Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber [Hardcover]

JUDITH TESTA (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2006

To the batters who faced him, pitcher Sal Maglie looked like the hurler from hell. Tall and sinister in appearance, with glowering dark eyes and a formidable five-o’clock shadow, the famed righthander earned the nickname “Sal the Barber” for his high-inside fastball that cut dangerously close to the batter’s chin. But Maglie was much more than his intimidating image.

This biography provides a colorful, detailed, occasionally shocking, and often moving narrative about the son of poor Italian immigrants who rose far beyond his family’s and his own early dreams and became a star pitcher for the New York Giants. He then, at the apex of his career in the mid-1950s, joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. This is the story of a man whose early mediocrity and failures in the minor leagues in no way prefigured his later success and fame.

Maglie’s major league career shines with baseball drama. He was a key player in some of the most dramatic pennant races in baseball history and a participant in several of the sport’s most famous games. Women found him irresistible, and his first marriage was at times severely strained by his infidelities. Despite his success in baseball, he endured pain, disappointment, and personal tragedy.

Through wide-ranging research that includes interviews with Maglie’s relatives, friends, former teammates, and team officials, as well as newspaper reports, books, and magazines, Judith Testa creates an insightful and compelling portrait of one of baseball’s most intriguing figures. Baseball fans and people interested in baseball history and in the Italian American experience will discover new insights and a wealth of information in Sal Maglie.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book reveals as few others have the dual personality of the professional athlete. Testa's achievement lies in depicting this man as a complete, full-dimensional human being. This book transcends its genre and is a first-rate work of literature."—Donald Honig, author of Baseball When the Grass Was Real and Baseball America

“There are few baseball books that delve into the complexity of a man's life in the way that Testa has done with this biography.”—Elysian Fields Quarterly

“A very enjoyable read. Testa writes well—at times with brilliance. The real value of this biography is its foray into social history. Few baseball biographies have dared to discuss the sexual or psychological aspects of players’ marriages in the manner this work does.”—William J. Marshall, author of Baseball’s Pivotal Era, 1945–1951

To the batters who faced him, pitcher Sal Maglie looked like the hurler from hell. Tall and sinister in appearance, with glowering dark eyes and a

About the Author

Judith Testa, a former professor at Northern Illinois University, grew up as a baseball fan in the New York City area in the 1950s. Author of many articles relating to Italy and a popular book on Rome, she now writes about a life-long love, baseball.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 486 pages
• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press; 1 edition (December 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875803679
• ISBN-13: 978-0875803678
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,527,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judith Testa was born and grew up in the New York City area, moved to the Midwest to attend graduate school, and never returned to New York, except in spirit. She spent her professional career at Northern Illinois University, where she taught history of art and received numerous awards for excellence in teaching. During that time she developed an absorbing interest in Italy-- Rome in particular-- and in 1998 she published a book about art and architecture in the Eternal City, called "Rome Is Love Spelled Backward" (Roma Amor). After a career devoted to teaching, talking and writing about art, during retirement she returned to a childhood love: baseball. The result was the publication of a biography of a star pitcher from the 1950s, a sinister, almost satanic-looking pitcher named Sal "The Barber" Maglie. The book, titled "Sal Maglie. Baseball's Demon Barber," was published in 2007 and won an award from the Society of Midland Authors as the best biography of 2007. Judith Testa lives in St. Charles, Illinois, and continues to write about Italy for the Chicago area Italian American newspaper "Fra Noi."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Instant Classic!, January 31, 2007

By 

A reader (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber (Hardcover)

This book belongs up there with the best baseball bios ever. It's a great baseball story as well as a wonderful human story, and the writing is FIRST-RATE. Despite its length, there's not a dull or boring moment. Even though Maglie wasn't a Hall of Famer, he had a remarkable career, and reading about it in this great bio was a pleasure.

I should include one warning, however: don't give this book to your 9-year-old son or grandson or nephew. The cover should carry an "adults only" warning. The "colorful" language used by ballplayers in the 1950s is on full display here, and it will singe your ears! The author also delves into Maglie's personal life, including his sex life, in a most uninhibited way. There's none of that sanitized, he-could-do-no-wrong stuff you sometimes find in baseball biographies.

Although I liked Giglio's bio of Stan Musial, the writing in that book is often dry and professorial. Not in this book! I was continually delighted by the author's wit, terrific turns of phrase, and ability to bring to vivid life ballgames that took place more than half a century ago. The two chapters that cover the famous 1951 season where the Giants caught up with the Dodgers and forced a three-game playoff that ended with Bobby Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world" are gripping. I've slogged through Prager's "The Echoing Green," a recent book about the 1951 season-- the most poorly-written sports book I've ever read--and all I can say is that Testa covers that season, including the sign-stealing scandal and its consequences, better in two chapters than Prager does in an entire book!

This is a sports bio that's also a genuine, in-depth biography. The author isn't a sportwriter (the cover says she's a retired university prof), but boy, does she know the game of baseball! In addition to that, she brings a historian's skills to delving into Maglie's life. Along with all the colorful details of his baseball career in the minors, in Cuba, Mexico, Canada and in the Majors, we also find out about Sal's Italian family background, his two marriages, his two adopted sons (one of whom died tragically young), and all the behind the scenes stuff that never gets into the average baseball bio. The author also provides interesting background on what was going on in the world and in the larger baseball scene during Maglie's playing and coaching years.

There are memorable sketches, sometimes no more than a line or two, that convey the essence of other baseball figures. Here's a thumbnail sketch of Eddie "the Brat" Stanky: "A pleasant man off the field, on the field a personality emerged that seemed composed of equal parts of barbed wire, itching powder, and broken glass." Maglie protege Don Drysdale is described as "the willowy, boy-faced fireballer who looked like an angel and pitched like the devil." Jackie Robinson's integration of baseball also receives a condensed, but dramatic and moving treatment. The author even weaves in a thread that follows the career of Ralph Branca as he and Maglie both move toward that famous third game in the 1951 Giants-Dodgers playoff.

This book will grab you from its great opening line: "HE LOOKED LIKE HE CAME TO KILL YOU," and hold your interest right down to its moving final pages that describe the sad ending of Maglie's life.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Testa touches all the bases on this excellent biography, April 26, 2007

By 

Anne Young - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber (Hardcover)

I must admit that my love of baseball is not unconditional, nor can I dredge up any feelings of nostalgia for Sal Maglie or for the period in which he played. I couldn't even have told you he was the "other pitcher" the day Larsen pitched his perfect game. I knew the name, and that's about all. But when I finally cracked the spine on this somewhat daunting 400-pager it took me only the better part of a minute to get completely drawn into his story. In the first place, the quality of the writing compelled me to keep reading on. The narrative structure, the word use, the pacing, the attention to detail all combined to give the appearance of effortlessly composed prose casually falling onto the page in compelling dramatic form.

Two other things really stood out for me. One was the social context. After giving my head a shake I had to read out loud the opening paragraph to the 1947 season linking the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the integration of baseball. (Holy horsehide! ) And the second thing that stood out was the collection of sub-themes woven into the narrative, especially the story of Jackie Robinson. The author dared present him as not only heroic, but also as a flawed human being. That was a real insight for me, along with the unflinching portrayal of what I can only call the tribal mentality of the baseball players of that era (war and hate).

Another fascinating sub-theme was the cultural landscape of Mexico when Sal played ball there, especially the dietary challenges he and his wife faced. And speaking of his wife, while she did seem to hide in the background of the book, presumably as she did in Sal's life, her presence enriches and informs the story and gives resonance to his character. And there are so many other gems, like the business about the number of children the major leaguers fathered in those says (the boomer generation) versus the double stigma the Magli family faced of being childless and then adoptive parents.

Yet that's all background and context as Testa develops the story line of a most unlikely hero, the immigrant son from humble beginnings who makes it to the top of his field, a feat made all the more difficult by virtue of him doing it so late in life. She captures his odyssey magnificently, that tortuous path to mythic status. (Oh brother!) So much gritty, telling detail about who he pitched to, what kind of pitches he threw, how he felt on the mound, who said what to whom. I could almost feel myself on the field beside him, staring down a seething Jackie Robinson.

But I guess my favorite element of all was the reconstruction of so many different conversations by various players, and especially the managerial tirades as they four-lettered their way into Toastmaster purgatory. If I read the author's notes correctly she said she approximated the language used in some of these tirades based on various sources. Until I read that note I just assumed that someone had been in the dugout taking very accurate notes. (Granted, a dumb supposition, but she had me all the way.)

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Not just the best sports book, but the best book in any genre. It is an outstanding biography, professionally presented in every respect. Most books these days cut corners in all sorts of ways, and it shows, but Judith Testa touched all the bases as she legged out this literary grand slam.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an exceptional biography, February 16, 2007

By 

Bill Nowlin "Bill Nowlin" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber (Hardcover)

This is an exceptional biography - not just a baseball biography. I've read a LOT of baseball biographies, and written one. I confess that I was never particularly interested in Maglie, but after reading Judith Testa's book, I was very impressed with him and the way he lived his rather complex life.

This is a deep biography, but it doesn't drag - it is very well written. I can't take the time to write a detailed review right now, but just wanted to express my appreciation to the writer for a job well done.