1 comments about I Played and I Won.

1. I collected a number of Worthington's baseball cards as I was growning up, so when I ran across this book on Amazon, I wanted to read it. But, the book is quite simply a testament to his being "saved" by the Lord. I do not have a problem with anyone who feels the need to write about such things, but there was no way to know this fact until one had the book in hand. If anyone is interested in learning what it was like to play with and against some of the great ballplayers of the fifties and sixties, then this is NOT the book you want to read. I don't even think it's a book you want to read if you want to read about one man's conversion to religion. It provides little insight into the real changes that came to him as a result. Here's the story in a nutshell - he was a simple kid who was a real good athlete and ended up with a college scholarship, and somehow managed to skate through three years of college without going to classes, loved to bet on the dogs, got married and had kids, found religion, stopped betting on the dogs, and played baseball. I'm sorry to say there's not a darned thing about this book that makes it noteworthy.

4 comments about The Golden Boy: A Biography of Jackie Jensen.

1. The author himself explains on this Amazon page that he wrote the book as a non-baseball fan who wanted a subject for his writing fellowship, and had met Jackie's widow. This book is for people who admired Jackie, his quiet heroics, his battle with his inner pains. The sources the author says he used are apparent- they are Jackie's youthful and off-season coaches, friends and business associates, as well as his second wife. They are not primarily baseball players. The account of any given year is strong on Jackie's off-season activities and weak on Jackie's baseball season, or anecdotes relating to it. An unintentionally humorous error stemming from the author's lack of baseball knowledge occurs in the wrap-up of Jackie's stats for the season prior to his first retirement. Mr. Martin mentally transposed the numbers in two columns in his own appendix, and credits Jackie with 67 stolen bases in 1959! Maybe Luis Aparicio was overrated! (Jackie actually had 20 SBs and 67 SOs in 1959.)

   As one might expect from such a source, the book is better-written by far than the standard baseball bio. But the choice of a subject famous for an activity that does not captivate the author creates a certain monstrous gap in the purpose, and a real loss in describing Jackie's climactic voluntary retirement from the game at his peak, a mere one year after winning the MVP. If Mr. Martin was half the baseball fan he is a writer, the book could have soared to something like a Greek tragedy. As is, it will appeal to those interested in the man, in the personal foibles and flaws inherent in all humans, and in the efforts of spirited people to overcome them. These efforts better grip the reader when made by one, like Jackie, who has attained greatness in one of life's pathways.




2. THIS IS A WELL WRITTEN BOOK ABOUT A VERY INTERESTING MAN. JACKIE WAS TRULY A VERY GIFTED ATHLETE. HE HAD A LOT TO OVERCOME IN HIS PRIVATE LIFE. I REALLY ENJOYED HIS STORY. THE AUTHOR DOES A FINE JOB RETELLING JACKIE'S CAREER AND LIFE. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TO ALL BASEBALL FANS.



3. What makes this book so great is that after reading it you have a new found respect for professional athletes and people who are thrust into the public spotlight. Jackie's life was not only interesting, but very demanding and trying for him and his family. This book dispelled my notion that people in Jackie's position were just part of the glitz and glamor of this nation and not so much a citizen like the rest of us. I wish everyone could read this not only because it's a great story of a man's life and all the historical events that took place around him, but also because it made me realize just how human and vulnerable even the seemingly 'mighty' are.



4. Although the book reads like a laundry list of quotes and anecdotes gathered over the last 12 - 15 years, the book reveals a goodly amount of information. The writer does a hard job at not being biased against any one person or event in the life of Jackie Jensen. Though the union of Jackie Jensen and Zoe Ann Olsen did not produce another pro or Olympic athlete, the children have gone on to be happy and successful in their lives in their own ways with the future of their grandchildren still wide open. I would have liked to have seen this documented by the writer. The story reads as if it was a failed generation. Not at all like the reality.

No comments about Cool Papas and Double Duties: The All-Time Greats of the Negro Leagues.

2 comments about Baseball's Good Guys: The Real Heroes of the Game.

1. The writers do an excellent job of reminding the reader of why we like sports. In this Post-Mitchell Report Era, it's nice to see examples of heros who aren't so driven by personal glory at the expense of others. Overall, a nice read.



2. I think Jack Walsh, and Marshall Cook have captured the heart and soul of Baseball's greatest players. Baseball Good Guys is a book that will inspire the reader to learn more of the Character and Integrity of these players. The statistics are there, but their ability to overcome adversity, personal problems, prejudice and more, will inform the readers of the real skills of these players.

   Be forewarned, some of the pages come to life, in such a way that splinters (possibly from the bats) seem to leap into your eyes.

   Good book, should be a must read for school athletes and those of us who lived during some of those years.

4 comments about Ted Williams: A Tribute.

1. This book is a fitting tribute to a hero and man among men in the sport of baseball. The book is full of great pictures and inspiring stories about the Kid. A must for William's fans and baseball fanatics. Enjoy!!



2. Hi This was a great book and I loved the way it was written! i recomend it to all who like baseball....he he. Jim Prime I love you ...giggle giggle!!

   TYRA B.




3. This is the best book that I have ever read regarding the best hitter ever Ted Williams. Jim Prime has done an excellent job and he deservers an award for this great book. I recomend this book for anyone who is a baseball fan.Jim Prime I salute you!!You are the Best Writer ever and I now consider myself your biggest fan!!



4. I've read just about all the books on Ted and this one is right up there. I can't believe the interviews these authors got - from John Glenn on serving with Ted in Korea to the connection between Ted and Jack Kerouac. Some very touching stories, too, about "The Kid and The Kids." Ted made all kinds of time for kids with cancer. There isn't that much on Ted's controversial son or on his family life in general. It seems like the authors were respectful of his privacy. There must be a couple of hundred photos before, and many of them I'd never seen. I didn't think there was that much more to be said about Ted - boy, was I wrong. I highly recommend this book.

No comments about A Biographical Dictionary of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

No comments about Ken Griffey, Jr (101 Little Known Fact about).

2 comments about Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball.

1. Excellent discussion of the very early days of baseball and one of the giants of the 19th century. Many biographies of old time ball players tend to be very dry and just a summary of newspaper accounts of games. This is not one of them.
   
   I disagree completely with the previous review. Overall, the author gives a very unbiased account. Anson's racial prejudices are obviously part of the story and have to be covered, but its a very small part of the book. In fact, the author specifically states that other writers have tended to exaggerate the effect Anson had on segregation in baseball and also says on a number of occasions that Anson's feelings were a product of the times in which he lived. The author does a fair job in describing both the good and bad parts of Anson's life.



2. For the first Anson biography in 105 years, it's a pretty good read. Even though Fleitz has an obvious bias against his subject, and he went to great lengths to show Anson in the worst possible light in spite of the facts. I think a lot of Fleitz' comments, and opinions amounted to Political Correctness and had no place in the book. Fleitz also seemed genuinely disappointed that he could not condemn Anson as the man who single handedly set the integration of baseball back 50 years. Thus, he engages in every other form of character assassination, by going out of this way to emphasize every shortcoming he can find concerning Anson's activities on and off the field, painting a picture of Anson as a sad, pitiful and ignorant racist who "somehow" became a 300 class hitter and managed his team to five pennants.
   
   The Cap Anson story is an American success story, whereas Anson's racial bias is a reflection of America in the 19th century. These are two separate issues, and Fleitz wishes to impose his 21st century moral standard on a 19th century man. We should all be so lucky to have the integrity that Anson had. He always took responsibly for himself and his actions, he judged, and was prepared to be judged, and he never asked for the unearned even when the chips were down.
   
   Jeff Smith
   Anson Family

No comments about Baseball Legends Card Game (Authors Series Card Games).

4 comments about Orator O'Rourke: The Life of a Baseball Radical.

1. We have to be grateful for a biography of this Hall of Famer, whatever the book's shortcomings. Being a fellow resident, with the author Mike Roer, of Fairfield, next to the Orator's home in Bridgeport CT, I have visited his old house to pay my homage. This book is bigger homage. It brings to life 19th century baseball and even more so, baseball management. Roer also focuses on equipment and its evolution, and occasionally on rule changes, which are summarized in a nice appendix. I enjoyed the page describing and showing the box score of the first National League game ever played. With regard to O'Rourke, Roer's focus is not on the player, unfortunately, but on the rebel against the magnates, and on his own later management in the minor leagues.
   
   A recurring weakness is Roer's decision to freely opinionate. He opines that Curry Foley wasn't holding out in 1884, but that management was waiting for him to show he was in good form. Yet Roer's next two paragraphs make it clear he was holding out, angling for a release. Foley's value to the team is vastly overstated on earlier pages, apparently just to make this player vs. management episode seem more important to the history of baseball than it was.
   
   Roer apparently has little access to a baseball encyclopedia or online reference. Just a couple examples. He repeatedly names Deacon White as Bison manager O'Rourke's catcher in 1884, for whom Jim helped invent a pneumatic chest protector. Yet White had already been moved to third base. The chest protector tale is a good one, and worth telling, though. Roer claims that "under Jim's tutelage" young catcher Duke Farrell improved his batting average from .215 the year before Jim traded for him to .280 in 1893. But Farrell had batted .290 and .302 the two years before his off-year.
   
   One note for readers. The description of O'Rourke's attempted formation of a minor "Atlantic League" on pages 204-5 is laid out to tell a story. But if one checks the footnotes to the quotes carefully, certain paragraphs need to be re-arranged in time sequence, altering how events really unfolded.
   
   What this reader really misses is O'Rourke on the field. For instances, not even noted is O'Rourke's strong batting in 1883 (fifth in average in League), nor the fantastic 1885 pennant race. That year saw O'Rourke as one of the batting leaders for a Giant team that still holds the record for best winning percentage to lose a pennant (Chicago outdid them by two games). But this exciting season goes entirely unmentioned! However, for a generally rounded picture of the whole man and his long baseball life, Roer has done us a service.



2. This biography of Jim O'Rourke is a worthwhile contribution to the growing literature on 19th-century baseball. Roer's research is very thorough and his writing style congenial. I can't say that the book is a great starting point for anyone not already enthralled with early baseball as Roer sometimes substitutes long lists of facts and generalizations for good explanations of early rules and customs. And some of his judgments are very suspect; for example, the assertion that A. G. Spalding's autobiography is "notably free of rancor" with regard to the Players' League (p. 233) is simply bizarre. Compare this to the detailed analysis of this same subject on page 281 of Di Salvatore's A Clever Base Ball Player and it's hard to imagine what Roer was thinking. Equally puzzling is the mention of George Cameron's death on page 259, followed by analysis of Cameron's role in the Connecticut League's later decisions on pages 265 and 267. And it's dismaying to find the claim that Johnny Ward's arm was worn out by pitching doubleheaders (p. 119), considering that doubleheaders were not yet part of baseball except on very rare occasions. Overall, the editing and writing of the book are good, with the exception of very sloppy spelling of proper names (Patterson, NJ instead of Paterson, Worcestor for Worcester, Willy Mays for Willie Mays, John Tenor for John Tener, George Zeitlein for Zettlein, etc.). Nonetheless this enumeration of the book's shortcomings should not blind anyone to its considerable merits. Nineteenth-century baseball is a difficult subject to write about, and while Roer has not produced a perfect book he has given us a valuable look into a very important figure.



3. I hate to admit it, but even though I've been an Orioles fan for over 50 years, I knew little about baseball prior to Babe Ruth until I read Mike Roer's fascinating account of the life of Orator James H. O'Rourke.
   
   Not only is this book a great biography of baseball's legendary player, manager, owner and league president, it is a window into the evolution of the game itself. Roer does an excellent job of chronicling the major innovations of the game through the eyes of O'Rourke, along with excerpts from local and national newspapers, letters and documents from baseball archives.
   
   O'Rourke is truly baseball's first Iron Man, playing in 41 seasons, his last official game in 1912 at the age of 62. When Jim began his professional career, there was just a bat and a ball - the fielders, including the catcher all caught the ball with bare hands. Pitchers "pitched" under-handed as in pitching horseshoes. Leagues and teams came and went as the national game struggled to make ends meet. Owners used the reserver clause to enslave the players and prevent them from contracting with other teams where they could earn more money.
   
   O'Rourke witnessed and was even instrumental in numerous baseball milestones including the introduction of the catcher's mask, chest protector, catcher's mitt, fielder's gloves, sidearm and overhand pitching and the emergeance of the National and American Leagues.
   
   In his youth, Jim was bright enough and shrewd enough to negotiate time away from his team to attend Yale and obtain his Law degree while playing pro ball to support his family. It was his legal and oratory skills that earned him the knick-name of "Orator," and enabled him to organize baseball's first players union in 1886.
   
   O'Rourke had a strong sense of right and wrong and was never hesitant to voice his opinion. Roer's attention to Jim's family life throughout the book helps illustrate where he got his values and sense of loyalty to his family, loyalty to his hometown of Bridgeport, loyalty to the integrity of the game of baseball over the money it provided, and loyalty to his fellow players. As with many of the first pro ball players, O'Rourke and his brother John were sons of first generation Irish Catholic immigrants who settled in Bridgeport. Roer points out that while Jim was busy fighting on the side of labor with his Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players union, his older brother John, who had also played baseball at the professional level, was instrumental in organizing a labor union to fight similar oppression by the New England railroads.
   
   Throughout his career, O'Rourke was always one of the most productive and respected players in whatever league he happened to be playing in at the time. He won the National League batting championship in 1884 and was on numerous pennant winning teams. As a result, he had amassed a substantial fortune as a professional baseball player.
   
   While still remaining an active player, O'Rourke eventually organized the Connecticutt State League in 1897 to keep the sport he loved accessible to its fans in his hometown of Bridgeport. Jim served as President and Treasurer of the minor league while owning and playing for the Bridgeport franchise. Jim even used the money he had accumulated in his successful career to build a new "field of dreams" on his Bridgeport property when a new venue was needed to keep the struggling franchise alive.
   
   As I finished the last chapter of the Orator's story, I was delighted find that Roer had included appendices containing some fascinating facts about the evolution of the rules of the game, the bat and the ball during Jim's lifetime. What a nice bonus!
   
   I highly recommend this book to all baseball fans, and especially to those like me who, until I read this book, are only familiar with the modern game. Author Mike Roer has spun a top-notch tale of the life of Orator James H. O'Rourke while providing tremendous insight into Professional Baseball's formative years.



4. As a fan of the early days of baseball I have lamented over the years the lack of information available about Jim O'Rourke, one of the best and interesting players of the Deadball era. Thanks to Mike Roer the record is now corrected. Roer, through his diligent research has pieced together the fascinating tale of O'Rourke, the son of Irish immigrants, who rose to fame in the late 1800's as a dynamic hitter and smart player/manager.
   O'Rourke got the first hit in National League History, won a batting title, a homerun title and was a star player for the World Champion Giant teams of the late 1880's. A Yale law school grad-O'Rourke was a prominent figure in the great Players League revolt of 1890 and when his playing days ended he was a pioneer in developing the structure of what became the minor league system....all the while continuing to play professional ball, in his hometown of Bridgeport, until 1910! Rightly he is enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown....and now thanks to Roer, his story is available for all to read.....(anecdote-it seems O'Rourke was the inspiration for the movie Field of Dreams- building a ballpark on the O'Rourke farm circa 1900!) Mike Roer has done an excellent job in bringing to life the O'Rourke saga from newspaper accounts and other sources and his book is packed with rare photos and extensive footnotes! A joy to read, a treasure to keep! The Orator would be proud of the exuberant, extraordinary chroniclization of his life!