John P. Carmichael (1902–1986)

Sometimes it can be good to back and re-read books from childhood. You can lose people or places or even access to the original book you borrowed from the school library (which got rid of a lot of their old stuff), but as long as there is one copy of the text left somewhere in the world you can once again spend time with this old friend. You can savor again all those words you remember enjoying and discover a few ways that your memory may have played tricks on you since, and that is a show more comfort.

This time I read the 1945 version whereas originally I had read the 1963 one. But it's not too much different, and was almost entirely as I remembered. These mostly wonderful stories about the greatest days of various players of baseball's early days as told by themselves just never get old. Instead, by reading them -- many of which unintentionally reference others -- you recreate in your mind an entire world of heroes, exploits and surprising tales. Actually, I like, and remember, even better than the baseball parts, those little background incidents and asides. How in one game Babe Ruth took it in his head to suddenly try to steal a base. Or how a pitcher learned on the morning of his greatest game that his father had died. Or that another pitcher had been accused of arriving at the mound drunk. They really give each story its special quality and make you want to learn more. Unlike back then, these days we have Wikipedia and can learn so much more about the biographies of these players. I've waded in a bit, but one could easily enjoy going in much, much more deeply. show less

A fun, breezy collection of tales regarding top games of stars in their own words.