Customer Reviews

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the third of Neyer's "Big Books" and, I think, the best. (His Big Book of Baseball Lineups and Big Book of Baseball Blunders are also quite good - as is his lesser known Feeding the Green Monster; The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers is his one clinker.) In this book, he takes a large number of baseball "legends" and discusses whether or not they are true. I put legends in quotation marks because, although he includes an account of whether Babe Ruth really called that home run during the 1932 World Series and a few other famous incidents, most of the entries are really more stories than legends. Many are from autobiographies, newspaper or magazine stories, or sometimes just casual remarks made by television or radio play-by-play announcers. I really like Neyer's approach. Rather than just tell us what someone claims Bob Feller or Willie McCovey or Bob Gibson said or did, and then give us a quick summary of the results of his research - which would have resulted in a pretty short book - he takes several pages to relate what information is available to check the story, the blind alleys he went up, and the different approaches he took to confirm or refute the story. This more leisurely approach gives the reader a good feel for the variety of sources that exist for doing research on the history of baseball and also provides more context for each story - most of which are really not about earthshaking events. As it turns out, most of the stories he checks were at least roughly true, with only a relatively few apparently having been made up out of whole cloth.

One caveat: like many books of this sort, this one is best read a few entries at a time spread out over a couple of weeks, rather than in one sitting. Finally, I found his discussion of Lawrence Ritter's oral history of early twentieth century baseball, The Glory of Their Times, to be particularly interesting. Although Ritter claimed that his book reproduced his interviews with baseball's early stars with very little editing, in fact, after comparing the book to CDs of the interviews Neyer finds that Ritter did substantial rewriting. Although Neyer argues that on balance Ritter's improving the old players' reminiscences was acceptable, I think it raises some interesting questions about the distinctions between a "good story" and a "true story" - which, I suppose, is the distinction that lies at the heart of Neyer's book.

This is certainly an enjoyable book--but take it in small doses! It does a fine job--anecdotally--of addressing the problems of memory and embellishment and "improving" on stories. There are about 60 chapters, each of which presents a story--usually a recollection from a book about how player X did this-and-that. Neyer then tries to check out the validity--the internet and other resources are a great help. So, for example, Tris Speaker says that the Indians were leading the Yankees by 1 run in the 9th inning, the Yankees had the tying run on second base, and George Uhle issued an intentional walk to Mark Koenig in order to pitch to Babe Ruth. Neyer is able to use the internet and other resources to check the story out. There was a game--with Speaker getting an intentional walk, and with the score 3-1 (in Cleveland's favor) in the 8th inning, Combs singled, Koenig walked, and Ruth flied out. So memory here is partially correct, but also partially quite faulty.

In addition to the 60-so chapters, most chapters have margin stories that may relate to the story in the chapter. So the total number of tales looked at is probably about 150 to 200. Many of these are fascinating, but some are not so memorable. There are a few errors--there's a "Last Note of Humility" about Chance and Harper, which belongs with an earlier chapter, for example. The most troubling tale (which I had never heard before) is "Lou Gehrig & The Imposter" about how Gehrig's consecutive-game streak had been broken, with Danny Kaye wearing Gehrig's uniform. Neyer tracks down the story to a men's magazine and finds a piece by Scribbly Tate describing the events. Scribbly Tate--an obvious pseudonym--is Rob Neyer himself, using his favorite alter-ego: he received $[...] for the story in 1951. "a tale whose origin lies in the most deceitful corner of my own forgetful mind" is how he describes it. I wondered whether Neyer was pulling our legs here--but a Google search reveals that Scribbly Tate is indeed Neyer's favorite pseudonym. I would have liked to have seen some additional analysis--what other tales did Scribbly Tate spin? Overall, though, what you get is a good and enjoyable addition to your baseball library, even if it does pop a few of your favorite misconceptions.

My first impression was that book would only be for baseball nerds who enjoy puncturing myths/good stories. But the style is not negative at all. The stories are good reads, many of which I'd never heard before and even if they don't always hold up to contemporary records, it's fun to read about what really happened.

This is the perfect gift for the man or woman you know who has enjoyed baseball all of their lives. Whether reading about the famous players or actually having lived during their times, it brings it all vividly home to the reader. There are wonderful anecdotes and stories and scenes painted for those legends that grow only stronger over time.

You can count on Rob Neyer for an interesting, informative and entertaining read when it comes to his Big Books. This is his third in the series (Lineups and Blunders being the first two). While it's interesting, I think it's the least interesting of the three. It's not necessarily Neyer's fault.

The premise of the book is that Neyer takes some legendary tales and tracks them down (much easier today thanks to the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) retrosheet web site and some digitized newspapers), trying to prove whether or not they're true. And, if so, to what extent.

Sometimes it turns out the tale is basically true with just a few minor errors. But, who really cares whether the score was 6-5 instead of 5-4, whether the home run was hit in the third inning instead of the fifth inning or if the incident occurred in August rather than July?

Neyer and the book are at their best, however, when he proves a tale couldn't possibly have happened.

Here's an example: Pitcher Nellie Briles tells the story that shortly after he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates, he was pitching in a game with the tying run on second base with two outs in the ninth inning. A left-handed pull hitter was at the plate, but second baseman Bill Mazeroski insisted upon playing up the middle, despite Briles' objections. The hitter singled through the hole, Clemente fielded the ball and threw out the potential tying run at the plate. After the game, Mazeroski explained to Briles that he and Clemente had been working on that play all year.

Sounds like a great story, but Neyer couldn't find any game where the situation closely resembled what Briles described.

While i really enjoyed Rob's book on Baseball Blunders, this one was not nearly as engaging. It is organized like his other books in what seems to be a series of articles and it is an approach that works well. What didn't work well for me was the occasional use of profanity which seemed forced and out of place and that the whole book is about disproving people's baseball stories. As a history teacher, I understand the need to debunk myths. But in baseball, the myths are part of what makes the game great and a book that's only goal is to point out the fact that they are not true seems to be more of a party pooper than a party.

Should be required reading for all citizens to demonstrate what my mom always said "don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see". Tedious in some places, a really good dissection of stories, some a hundred years ago and some only a few months or years old.

Rob does it again with this book. Tons of entertaining stories and myths, all impeccably researched and either confirmed or debunked. Think of it as a "Mythbusters" for baseball fans. Rob Neyer continues to be the best baseball writer and researcher around.

Rob Neyer has really hit on a winning format. Anecdotes are either famous episodes and we learn something we didn't already know (like they're completely bogus) or the anecdotes are, perhaps, something we hadn't heard before. Either way, they are generally well-written none of the self-contained "Legend" really exceeds a few pages, so if you've got a short attention span (and who doesn't these days?), you can pick it up and put it down. All told, a very enjoyable book.

Without a doubt, this book is Rob Neyer's weakest. Time is lost reading about how he did some research on baseball facts, and time and time again he share the same tale of research...

You may learn a thing or two in there but the reading is rather laborious.