps enough to go with Sam Crawford's assessment that Waddell was just a "big kid" and leave it at that. Read for yourself the exploits of Rube Waddell in this well-written book, and reacquaint yourself with a unique character with a precious baseball gift.



3. The most entertaining baseball book I have ever read! If you ask baseball fans, many have never heard of Rube Waddell. This is shocking because of two reasons: 1) He was one of the best pitchers of his time. 2) His behavior, on and off the field, was completely insane. In fact, Connie Mack said he had the mind of a 10 year old. Rube truly was the best of his times, oftentimes competing and beating Cy Young for pitching titles. In 1904, playing for the Philadelphia Athletics, he struck out 349 batters and this stood as a record for over 60 years. The author, Alan H. Levy, clearly did a considerable amount of research for the book. Each year comes to life in this book, from Rube's time with the Chicago Orphans to his last two seasons with the St. Louis Browns.
   
   It is said that only Connie Mack could handle Rube's behavior. Many times the only way to do this was to just let Rube do his thing and watch in amazement, or perhaps horror. Rube Waddell could be on the mound pitching and if he heard that there was a fire, he would simply walk off the mound and run to help put out the fire. He loved fighting fires! Many times, his coach and teammates would wonder where Rube was and he could be found selling peanuts and hotdogs as a vendor. One of his favorite things to do was to go to the local zoo and wrestle with the bears or alligators on exhibit. Where is Rube they would ask yet again? This time he was found playing marbles with kids under the baseball stands. Rube was also known for leaving a team and playing for another local team. At one point he was on the payroll for three different teams. When Rube was focused he was truly the deadliest pitcher of his time and this pitching allowed his team and fans to watch in awe as he struck out some of the best hitters of that time, such as Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford. Fitting to his overall lifestyle Rube Waddell passed away on April Fools Day. This book is both entertaining and informative. www.fatherachildsright.org Robert Pedersen



4. Great book for anyone who loves vintage baseball.



5. Thanks to author Alan Levy we at long last have a biography about Rube Waddell, a great pitcher at the beginning of the 20th century. Contemporaries of Waddell such as Cy Young, Christy Mathewson,Grover Alexander, and Walter Johnson have at least one biography written about them and now Rube joins them in this respect. Author Levy states that Waddell had four loves in life which were pitching, fishing, fighting fires, and liquor not neccessarily in that order. Students of baseball history remember Waddell as a baseball zany for his antics both on and off the field, but what is often overlooked is that he was a very caring person who would give of himself to others. It was in this capacity of standing hour on end in cold water fighting back floodwaters by piling sandbags that led to pneumonia and eventually tuberculosis. Baseball was simply a game to Waddell whether he was throwing his fastball past major league hitters or playing with a bunch of ten year olds. Both Rube Waddell and Babe Ruth were alike in that they both were childlike in the body of an adult. Author Levy gives an excellent account of the scuffle which Waddell got into over a teammate's straw hat that led to him injuring his arm and prevented him from going up against Christy Mathewson in the 1905 World Series in which Matty pitched three shutouts. It would have been interesting to see what the matchups of Waddell and Mathewson would have provided us. It was traditional for straw hats to be destroyed after Labor Day and Rube wanted to destroy the teammate's hat. I don't see that there was any dark deeds involved between Waddell and gamblers who didn't want Waddell to pitch in the Series. Athletics manager Connie Mack gave Waddell some free reign when the two were together while Waddell gave Pirates manager Fred Clarke fits with his erratic behavior. It's true that Rube Waddell had destructive habits, but I also come away feeling that Rube Waddell had a caring side for other people that is too often overlooked.

5 comments about A Nice Tuesday.

1. I bought this book because I enjoyed a False Spring many years ago. I was truly not disappointed. Pat Jordan is so honest that it doesn't matter whether you are reading his books as a sports fan or not, you become interested in his life. Unusual events happenn to him and he writes about them unusually well.



2. I don't think I can add much to the praise bestowed upon this book by the previous reviewers, other than to mention two things I found special about this memoir (come on Amazon proofreaders, get it right!).
   1. I found the book an incredibly interesting portrait of a man that is eerily DISsimilar to myself, yet I could relate and empathise with his life and dreams.
   2. Chapter Three, which is a self-deprecating look at a typical day in the life of a man "...rooted in his routine." is one of the best individual chapters of any book I have read recently. He describes an unremarkable S. Florida day with such clarity and humor that I found myself thinking as I read, "yeah, and then what did you do?"

   I am moving on to A False Spring with anticipation...




3. This book is not about baseball, and it is not a sequel to "A False Spring," which was a classic in its own right. It is also not about dogs, cigars, fast cars or South Florida, although all of those things figure prominently in the book. Instead, "A Nice Tuesday" is a deeper, fuller portrait of an unusually talented guy living out his life as best he can despite a nagging feeling that he has failed.

   That may not sound particularly interesting, but Pat Jordan himself is a far better subject than 99% of the atheletes he usually writes about. He is an intelligent guy, with a wide range of interests. His writing captures that struggle we all go through of being able to perceive our shortcomings and only have limited success trying to change them. But, at least he does try. In this book, he's completely unafraid to reveal himself through his writing.

   Beyond this, Jordan is a very skilled writer. He has a great sense of judgment as to what will capture and keep the reader's attention. He doesn't abuse this gift by lingering on his stories too long. There are dozens of memorable scenes and vignettes in this book, but it does not come off as being choppy or disorganized. The connections make sense to Jordan, and he convinces the reader that they should make sense.

   Although this is non-fiction, the book "A Nice Tuesday" resembles most closely is "The World According to Garp" by John Irving. I mean that as a compliment; Garp is one of my favorite books of all time. For me, the similarities are in how Jordan and Garp are both fascinating individuals who have improbable life experiences -- much more interesting than the rest of us -- develop a unique way of looking at life, surround themselves with unusual, even quirky companions and still manage to come off as average guys. Just as John Irving novels have wrestling, dancing bears, New England prep schools and scenes in Vienna, Austria, Pat Jordan's life has baseball, dogs, cigars and Florida. We can relate to these elements, but the books are more than the sum of the elements. Neither Irving's novels nor Jordan's memoir are about these things. They just give the writer an excuse to display talent, skill and a unique way of looking at the world.

   "A Nice Tuesday" also conveys Jordan's sense of inevitable doom -- this obviously comes from the heart -- which reminds me of the "Under Toad" in Garp. Jordan knows that he always drives the people he loves away from him, but can't figure out why and can't seem to stop the process. How honest and uncommon to admit this secret fear that so many of us have.

   A Nice Tuesday is an excellent choice for any adult reader, male or female, young, middle aged or old. It has humor, insight and poignancy. It is much more rewarding than any sports book I have ever read and should not be cheapened by that label. It would have been just as good a book if he had not pitched in the minor league game.




4. It must have been my lucky day when I found this gem in a remainder bin. I picked it to peruse from idle curiosity about the cover and title, not because I knew anything about Pat Jordan. Boy, was I ever ignorant.

   I read a sentence, then a paragraph, then a page, and when hypnotized, I didn't want to stop there; so I bought it for the quality of its prose. I couldn't wait to start reading from the front and found it as funny, and occasionally profound, as it was well written.

   First off, this is a memoir or autobiography written by someone that knows a lot about baseball, not a baseball book per se. Only the extremely obtuse would read it solely in the context of some imagined "baseball comeback" genre. The "Nice Tuesday" of the title is the day the author works towards in all his life relationships...baseball paralleling the personal stuff.

   Jordan reflects on his Connecticut childhood, brief baseball celebrity, drag racing, gambling, father/son, brother/brother, dogs, Florida, writing, aging and yes, pitching with this engaging narrative. Above all else it is a book about how a man works out how to handle himself within the context of family (for better or worse) and career. It's a book about how to write the script of your own life. I don't know whether I'd get along with Jordan, the man, but he is a gifted, intelligent, honest writer.

   In spirit, a Cross between Jim Bouton's classic 'Ball Four' and a novel by Hemingway of Salter. As soon as I finished this book I ordered his earlier work "A False Spring" and forced a close friend to read my copy of "A Nice Tuesday." Don't be afraid to pay full price, it's worth twice the cover!




5. I know nothing about baseball and did not need to. This was a great story about the authors' interesting life. I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about The Catcher Was a Spy.

1. I felt like I was reading the sports pages for the first 140 pages. Too many stats, facts and figures. The storyline didn't flow, the plot was sluggish and languished for the most part. The story of Moe Berg's life should have packed some punch! I expected more pizazz. His life warranted it, but the book didn't deliver.



2. This interesting biography covers a most unusual person. Moe Berg (1902-1972) was a talented linguist, ballplayer, and U.S. espionage agent for the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) before and during World War II and briefly for the CIA after the war. Author Nicholas Dawidoff describes Berg's mysterious life, including New Jersey boyhood, studies at Princeton and Columbia, and years as a second-string catcher for the Dodgers, White Sox, Indians, Senators and Red Sox. Even as a player Berg was better know for his linguistic skills and stealth than for his baseball exploits. Then readers learn of Berg's years as a spy, which probably began when Berg toured Japan with other big leaguers in 1934. The author describes Berg's secret wartime activities, including his 1944-45 mission to ascertain the status of Nazi nuclear research. We also read of his later years, when except for brief CIA assignments, Berg chose to freeload off relatives and friends rather than employ his superb linguistic and legal talents (he had a law degree). A Overall, Berg was an enigmatic man, and this biography, written two decades after his passing, fails to uncover much about him - perhaps Berg would have wanted it that way. Still, this is an interesting and nicely researched biography.



3. Moe Berg was completely unpleasant. I found myself wondering why I should care about his life. He was a mediocre ballplayer, a mediocre scholar and a mediocre spy. His talent was that he was pleasant to be around. Why write a book about him?
   
   Why read about him? I wondered that. My reaction was, "So what?"



4. Moe Berg is truly one of the most interesting, and enigmatic, characters in sports history. What always fascinated me was how, after WWII and no longer in baseball, Berg never worked. He would stay at friends and relatives' homes throughout the country, reading multiple newspapers, and maintaining strict control of those papers. My guess, and this would make for an interesting investigative study, is that he stayed on the OSS/CIA payroll and was working for them, in some capacity: Dissecting the news, dealing with Communist espionage - or who knows, maybe he was working with foreign elemnets. Berg was something. He has to be considered a major hero. Surely the fact that he was an ex-ballplayer makes him stand out from the other heroes under "Wild Bill" Donovan, as does the fact that a Jew was sent to Nazi-controlled Finland to get German scientists. This is a terrific story. (...)



5. I'd been anticipating reading this book for some time, but getting through it was a chore. Dawidoff's writing and research are thorough. Berg left behind a wealth of personal material and many who knew him were still alive and available by phone or personal interview to Dawidoff. Hundreds of anecdotes and details about Berg's life emerge from these resources, and Dawidoff marches them all past the reader. The question is "Why?" Berg never becomes very interesting. It is well-known that he was a mediocre major league catcher. He was not much better as a spy, excelling mostly at running up large expense accounts. His tradecraft was abysmal; making and keeping notes to himself about briefings he received is such a fundamental error as to be ludicrous. After more than 300 pages it remained hard for me to take Berg seriously in any of his endeavors. In the end this is the biography of a moderately interesting obsessive dilettante, whose avoidance of normal human contact except on his own often strange terms seems almost pathological. Dawidoff tries valiantly but a New Yorker profile of about one-tenth this length would have been a sufficient account of Moe Berg's mildly curious life.

No comments about Big Ed Walsh: The Life and Times of a Spitballing Hall of Famer.

5 comments about Stranger to the Game: The Autobiography of Bob Gibson.

1. ...covering breaking into the big leagues black in the 1950s
   and highlights of the 1960s MLB. Competitive force of Gibson
   comes through in his slightly biased and semi-confessional
   bio.



2. During elementary school, 1972-1976, baseball was myth to me. The players were larger than life. Baseball cards were treasured. The World Series was something I looked forward to every year. I loved my Dodgers. I read Baseball Digest.
   I studied those baseball cards and Digests, and I got the impression that this Bob Gibson guy was pretty good.
   A few years later, I noted he was in the Hall of Fame.
   Years passed, I did the whole medical school thing, yadda yadda yadda and baseball got away from me. The strike didn't help.
   Then, whether it was the McGwire/Sosa chase, or I was just ready to come back, my interest in baseball expanded. Now I was reading every book I could on the subject.
   A grateful patient gave me an autographed baseball. I've never owned an autographed baseball, but I must admit, holding it felt like I was holding something with a strange energy. It was charmed. Almost magical.
   It was signed by "Bob Gibson". (He gave me another signed by Lou Brock too...)
   I went back and found my old baseball cards, and then sought out older Gibson cards.
   Then I found this book.
   This is a highly opinionated, often bitter, tell-it-like-it-is autobiography from a pitcher so good, they changed the game. They actually physically changed baseball because Bob Gibson was too good.
   I simplify, but only a bit.
   I smiled reading the account of his childhood, in Omaha, Nebraska.
   That's where I went to medical school...at Creighton, which is where Mr. Gibson went.
   He was a player who only wanted to win. To compete. To dominate.
   AND he played for The Harlem Globetrotters. Seriously. Right before he joined up with the Cardinals.
   He spent his entire career with the Cardinals. I wish people stayed with their teams more nowadays. You'll read about his fight against racism and bigotry; he followed bravely in Jackie Robinson's footsteps. They're cut from similar cloth.
   He became the most feared pitcher in baseball.
   Not because he was unafraid to use the brushback, which he did and did well. It was because batters often felt beat as they stepped into the batter's box. He would routinely strike out the side on ten or eleven pitches. He pitched complete games, even when they went into extra innings. He won twenty games a year, regularly.
   Then came 1968. He was, as it is said, the Pitcher of The Year in the Year of the Pitcher. Only five players hit over .300 that year. Gibson's league-leading ERA was 1.12. That's almost not fair.
   He mentions how proud he was of the fact that he could hit; he's the last pitcher to win 20 games and hit over .300 as well. One year, he hit more home runs than any other Cardinal but two. Yes, a sad comment on the lack of power amongst the rest of the team, but still.
   He is sometimes profane, controversial, thorny, uncompromising but somehow still admirable.
   I think his prickly personality may have overshadowed his amazing career. He defends himself (as if he needs defending) but remains unapologetic.
   I couldn't stop reading this book.
   He is an essential character in the story of baseball. He is the link from old style, confrontational, rough and tumble baseball of the 40's and 50's and the power pitchers of today. I'm talking specifically Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and perhaps Eric Gagne.
   He was overpowering. His legend deserves better.
   Read this book.



3. I am Bob's eldest offspring, Renee Gibson. I'm writing this review for 2 reasons. One is about the book itself; second is to comment about a review by DBW in Oakland, CA. Being it that I experienced most parts of this book, I was moved across the spectrum of emotions, which makes it good. Many things I knew, some I learned for the first time. The single thing that made me not rate this book a 4 or 5 was solely because the offspring who was there at the time has never been asked for their comments or opinions, maybe because we are females? My brother, Chris who I love dearly, was all over the book; I was in California. I was a natural athlete who understood the game as well as anybody, played softball for many years, and had funny inside information about my father. DBW was correct about something, and I'm risking much to say that my father is as mean off the field as he was on the field. He hated to lose ... anything! When I find a ghost-writer for my autobiography, you'll get to know more details. Of course he may not see himself this way, and I understand why. But, it's true. Otherwise, I enjoyed reading his second book from a non-fan's point of view (smile).



4. I am Bob's eldest offspring, Renee Gibson. I'm writing this review for 2 reasons. One is about the book itself; second is to comment about a review by DBW in Oakland, CA. Being it that I experienced most parts of this book, I was moved across the spectrum of emotions, which makes it good. Many things I knew, some I learned for the first time. The single thing that made me not rate this book a 4 or 5 was solely because the offspring who was there at the time has never been asked for their comments or opinions, maybe because we are females? My brother, Chris who I love dearly, was all over the book; I was in California. I was a natural athlete who understood the game as well as anybody, played softball for many years, and had funny inside information about my father. DBW was correct about something, and I'm risking much to say that my father is as mean off the field as he was on the field. He hated to lose ... anything! When I find a ghost-writer for my autobiography, you'll get to know more details. Of course he may not see himself this way, and I understand why. But, it's true. Otherwise, I enjoyed reading his second book from a non-fan's point of view (smile).



5. "Stranger to the Game" can be enjoyed on at least two different levels. On one level, fans get all the details they need about Gibson and his journey with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1959-1975: the early struggles with racist manager Solly Hemus; Gibson's relationship with catcher Tim McCarver; lessons learned by the Cards in their strong run at the pennant in 1963, and the fruits of those lessons in '64; the frustrating seasons of 1965 and '66; the powerhouse Cards of '67 and '68, punctuated by what might have been the greatest pitching performance of all time in 1968, by the author; and the gradual decline of both Gibson's skills and the Cards. The early years of Gibson's life in Omaha, Neb. are interesting, too -- the influence of his older brother; the things he learned from playing basketball, etc.

   But the book also offers some fascinating insights on what it means to be as fierce a competitor as Gibson was. On the field, especially when combined with great talent and intellect, it's a very powerful positive. But in so many other areas -- dealing with the press, trying to get and maintain other jobs in baseball after retirement, coping with the foolish things people do in everyday life, and perhaps even marriage -- it has been a detriment to Gibson. Several times in the book, he is appalled that people see him as "the meanest man to play baseball" (in the words of one fan who approached him in public). It doesn't make sense to him that people would fail to see that his angry demeanor on the mound, and when dealing with most opposing players off it, were designed for a very specific effect, one that made absolute sense in the context of his profession. Even within the limits of the diamond, people sometimes forget that while Gibson hit 90 batters with pitches, Don Drysdale hit 154, and Jim Bunning hit 160.

   The racial element of course serves to underscore this misunderstanding, in Gibson's view. Those determined to see a black man as threatening are that much more likely to be unable to separate job-specific toughness with a person's normal everyday persona. This, as much or more than anything else, has kept Gibson on the periphery of baseball since his retirement.

   Throughout sports, one of the key issues confronting any athlete is how, and when, to turn off the mindset he or she must cultivate for the playing field. In some ways, a competitve approach to life in general is certainly desirable, as so many of our daily struggles are battles, to one degree or another. Gibson portrays himself as being able to flip this switch on or off, depending on the situation. Others disagree.

   Several years after "Stranger to the Game" was published, Gibson, at 66, had a physical altercation with a motorist (can there be any doubt who won?) who cut him off in traffic. The incident suggests that Gibson's competitive fires, perhaps combined with the machismo so intertwined with competition for most male athletes, still rage as intensely as ever.

   What haunted me about "Stranger to the Game" is that I think there should be more room, both in baseball and outside of it, for someone who takes Gibson's approach to things.

5 comments about Living The Dream.

1. This book is a must read for any aspiring softball player, or any female athlete! I knew who Dot Richardson was before, but reading this book really introduced me to her personal life, and i cold definetly relate. In this book, Dot tells of her journey to the top, and her struggles along the way, starting from when she was a little girl right up to winning the gold in atlanta. Her stories are inspiring, some funny, others very touching. Any serious softball player or athelete can relate to her experiences some way, and that, along with wonderfully entertaining stories are what makes this book a true 5 star must read!!



2. I would recommend this book to any female that likes sports and softball in particular. It tells of the struggles that Dot and women around the country went through to play sports. She is one of the most inspirational people in sports today. I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it and i was finished in two days. Dot is an exceptional athlete and human being, and one of my heroes!



3. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK FOR ANY FEMALE ATHLETE, OR THE PARENTS OF ANY FEMALE ATHLETE. DOT RICHARDSON IS A PHENOMENAL SOFTBALL PLAYER, ATHLETE, AND PERSON. SHE HAS SUCCEEDED IN MANY ENDEAVORS WITH HARD WORK AND PERSEVERANCE. I HAVE A TEEN-AGE DAUGHTER INTERESTED IN SPORTS AND THIS BOOK EXPLAINS MUCH OF WHAT A FEMALE ATHLETE GOES THROUGH. A YOUNG GIRL READING THIS BOOK WOULD HAVE TO COME AWAY EDUCATED, REFRESHED AND READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD! ASIDE FROM ALL THAT, IT WAS A VERY INTERESTING READ AND A GREAT SPORTS BOOK. I HAD A TEAR IN MY EYE WITH ALMOST EVERY CHAPTER. TO REPRESENT YOUR COUNTRY THE WAY DOT DID WOULD HAVE TO BE THE GREATEST HONOR IN SPORTS.



4. The only reason that it took two days to read this book was because of how short and transparent it was. Yes, it was a very easy book to read, but it was an insult to all intellegent people out there. If you want to by a book for your child than this is it because no adult would find any joy in reading this boring book



5. When I got this book, I read it in just a few days and I didn't want to put it down. It tells about Dot's struggles and all that she went through to be the awesome softball player she is today. It is the best book I have read in a long time. I think not only softball players, but anyone would enjoy reading it. I highly recommend it.

5 comments about The Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump.

1. I agree 100% with everything Roger Launius said - curses are not curses, unless you have inept managers and even more inept front offices - the Indians had players just as good as anyone else, and their pitching in the late Sixties was among the best in the game - what killed the Indians' chances were inept front office people like Frank Lane and Gabe Paul, people who were far more interested in promoting themselves and bettering themselves than their teams - people like Gabe Paul were just happy to have a team to run.
   
   The corresponding curses of the Red Sox and the Cubs were/are also due to inept management and inept front offices - people who jockey for position to appear in the news or for control of the team, like what happened with the Red Sox with the LeRoux-Sullivan(?) rift - people who were more concerned with their own egos than the good of the team - maybe the Cubs need to quit promoting venerable Wrigley Field, etc. and get more serious about fielding a winning team.
   
   I read this book many years ago - I'm hoping that Pluto wrote this book as an exercise in folly.



2. The Cleveland Indians are as much a hard luck team as the storied Boston Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs; they just don't get as much media attention. They were one of the best teams in the American League during the latter 1940s and 1950s, winning a World Series in 1948 and a pennant in 1954, but the last pennant race that they really participated in was in 1959. That is, until the 1990s when the team took several division titles and two pennants, 1995 and 1997, but lost in the World Series.

   Author Terry Pluto contends that the demise of the Indians on the field can be traced to the April 1960 trade of slugger Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn. It wasn't a particularly good trade; Colavito was a ball-crushing slugger and a fan favorite but Kuenn was a batting champion who specialized in flares to the gap. For more than thirty years thereafter the Indians were pretty awful. The team did poorly on the field, which prompted fans to stay away from the games, which put the team into the red, which prompted the team's ownership to sell or trade its best players and to forego investment in its farm system, which led to even poorer performance on the field, and the continuation of a downward spiral.

   There are an enormous number of bumbling incidents in the history of this baseball team, all detailed in excruciating detail by Pluto. Take the example of Rick Manning's contract. Before the beginning of the 1978 season the team sent him a contract offer 25 percent less than he was paid in 1977, despite the restriction in the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement against cutting a player's salary more than 20 percent. It was a mistake, pure and simple, but emblematic of the team's slipshod management. Rather than allow him to become a free agent, the Indians resigned Manning to a five year, $2.5 million contract instead of $75,000 for a one year contract. It was stupid. So was letting Jim Bibby get away in 1978 by failing to pay him a $10,000 merit bonus he had earned during the 1977 season for making 30 starts. This incident became legendary and some of the players even wrote a little ditty about it:
   "Pack up all my gear and dough
   Here I go
   Ho, ho, ho
   Bye, bye, Bibby.
   No one here understands me,
   Look at the late check they tried to hand me...
   Bye, bye, Bibby" (p. 196).

   Then there was the June 1974 ten-cent beer night in which drunken fans rioted, went after members of both teams playing that night, and forced a forfeit. That was a disaster, but at least no one was seriously injured. What a screwy attempt at a promotion! What did the team's leadership think would happen? It ranks as one of the all time worst episodes in the history of Major League Baseball. Then there was the team's one foray into the free agent market. The Indians signed Wayne Garland to a ten year, $2.3 million contract in 1977 and Garland injured his arm in his first spring raining game. He never recovered. Then there were ridiculous trades: notably a 1965 trade to reacquire Rocky Colavito, but they had to give up both Tommie Agee (who went on to star with the New York Mets during their championship season in 1969) and Tommy John (who won 286 games after departing Cleveland).

   The real curse of the Indians has nothing to do with Rocky Colavito. It has everything to do with incompetent management. Terry Pluto indicts Gabe Paul for most of the mismanagement. He served as general manager and/or owner of the Indians for more than 20 of the 30+ years that the Indians were horrendous. His supporting casts of buffoons includes general managers Frank Lane-known to all by his nickname of Trader because he loved to make deals to move players and almost all of them were Indian losses-and Phil Seghi. Perhaps the epitome of ineptitude was when the dignitary scheduled to throw out the first pitch at an Indians game couldn't make it and was replaced by Bozo the clown. The irony is striking.

   Terry Pluto ends his book with a review of movement of the Indians from doormats to dominators of the American League. That really began when Dave and Dick Jacobs bought the team and infused it both with new leadership, who knew what they were doing, and the cash necessary to succeed.

   "The Curse of Rocky Colavito" is an interesting and informative book. It does not seek any universal truths, but it does entertain and offer some insight. For Indians fans it will be painful, but perhaps cathartic.




3. Terry sums up perfectly what it's like to be a sports fan in Northeast Ohio since 1955. The talent we've had is incredible, the results even more incredible in that not much good has ever come of it. It will bring back tons of bittersweet memories.



4. Failure on the baseball field may not be enjoyable for a team's fans. But it can often produce some funny, poignant literature. Terry Pluto's "The Curse of Rocky Colavito" is a great example of the genre. Pluto is well-qualified to offer this tale of the Tribe from the mid-50s to the mid-90s. He grew up as a fan, then covered the team as a professional sportswriter. (Cliff Johnson once told him, "I've been ripped by better writers than you.") Anyone who watched as Herb Score was injured, Rocky Colavito was traded, and the team settle into a long era of mediocrity, will no doubt find a special resonance in these pages. Who can forget the immortal Jack Kralick, Joe Azcue or Chico Salmon? Or in more recent times, Super Joe Charboneau? Pluto has a wonderful gift for finding the humor or pathos in the story of the Tribe in this era. It's a worthwhile read for anyone who enjoys good baseball yarns.--William C. Hall



5. Terry Pluto wrote two of my favorite sports books, "Loose Balls" and "Our Tribe", this one makes three. Reading this will be great entertainment for the casual or die-hard Indians fan. Those who don't fit those two classifications will probably enjoy it also.

1 comments about Eddie Collins: A Baseball Biography.

1. When I finished reading Rick Huhn's excellent and comprehensive biography of Eddie Collins, one of the top secondbasemen and batsmen (.333) of all time, I was left with one burning question. Why has it taken so long for this story to be told?
   
   That the tale is worth telling is obvious. Eddie Collins was an educated man with baseball braininess to boot -- not the first, but a standout in his era. His ML playing career spanned over two decades, and his seasons climaxed six times with a World Series. He was one of the game's top base-stealers, and simply a shoo-in for Cooperstown, when that honor came along.
   
   Collins also had great supporting casts: he was a member of the $100,000 Infield, the first Mack Dynasty in Philadelphia, the White Sox dynasty of the late teens and 1920. He lingered in the game long enough to be part of Mack's Second Dynasty, too. So why is he not the subject of the small library of biographies that he seems to deserve?
   
   Huhn's book represents the answer. First, Eddie's baseball story spans a quarter of a century, just on the MLB diamonds, and to set the stage, you need to look at his days of college ball. But there's more, he was not just a player, but a manager, coach, scout (without that title), and then General Manager with yet another team, the Boston Red Sox, sandwiched between Tom Yawkey and Joe Cronin, and a force in more World Series in the Ted Williams era. In other words, this guy may not have covered as much territory in the field as a Mazeroski or Morgan, but he covered over four decades of baseball history, from 1906 until his death in 1951.
   
   That's just part of the answer. Telling his story requires an understanding of various baseball eras, as well as the events and economics that shaped each -- both World Wars, the Depression, the dramatic transition from Deadball Era to Lively. While many biographies fit into one or two periods, Collins runs the gamut. And along the way, there is a stumbling block.
   
   And that is "the Black Sox scandal" -- an event in which Eddie Collins and each member of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, like it or not, played a role. It would be easy to simply declare Collins a member of the "Clean Sox" and distance him from the fixed World Series, but to his credit, Huhn tackles this complicated and mysterious (even today) occurrence head on. Not only that, but he looks even closer at the shady business in 1917, and during the seasons of 1919 and 1920, a treat for readers who know that The Big Fix of October 1919 was hardly "baseball's single sin" (in Voigt's phrase).
   
   This book leaves so many impressions, it is hard to recall them all. First there is the relationship with Connie Mack and the A's -- Mack being one of the few figures to cast a shadow in the game, that is longer than Collins'. Under Mack, Collins bloomed into an All Star worth the small fortune he was paid each season -- $15,000, when other stars earned a third of that, or less. I do not believe his next team's magnate, Charles Comiskey, was an exceptional Scrooge; I think Commy continued those high wages year after year because Collins was always more than a player -- he was a leader, a steadying influence, always a coach and teacher, and a "company man" -- always learning, preparing for a role in management.
   
   Huhn's book is chock full of Eddie's own words -- he was also a writer, and apparently never employed a ghost -- and these words are almost "other-worldly" compared to the language common among ballplayers then and now. They reflect his college education, and a kind of gentle refinement; they are often peaceful and thoughtful, and the reader feels as if he is sitting beside a fireplace while Eddie puffs on a pipe after a day of hunting. They are a treat.
   
   So is the balanced tone of the book. It is never hero-worship, or too-harsh criticism. Huhn himself is thoughtful and reflective, as if in the time he has spent with Collins, something has rubbed off. Eddie Collins was the quintessential Quiet Man, before, during and after the Babe Ruth comet blazed across the game. He was a ballplayer first and foremost, letting his bat and glove and spikes do most of the talking. Perhaps this is another reason his biography appears so late.
   
   Huhn asks great questions all along the way (317 pages, plus end notes worth reading). How to assess the silence of the Sox who knew the Fix was in, but said nothing to the press? For insiders like Collins and Ray Schalk, it was more than suspicion, and the public silence of their manager Gleason and owner Comiskey in the year that followed the tainted Series comes in for examination, too. There is another kind of silence, too, when Collins is GM in Boston. We know now that the Red Sox had a look at Jackie Robinson before he signed with Brooklyn, and Huhn cannot resist observing that Eddie Collins' life might have been crowned with the heroism that surrounded Branch Rickey. But it wasn't, and the BoSox would not sign their first black player until long after Collins passed away.
   
   It is tempting to use both silences to underline Collins as a bureaucrat, one who refused to make waves that might upset the boat he wanted to steer someday, or the sport that prides itself on unchanging tradition. But Huhn does not do that -- he gives readers the context, the bigger picture, looks at the options, and reports the facts. Collins probably had no leverage to move the stone of the cover-up of the Fix in 1919 and 1920. And he probably was no racist in the 1940s. It was not that simple, and longer, deeper looks are needed. Huhn takes those looks.
   
   If they make a movie of the life of Eddie Collins, it just might need that old title, It's a Wonderful Life. Like the character Jimmy Stewart played in the Christmas favorite, Eddie's life touched and influenced many others -- take it away and there would be a huge hole in baseball history.

1 comments about Hank Greenberg: Hall-of-Fame Slugger.

1. My mother was delighted to receive this item as he was one of her baseball hero's.