The End of Baseball: A Novel [Paperback]

Peter, Jr. Schilling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2010

In Peter Schilling's wonderful novel, the extraordinary baseball season of 1944 comes vividly to life. Bill Veeck, the maverick promoter, returned from Guadalcanal with a leg missing and $500 to his name, has hustled his way into buying the Philadelphia Athletics. Hungry for a pennant, young Veeck jettisons the team's white players and secretly recruits the legendary stars of the Negro Leagues, fielding a club that will go down in baseball annals as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Here are the behind-the-scenes adventures that bring this dream to reality, and a cast of characters only history's pen could create. The End of Baseball is the most rollicking, free-spirited baseball story in years, the unvarnished truth of that incredible season and the men who lived it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With this debut, sportswriter Schilling has written one of the best baseball novels since Howard Frank Mosher's Waiting for Teddy Williams. Using actual events, Schilling has fictionalized a fantasy scenario in baseball history—the integration of black players into the major leagues in 1944. Bill Veeck Jr., a Marine veteran from a prestigious baseball family, buys the Philadelphia Athletics in 1943, becoming the youngest man to ever own a major league club. Veeck is a genius at publicity and promotion who wants to win the World Series—but using black players. He signs the best of the Negro League to the Athletics, against all conventional feeling and the opposition of Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the vicious commissioner of baseball. The Athletics romp through the 1944 season behind the on-and-off diamond antics of real-life stars like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Roy Campanella, with Veeck struggling to raise money, avoid race riots and flummox Judge Landis. This exciting, fast-paced story is a fine commentary on baseball lore, race relations, and American sentiment during World War II, and it will have the reader hanging on every pitch, wondering how Veeck and his players will overcome racial discrimination to prove they can play in the major leagues. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Maverick baseball entrepreneur Bill Veeck returns from World War II and buys the Philadelphia Athletics from irascible owner Connie Mack. The caveat is that if the team doesn’t turn a profit in its first year, it reverts back to Mack. That means A’s must be transformed into a winner, and in the war years, the only sources of good players are the Negro Leagues. Veeck begins with a bitter, alcoholic Josh Gibson and then adds Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and Buck Leonard—all of whom think they’ll be playing on a Philly Negro League team. The Veeck shenanigans continue, and he opens the season with his groundbreaking team despite the resistance of owners, players, the press, and J. Edgar Hoover, who smells a Communist plot. Schilling’s alternate-history fiction pushes baseball’s integration ahead by four years, but the pages turn on the larger-than-life characterization of Veeck, who emerges here as every bit as flamboyant as he was in the real world. In the ultimate “woulda-coulda-shouda” story,  the vaunted color line  is no match for Veeck’s showmanship and unquenchable spirit. --Wes Lukowsky --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; Reprint edition (March 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566638488
• ISBN-13: 978-1566638487
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rip-snorting baseball yarn, April 28, 2008

By 

Denis Telgemeier (Pleasanton, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of Baseball: A Novel (Hardcover)

Peter Schilling, Jr.'s inventive novel "The End of Baseball" describes a mesmerizing 1944 baseball season that might have been - if Bill Veeck had been able to purchase a major league team and recruit an entire team of Negro Leaguer stars.

Veeck loses a leg at Guadalcanal. Before enlisting in the Marines, he had been a successful minor league baseball team owner whose innovative promotions lured fans to the ballpark and whose competitive teams kept them coming back for more.

In "The End of Baseball," Veeck returns to civilian life and purchases the Philadelphia Athletics. He turns the ball club into an instant contender by secretly signing Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, Roy Campanella, and other Negro League stars.

The book contains many poignant moments on and off the field. To his credit - and to our good fortune! -- Schilling provides the historical and social perspective the story demands. He captures the essence of the men and the game they play for life and, perhaps, death.

In real life, Veeck owned the Cleveland Indians and signed the American League's first black player, Larry Doby, and also Satchel Paige. He had less talent to work with on his St. Louis Browns ball club, so he grabbed the spotlight by sending a midget to the plate. When he owned the Chicago White Sox, Veeck put player names on the backs of uniforms and introduced the exploding scoreboard. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent novel, whether you're a baseball fan or not, April 27, 2008

By 

Andrew McClay "Andrew McClay" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The End of Baseball: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book has it all: the high drama of a "what if?" season of baseball, historical cameos, and real social commentary. If you're looking for an always-entertaining page turner, look no further. The End of Baseball simulates what it's like to be swept up in a particularly thrilling baseball season in 1943, and reading it is like having a spot in the bleachers to watch the team that almost was. It has subtle character studies, and closely observed details that summon up that time and place: America as a country in the midst of WWII, the African American baseball community prior to Civil Rights. It will keep you up nights reading!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When Baseball was America's Pastime, June 7, 2008

By 

Burgmicester (Pittsburgh) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The End of Baseball: A Novel (Hardcover)

Peter Schilling brings back the game of baseball complete with the personalities, the idiosyncrasies, the after hours stories and all of the fun that this sport once had. This is an amazing novel that just sucks you in and doesn't let go. I couldn't wait to find time every day to continue my reading. It is somewhat unique in its use of historic information and mixing of baseball story fiction. In it, Schilling has captured an era in the sport just as African Americans are beginning to be "allowed" into the game. But in this story, not just one Black ballplayer is in the Majors, an entire team is being moved up.

Schilling has written an enjoyable and moving story that shows many of the great Negro League players coming together and playing in the Major Leagues on the same team: Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige among them. The antics of Bill Veech Jr. contribute to the main storyline and how the difficulties from the all White league and their overbearing Commissioner continually throw up barriers to the entry of this special team on the hallowed Fields.

In addition to the game of baseball, the societal ills of the general population and the mind games of J Edgar Hoover, himself, are all part of the plot. This is a slice of Americana; America going through the pain of WWII with their boys of summer as their only distraction. Only this summer has the potential of bringing out real change for the sport. Bill Veech, Jr., is the man trying against all odds, fictitious and historic, to keep the team together against the powers of baseball and others desperately trying to keep the status quo. This is a baseball story for the ages. A terrifically different novel for anyone tired of the same old stuff.

I was amazed at how perfectly interwoven truth and fiction were done by Schilling. The character studies are on target and made a part of the story blurring the lines of fact and fiction like nothing I'd ever read in the world of baseball writing. The ending is beautiful and fulfilling. I am giving it my hearty recommendation of 5 stars. There just isn't much not to like.