Customer Reviews

Some Are Called Clowns: A season with the last of the great barnstorming baseball teams

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One of the best baseball books ever written and one that makes an important contribution to the history of baseball. This book belongs on any fan's shelf along with Ball Four, The Boys of Summer, The Summer Game, and The Glory of Their Times. Well written and easy to read it brings to life the author's 1973 season on the road with the Indianapolis Clowns. While it is a diary of one of the last seasons of one of the last great barnstorming teams, it is really a book about an earlier era of baseball. It is filled with entertaining stories about colorful characters that probably can not be found anywhere else. Without rhetoric, the book also looks at race in society, through baseball. I highly recommend it.

I first read "Some Are Called Clowns" as a teenager when it came out in the 1970's, and I still have my original copy. It's a diary of Bill Heward's 1973 season pitching and managing the Indianapolis Clowns, the last surviving Negro League team from the 1930's and '40's. It's extremely engaging and well-written and you'll get a lot of baseball history along the way, but this book goes well beyond sports. It's an outstanding social piece, too, a very non-judgmental study in race relations from within a sports setting. Tons of great stories (funny and sad), and lots of genuine characters...some of whom appeared in the Bingo Long traveling All-Stars movie in 1976. I have literally read hundreds and hundreds of baseball books, and this one is easily one of my ten favorites. I can't recommend it highly enough, even if you're not a baseball fan.

This is one of the top 5 baseball books ever written. Lighting in a bottle. If you can find a copy, buy it and read it to your kids.

I have read this book 4 or 5 times over the last 20 years. It is right up there with Jim Bouton's Ball Four and Sparky Lyle's Bronx Zoo. If you can find a copy of it I highly recommend it.

A little-known but terrific read. The reader can taste, smell, and feel the experience of the tour. Highly recommended.