Posts tagged as:

Willie Mays

Besides my own book, there are some titles I’m really looking forward to this season. Among them: Keepers of the Game: When the Baseball Beat was the Best Job on the Paper by Dennis D’Agostino The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball’s Golden Age by Robert Weintraub Mickey […]

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As mentioned in a previous post, Arnold Hano wrote one of the must-read books for any serious student of the national pastime. A Day in the Bleachers was the first, and in many ways the best, of the single-game analyses genre. His deconstruction of the first game of the 1954 World Series between the New […]

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Willie Mays turns 80 today. Wow. Somewhere in my stacks I have some yellowing magazines from the mid-60s that still compared Mays to Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider having been out of the picture for a couple of seasons. Mays appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated nine times (six as an active player). So much […]

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Lest we forget: Duke Snider

February 27, 2011

The legendary “Bum” died today at the age of 84. Here‘s the Richard Goldstein obituary from the NY Times. Guarantee there will be front page mention of this tomorrow. Snider collaborated on his autobiography, The Duke Of Flatbush, with Bill Gilbert in 1988. Other titles include: The Duke Snider Story, by Winehouse (1964) Duke Snider, […]

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Intro: As previously stated, the recent election of Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven got me to thinking: how many Hall of Famers have had books written about them or penned their own stories. Here are the results. Again, this is not an all-inclusive list; almost all juvenile titles have been omitted. * * * “M” […]

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“M” is truly an amazing initial for Hall of Famers, isn’t it? Mays, Mantle, Musial, Marichal, , McCovey, Mathewson, no to mention managers such as McCarthy, Mack and McGraw Connie Mack (Manager; inducted 1937) My 66 Years in the Big Leagues, by Mack (1950) Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball, Macht (2007) The […]

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The San Francisco Giants are paying homage to their ancestry by bringing the World Series trophy to New York for a tour.

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Readers, take “note”

December 8, 2010

Three baseball entries are among the non-fiction titles on The New York Times as “100 Notable Books of 2010.” THE LAST BOY: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. By Jane Leavy. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.) Many biographies of Mantle have been written, but Leavy connects the dots in new and disturbing ways. THE LAST HERO: […]

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Winner, winner, chicken dinner

November 13, 2010

Congrats to Tim Sackett, winner of the October Bookshelf Give-Away: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, by Larry Tye. The book was named winner of the two top baseball literary awards: The Seymour Medal from the Society for American baseball Research, and Spitball Magazine‘s Casey Award. The November book will be another […]

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TWIBB: Nov. 5, 2010

November 5, 2010

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Nov. 5 at Noon. Title Rank General The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy 1 Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, by Josh Hamilton and Tim Keown 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, […]

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From the Baseball Hall of Fame: The story of one of baseball’s greatest heroes has come to print, and the author is coming to Cooperstown. New York Times best-selling author James S. Hirsch will discuss his new book Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend on Friday, July 30, at the National Baseball Hall of Fame […]

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Review: Willie Mays

May 16, 2010

At home plate posted this extensive review of James Hirsch’s bio of the Hall of Famer. Upshot: “This book is a feast for serious baseball aficionados and a veritable banquet for Giants fans. The sheer heft should not matter to those folks.  They should plunge right in, especially those who remember the young Willie. A […]

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to Willie Mays, who turned 79 yesterday.

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Bill Gallo, the veteran sports cartoonist for the New York Daily News, published this review/personal remembrance of Mays as per the Hircsh bio. I used to collect his work — along with another DN cartoonist name of Bill(?) Stark — in one of my many scrapbooks. In 1969, as the Mets were marching towards the […]

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* Review: Willie Mays

March 1, 2010

The Sunday Times Book Review leads off with a full page about James Hirsch’s bio (which leads some to ask, why is it necessary to review the same book twice, given the limited review space). The review, by long time New York writer Pete Hamill, is quite glowing in its praise, although he doesn’t actually […]

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Hirsch, author of the critically-acclaimed (and not just by me) bio of Willie Mays, talks a good game. He was very generous with his time this week in discussing his work and process (as the extended length of this interview indicates), going so far as to read a portion from his chapter, “The Catch,” which […]

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* RK Review: Willie Mays

February 25, 2010

The Life, The Legend, by James. S. Hirsch. Scribner, 2010. The long-anticipated (authorized) biography of the Say Hey Kid was worth the wait. Hirsch, a former journalist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal certainly didn’t have an easy time in getting the gig. He had been after Mays for almost seven […]

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* Whole lot of Hirsch goin' on

February 12, 2010

Look for Jame Hirsch, author of the new Mays biography, to be making the media rounds in the weeks ahead (including an interview with the Bookshelf). It’s still a bit early in the reviewing process, but here is a sampling of links to get you started: An interview on WEEI sports radio, New England A […]

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The New York Times is the latest to run a review of James S. Hirsch’s new biography. The upshot: The result is an authoritative if sometimes listless book, one that’s less “Say Hey” than so-so. Like a long out to center field that scores a runner, however, it’s a book that gets the job done. […]

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* Timing is everything

February 9, 2010 · 2 comments

Here’s to the Class of 2010. And I don’t mean the newest Hall of Famers. How cool is it that this year marks the release of biographies on some of the true icons of the game? The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, by Howard Bryant The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End […]

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