Review roundup, May 22

Lucas Mann’s Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere is turning out to be the sleeper favorite in the new baseball book season. Several reviews have appeared recently, including a mention on the Hot Corner Book Club, NPR Books, Boston.com, and Bookreporter.com. Harper’s Magazine also did this Q&A with the author.

H.C.B.C., a component of the Baseball Nation site, also posted about Allen Barra’s Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age; Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South’s Most Compelling Pennant Race, by Larry Colton; and Drama and Pride in the Gateway City: The 1964 St. Louis Cardinals (Memorable Teams in Baseball History), one of the excellent team profiles published by the Society for American baseball Research.

The Daily Dayton News selected three new titles (including Class A) as significant.

NuckolBall postedthis review of oldie-but-goodie Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series, while the AtHomePlate site looks at another book about the scandal, Black Sox in the Courtroom: The Grand Jury, Criminal Trial and Civil Litigation.

Cleveland.com (Cleveland Plain Dealer) offers this about Edward Achorn’s new book, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game.

Finally, Baseball-Almanac.com gave 501 a very complimentary review. Upshot:

A number of the books described are, of course, out of print. A great value of this book as a guide is that alerts you to baseball books you didn’t know existed — and, which you might be able to pick up for a low price on Ebay, Amazon.com or some comparative shopping for books website. This is like finding buried treasure! I’ve ordered used copies of books of interest, about which I did not know. One stands a better chance these days, through technology, of finding these pearls than in the past when you would have to scour used bookstores. So Kaplan’s labors are valuable in not only for gaining a wide overview of important and interesting books, but also alerting one to books you’d like to read, or own. On the flip side, it may make your own baseball library pretty paltry!