Review roundup, July 20

* The Capital Times (Madison, WI) published reviews on Daniel Levitt’s The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball: The Federal League Challenge and Its Legacy and John Klima’s Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball. Upshot, former “[Levitt] offers up the most authoritative account yet of the short-lived league.” Upshot, latter: “Some books are just fun to read. If you are a Milwaukee baseball fan, ‘Bushville Wins’ is one of them.”

* The Niagara Falls Review, a Canadian outfit, published this piece on Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s. Upshot: “Author Dan Epstein, who released the book in 2009, does a good job of chronicling the decade year-by-year. There’s a bit of a paint-by-numbers feel to it after a few chapters, but it’s easy to digest and follow along that way.”

* The Louisville, Ky. Courier-Journal published this on Marty Appel’s Pinstripe Empire, about which the reviewer seems to damn with faint praise. On the one hand, he calls it “an uneven effort,” but later he says “If you’re going to read about baseball’s last 100 years, you pretty much have to start with the Yankees. And if you’re going to do that, you could do worse than this ‘Empire.'”

Many years ago I worked for the Harris Poll, one of those public opinion organizations that would call you in the middle of dinner or your favorite TV show. One thing I learned during my brief time there (other than the fact that I didn’t like calling people in the middle of dinner or their favorite TV show) was that different regions of the country judge things differently. A person in New York might call something fantastic when he means good, while a person in the Midwest might call something “fair” when he means “fantastic.” I found the latter group less effusive with their comments. Maybe this review is an example of that?

* The Marin (Calif.) Independent-Journal published this piece on native son Lefty Gomez’ new biography by his daughter, Vernona, and Lawrence Goldstone. It’s a bit more of a personal reminiscence than a straight-up review, but the upshot is that Lefty: An American Odyssey is “a must-read. It’s much more than a baseball book. It takes you back.”