(Mini) Bookshelf Review: This Never Happened

I’ve always been interested in books about the World Wars. There’s a debt to the members of the armed forces than can never adequately be paid. On the other hand, as regular readers of this blog know, I’m not a huge fan of baseball fiction. But whenever there’s something that combines the two, I’ll give it a shot.

One of the greatest pitchers of all time served his country in The Great War and ultimately paid the price when he died in 1925 as the result of a chemical training accident. J.B. Manheim covers that sad tale in This Never Happened: The Mysterious Death of Christy Mathewson.

Quick synopsis: The novel deals with the discovery — by problematic means — of evidence that Mathewson’s death came as a result of a not totally innocent act by a member of the military team which was comprised primarily of major leaguers. The investigation by a prominent baseball writer leads to a crisis of faith in the hagiography of the national pastime and what some are willing to do to protect it.

The positives: Manheim, Professor Emeritus at The George Washington University, does an admirable research job, both on the baseball side and America during the period of the War and into the 1930s, when the Hall of Fame was conceived and constructed in the 1930s. He goes back and forth between those and modern times to weave this detective story. He also weaves fictional characters with real-life figures, so well in fact, that at times I had a hard time keeping them apart.

The negatives: Sometimes there’s a bit too much attention to detail (especially when the author writes about travel schedules and preparations). The flashbacks generally struck me as more credible than the more contemporary components.

The story is a long time in the telling and predictable in spots. The wrap-up, on the other hand was sudden and disappointing, to me at least.

One man’s opinion.

In the interest of fairness, here’s Manheim talking about his work as part of SABR’s “Stay Home” series.