Customer Reviews

My Thirty Years in Baseball

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This is simply a wonderful memoir by baseball's greatest manager. The converstational way he tells you his story, talks about strategy and compares the stars of his day is abosolutey charming.

What made this book very entertaining to me what not only what John McGraw said but the how he said it: the language and expressions of the day. That's because this autobiography was written in 1923 and people talked differently back then. Specifically, baseball descriptions, phrases and names for some positions were different....but it isn't hard to figure out what McGraw is describing.

No sense describing McGraw because I assume if you're reading this you are somewhat familiar with the man. When it came to competing, few people (i.e. Ty Cobb being one) were as fiery and competitive as "Muggsy." Like Cobb's memoir, you'll get a very biased account of the famous ballplayer and manager, but so what? I always find it interesting to hear the viewpoint from the controversial athlete rather than the just the sportwriters, who are just as biased.

What is different about this autobiography is that McGraw spends a good amount of time telling us how the game should be played. and what makes a good player and manager. This may be a viewpoint from someone in the game 80 years ago but there are a lot of good instructional points and you can see why this man was such a winner.

I only wish he had waited a few more years so his story would be more complete, as he was still going strong as a manager when he wrote this book.