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Loading... Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American…by Lawrence D. Hogan
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. hildr8 | Jun 7, 2009 |   I didn't particularly like this book because it was overwhelmed with detail. It was not organized in a way that I found interesting. I'm not a baseball purist and perhaps the detail appeals to most people who would read this book, but not me. It's unfortunate that so many teams were named Giants, too, because that blurred things quite a bit for me. (  )karenmarie | Oct 7, 2008 | Baseball has a lot of history behind it, and as a relatively new fan of the game I'm reminded every time I pick up a book about just how much I don't know about it. This book was helpful in filling in some of the gaps for an era and a league for which a lot of people could probably use some gaps filled. While general baseball coverage will introduce most casual fans to the headliners of the Negro Leagues, this book goes beyond biographies of the top stars to the more nuts-and-bolts mechanics of the leagues they played in and how they operated parallel to the segregated major and minor leagues. It's as much a story about black businesses and black communities as about black baseball. Because it is trying to cover so much ground, it does jump around quite a bit and as some others have mentioned the tone is a bit boostery. Because I had an advance reader's copy the pictures and statistical indexes were not complete. However, it looks like the finished version will be a useful introduction to a story that every baseball fan should be introduced to. (  )britnee111 | Aug 3, 2008 | A very exhaustive study of the Negro Leagues and black baseball in general, it does tend to jump around too much. The author clearly knows a great deal about the history of blacks and baseball and his desire to give as many players their due is laudable. Unfortunately, the style of the book and the admittedly scare amount of information that remains on the subject make it difficult at times for the reader to keep track of what was happening at a particular period of time. (  )plumdog28 | Jul 26, 2008 | While many books have been written about African-Americans and baseball, a glance at the fairly sketchy books written even ten years ago shows how much more remains to be told of their story. Shades of Glory is by no means a last word on the subject, but it is a great introduction for fans of the game and a fitting tribute to those who played in the shadows but shined nonetheless. Hogan tells the familiar stories of Moses Walker, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, but the most interesting part of the book concentrates on the less well-known people who were instrumental in developing and organizing the Negro leagues and their predecessors. We tend to think of baseball as something that whites came up with and blacks adopted, but the truth is perhaps more complex. Black baseball and white baseball appear to have developed in parallel from the earliest games. Hogan's presentation of his subject makes for an enjoyable reading experience. Anecdotes by and about black baseball players are included in boxes and the text is filled with interesting and rare photos -- which you would perhaps expect from a book published by National Geographic. Hogan occasionally bogs the reader in detail, which may be inappropriate for a book clearly aimed at a general readership. However, the details are what make this book a very worthwhile synthesis of a half-century or more of research into an American tradition just as venerable -- and just as important -- as its white counterpart. ( )tom1066 | Jun 10, 2008 | 0.030 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 079225306X, Hardcover)Celebrating African America's contribution to our great national pastime, this comprehensive, lively history combines vivid narrative, visual impact, and a unique statistical component, to recreate the excitement and passion of the Negro Leagues. Packed with stories, biographical essays, scores of archival photographs and other evocative artifacts, it is an important contribution to sports history and a wonderful tribute to the players and teams who wrote a unique chapter in the annals of baseball and American culture.National Geographic is proud to present this compelling volume, compiled by a who's who of authorities on the subject. Drawing on years of research, Shades of Glory traces the history of black baseball from the 19th century to the first great teams, such as the Cuban Giants, and on to the era of the vibrant barnstorming teams from the East Coast, Chicago, and Cuba. The unparalleled Rube Foster started the first Negro League in 1920, with such dominant teams as the Chicago American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs. Pittsburgh soon produced two of the greatest teams of all time, the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, featuring such stars as Satchel Paige, John Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and many more. Their superb brand of baseball rivaled the best of the major leagues until the historic signing of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Shades of Glory chronicles a bygone era of black baseball and the stars who were shadowed by racial prejudice, but now shine forth in all their sparkling brilliance. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Purchased my copy in Cooperstown at the Museum bookstore. (