Bits and Pieces

From The Baseball Crank and Blogcritics, two more reviews about Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bronx is Burning.

From the Burlington Times News, an article about an appearance by George F. Will, author of Men at Work and Bunts.

According to a story about the Brooklyn Dodgers in the Sept. 23 issue of USA Today (“Ghosts of Flatbush alive 50 years after exit“):

The Library of Congress found more than 100 titles connected to the Brooklyn Dodgers in its collection. “With the exception of the Red Sox and Yankees, more books have been written about the Dodgers than any other team,” reference librarian Dave Kelly says, based on an informal survey of the collection.

• From MissLadybug, a review of the children’s book The Longest Season: The Story of the 1988 Orioles’ Losing Streak.
• From the East Brunswick (NJ) Home News Tribune, a piece on knuckleballs and faith by columnist Gene Racz, co-author of Bury My Heart at Cooperstown
• From Newreads, a preview of First Class Citizenship. “The scholar Michael G. Long has unearthed a remarkable trove of Robinson’s correspondence with — and personal replies from — such towering figures as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, and Barry Goldwater. These extraordinary conversations reveal the scope and depth of Robinson’s effort during the 1950s and 1960s to rid America of racism.” Other baseball titles from NewReads include Playing America’s Game and Crazy ’08.
• From the Baltimore Sun, an unenthusiastic review of Tom Adelman’s Black And Blue: The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys, and the 1966 World Series That Stunned America , in which the reviewer, Childs Walker, opines:
  “I couldn’t figure out why Adelman wrote the book. He seems to see the season as emblematic of a nation in transition.He writes: ‘The astounding events that characterized baseball’s championship series that season … seem inextricably bound up with the race riots, NASA debacles, and Vietnam War deceptions that so aggrieved and altered the country at the time.’ But he never establishes the ‘inextricable’ link. This technique of weaving sport and culture has been done much better.