Baseball: A Historical past of America’s Favourite Recreation (Fashionable Library Chronicles)
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“Soccer is drive and fanatics, basketball is magnificence and bounce. Baseball is all the things: motion, grace, the seasons of our lives. George Vecsey’s e-book proves it, with out losing a phrase.”—Lee Eisenberg, writer of The Quantity
In Baseball, one of many nice bards of America’s Grand Outdated Recreation provides a rousing account of the game, from its pre-Republic roots to the current day. George Vecsey casts a recent eye on the sport, illuminates its foibles and triumphs, and performs a wonderful feat: making a traditional story appear refreshingly new.
Baseball is a story of America’s can-do spirit, wherein stalwart immigrants similar to Henry Chadwick might transplant cricket and rounders into the fertile American tradition and wherein die-hard unionist baseballers similar to Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack might ultimately grow to be the tightfisted avatars of the sport’s big-money institution. It’s a celebration of such underdogs as a rag-armed catcher turned proprietor named Department Rickey and a sure-handed fielder named Curt Flood, each of whom flourished as true nice males of historical past. However most of all, Baseball is a testomony to the unbreakable bond between our nation’s pastime and the followers, who’ve remained loyal by means of the fifty-year-long interdict on black athletes, the Black Sox scandal, franchise relocation, and the usage of performance-enhancing medicine by some main stars.
Reverent, playful, and crammed with Vecsey’s attraction, Baseball begs to be learn within the span of a rain-delayed doubleheader, and so pleasant that, like a favourite group’s championship run, one hopes it by no means ends.
“Vecsey possesses a journalist’s eye for element and a historian’s really feel for the sweep of motion. His analysis is scrupulous and his writing crisp. This e-book is an prompt traditional—a extremely readable information to America’s nice enduring pastime.”—The Louisville Courier Journal
Writer : Random Home Publishing Group; Reprint version (March 11, 2008)
Language : English
Paperback : 272 pages
ISBN-10 : 0812978706
ISBN-13 : 978-0812978704
Merchandise Weight : 6.7 ounces
Dimensions : 5.19 x 0.62 x 8 inches
Prospects say
Prospects discover this baseball historical past e-book to be a must-read for followers, praising its great data and well-written storytelling. They take pleasure in studying it and discover it pleasant, with one buyer noting the way it takes them on a journey by means of the game’s historical past.
13 reviews for Baseball: A Historical past of America’s Favourite Recreation (Fashionable Library Chronicles)
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Original price was: $20.00.$15.71Current price is: $15.71.
Paul Frandano –
Knowledgeable, Wise, Funny, Vastly Entertaining – Even for Cognoscenti
Frankly, I don’t understand how anyone who professes to love baseball and love good writing can give George Vecsey’s little gem of a book less than five stars. I know: taste is taste, etc., but yeah, I’ve been reading baseball books for 60 years too, and Vecsey didn’t mention a name I didn’t know, but he picks his spots – in effect, topics for short essays – with such wisdom, and writes these essential junctures of the game up so colorfully and so concisely that, I’d have to say, this book packs more pleasure per page than any sports book on my shelf, with the possible exception of The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book (Little Brown, 1973) by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris, which pleases in a somewhat different, slightly ludicrous way.Listen, you pick up something from the Modern Library Chronicles series (no, not their affordable editions of classic texts, but those brief, directly commissioned original-content bios and histories, etc.), you know it’s going to be concise and its coverage idiosyncratic. Try packing “The History of…” anything into 250 pp and you’re going to have to clip corners. Vecsey’s book has about as many words as most standard “illustrated history” tabletoppers, and, frankly, he gives us so much more than a bare introduction, yet less than a textbook, and for those who miss a more comprehensive “milestones of the game” (and actually thought they were going to get it from Modern Library), Vecsey provides a quirky chronology of just those developments – the quickest tour through the advancing technology of the game you’re ever likely to get.The game has ever been built around personalities and its own distinct sense of time – as myriad commentators never cease to point out, you can’t run out the clock in baseball: you keep on pitching until the last out. Vecsey lovingly focuses on the great ballplayers of yore (and their teams), mostly in thumbnails but sometimes in whole chapters – the obvious Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson – and on moments in the game’s long continuum, great (e.g., Carlton Fisk) and not so great (e.g., Bill Buckner…okay, I’m a Sawx fan: so?). And because Vecsey started attending games not all that long before I did, and in the same stadiums, I pay particular attention whenever he personalizes his love the the National Pastime with a story from a game he went to with his father, or listened to on the radio, or covered as a cub reporter.I loved this book. That’s plain. And I cannot understand how Vecsey’s Stan Musial book slipped under my radar…and can’t wait to have it in my hands, and then to stand before a mirror, and curl myself into Stan the Man’s mystical left-handed stance…and then, why not?, once again enter the ballpark of the mind, walking up the dark ramp that leads to field-level seats, into the exploding sunlight and the greenest green imaginable, and the whitest whites, looking up at the patina of the dignified frieze, lingering at the top of the ramp to take in the whole panorama, then the crack of the bat, batting practice, the ball describing a long, lazy arc…
mongo –
Good read
You can’t really go wrong with a book on baseball. The author covered most major events within the pages. I enjoyed reading this book
Shar –
Storytelling at it’s best!
This book took me on a journey through the history of baseball. I’ve always loved the game but didn’t know enough of it’s history nor the history of it’s players. The author writes this story as if he is sitting in a rocker on the porch, sharing the love of the game with the neighborhood kids. Delightful.
Dean Chambers –
Great read for the baseball fanatic
If you love baseball you will love this book! The author does a great job of writing about baseball history and eras without getting too preoccupied in the little minor details that can hurt a good history book if not tapered. Well written. I enjoyed it. And I recommend it.
Jeff Dawson –
Not too bad
Some books need to stop when the story is told. This is one of them. While I’m great fan of the game, I’m always looking for good read. This fell short.Up to chapter 14, it’s a good read. The following chapters came across as no more than filler. I also got tired of being beat over the head with the racism that existed in the majors. It was important to mention it a few times, but then it became abusive.I did enjoy the many new adjectives I picked up. George Vescey has not only a great knowledge of the game, but a superfluous way of described mundane events. For that part, well done. However, I became a touch annoyed as he continually poured praise on his fellow writers. Sometimes I wondered if the book was for the general audience or his peers.To reiterate, the first fourteen chapters are well worth the money.
AM998 –
pretty good book
a good book worth reading by any baseball fan. the author really knows his stuff. my only complaint is that it jumps around a little chronologically, making somewhat difficult to read at times. if you are thinking about buying it, do it. you probably won’t be disappointed.
Phil –
Baseball, a History
Most enlightening story, well written and delivered with a flavor all its own. A lifelong live if this game sadly has ended when steroids tarnished the image if a great summer pasttime, I simply list my live if this once and proud game. Steroids and multi-million dollar salaries have pushed me away from a great sport. Long live baseball.
Buck Bradley –
Great book. Wonderful look at baseball history and George Vecsey does a great service to the game and to his readers. If you ar
Great book. This is a wonderful look at baseball history and George Vecsey does a great service to the game and to his readers.I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves baseball. The book is a very good read and anyone starting to read this book will not put it down.
Martin Roy –
Excellent book for all baseball fan. Great service!
Phil Webster –
I’ve read a few books on baseball history, and this is the second best I’ve read. The best is undoubtedly “The Glory of Their Times” by Lawrence S. Ritter. But Ritter’s book only covers a limited period of time, whereas this book covers the whole history of the game.Not only is this a good history of baseball, but it is also very well written. There is also a nice smattering of humour. For example, when discussing the advent of the designated hitter, Vecsey writes:”Trying to be fair and neutral about it, I can only say that the designated hitter rule is a travesty, and ought to be tossed out”. (And I agree with him!)As for the steroids era, he writes that “Starting in the early 1990s, players became noticeably thicker in the shoulders, forearms, and necks. A willowy player could bid farewell to team-mates at the end of the season and reappear the following spring with a physique most approximating the main character in the television series “The Incredible Hulk”, with mood swings to match.”And when testing finally tackled the steroids problem: “Facing severe penalties for testing positive, the post-2005 players seemed to get smaller before our eyes…”I thoroughly recommend this book.
Broekhof –
It is a sensational book but since it has been written in 1989 it is way out dated. However the anecdotes from (at that time) MLB players and managers give you inside information on how it is to actually work and compete within the MLB. The writer is also able to give you a very, indept look at how things have gotten to the point at where they were at back in 1989. I reckon it is a must read for every Baseball Fan
NF2 –
Vecsey is able to spin his vast knowledge of the trivia of the sport into a good yarn, but somehow comes off sounding a bit too “Look ma, no hands” clever, like his typewriter was oiled with stanazosteroidalone.
Jeff Guay –
Very clean copy