Review roundup, May 15, 2019

Just received my copy of Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, by Paul Goldberger and am greatly looking forward to it. Only this morning I was listening to Justin McGuire’s Baseball by the Book podcast in which he notes with Mark Kingwell, author of the 2017 release Fail Better: Why Baseball Matters that the national pastime is the only major team sport that does follow the format of a (basically) rectangular field as does football, soccer, and hockey (cricket, like baseball, uses another “non-linear” field, but the dimensions, I’m guessing are usually the same). That unique aspect of the “infinity” of the baseball field, since its angles reach out forever if not confined by walls, is yet another fascinating aspect of the game. Curbed posted this review of Ballpark.

Author Dan Schlossberg offers two documentary reviews — Heading Home: the Tale of Team Israel and The Spy Behind Home Plate, the lastest from Aviva Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg) via Forbes.com. At least I have the excuse that the latter won’t be out for a few more days, but I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t seen the former, about the amazing success of the Israeli National team in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

The Rochester, MN, Post Bulletin posted this syndicated piece on the “Best New Baseball Books to Read Now,” including the aforementioned Ballpark, as well as several books about the Mets World Series victory in 1969 and Tyler Kepner’s K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches.

Speaking of K, here’s a review from the Christian Science Monitor.

Apropos to the recent — and controversial — White House visit by a contingent from the world champion Boston Red Sox, here’s an opinion piece citing Joseph Price’s Rounding the Bases: Baseball and Religion in America (Sports and Religion), as posted by the National Catholic Reporter.

From the Chicago Tribune, “7 things we learned from a new Harry Caray book that tries to separate fact from legend” (The Legendary Harry Caray: Baseball’s Greatest Salesman by Don Zminda).

Finally, WKCY (Cleveland) posted this interview with Scott Longert, author of Bad Boys, Bad Times: The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Prewar Years, 1937–1941.