Customer Reviews

We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved (Baseball Oral History Project)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a marvelously "put-together" baseball book containing the inner thoughts, dreams and actual accomplishments of eleven former Major League players from the (19)50's and 60's. The reason I say "put-together" rather than written is because this book was created by transcribing videotaped interviews into a manuscript. The author "tried to faithfully record the comments of the interviewees, correcting minor grammatical mistakes and occasional errors caused by the inevitable lapses of memory after several decades." The end result is a "STUNNING" recreation of when "BASEBALL WAS STILL A GAME!" Due to the fact that actual interviews have been transcribed, the reader benefits from this unique protocol and feels as if each player is sharing his personal stories directly with you.

The eleven players highlighted in this book include Hall Of Famers Duke Snider, Robin Roberts, Whitey Ford, Harmon Killebrew, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Billy Williams, 1957 World Series MVP Lou Burdette, two time World Champion and thrower of two no-hitters, Carl Erskine, twenty game winner and an eternal historical figure for throwing the pitch that resulted in "The Shot Heard Round The World", Ralph Branca, and "baseball lifer" Bill Rigney. Every one of these elite storytellers takes you back to where their dreams began and how honored they were to achieve their boyhood goals of playing in the Big Leagues. It's hard not to notice the modesty and unpretentious attitudes that these humble stars reveal, which is in sharp contrast to the attitudes and behavior of today's players.

There are so many "delicious" intimate details shared with the reader from the clubhouse and the playing field from the glorious years gone by, when baseball truly was "THE NATIONAL PASTIME". It is apparent to the reader that these "yesterday's hero's" are reliving the same joy, sadness, competitiveness, and aching of their days gone by as emotionally as the reader, who is reliving their cherished childhood moments through their hero's. It's refreshing as almost every star points out with dignity teachers, coaches or parents who made a difference in their life even over half a century later. It is also invigorating to see the same fierce blood start to boil as old rivalries or "bad" calls are rehashed. I found one exceptionally telling historical subject that was discussed reverently by ten of the eleven players, and that was Jackie Robinson. The enormous respect that Jackie "EARNED" from all these players on and off the field had not diminished one iota! In fact to me the most powerful emotionally piercing moment in this book, was not about any of the monumental accomplishments of these players, but of the sad regret of one:

BILL RIGNEY SAID: "I thought one of the worst things I did or one of the things I didn't do--and I regretted it all my life--is that opening day in the Polo Grounds on the eighteenth of April in '47 when Jackie Robinson hit his first home run. I didn't walk over to him and say, "Hey, I'm Bill Rigney, I just want to shake your hand and wish you the best of luck because it's not going to be easy for you, but I wish you the best," and leave it at that. And I regretted it all my life that I didn't do it, because I knew I was too late, you know, after I got to know him. You know just reading about it, you knew how tough it was going to be for him. Why I didn't do that, I don't know, because he was standing right there. All I had to do was walk over and say, "I'm Bill Rigney. I'm the shortstop for the Giants; I just want to wish you good luck." Big deal. But I regret that."

The highest praise I can give this book is to compare it to the seminal book written in 1972 "THE BOYS OF SUMMER" by Roger Kahn looking back on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the `50's. This book is a "BOYS OF SUMMER" with eleven players some of whom were Dodgers. I couldn't recommend this book any higher for a true "OLD-SCHOOL" baseball fan!

I bought this book for my father's 80th birthday and he loved it. He said it brought back so many great baseball memories. He's a die hard baseball fan. I would highly recommend it. It brought a smile to his face and great enjoyment.

Today, with so many players having multi-million dollar contracts, I first looked at this book in the store because of the title. But it turns out to be even more interesting than I thought. It's interviews with a lot of the great players from back in the old days, and it really gives you a sense of what it was like for them personally to be playing the game back in the 50s and 60s. I was especially interested in the three interviews with members of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I grew up hearing a lot about guys like Duke Snider, but to actually read their stories from their point of view gave me a whole new perspective on them. It's not about stats and numbers, but about the personal things that influenced each player's career. Some guys talk about their mothers, others talk about their relationships with their managers, owners or other players. It's the kind of stuff you don't find in history books. I really recommend this book to all baseball fans.

This is another solid effort by the former baseball commissioner, Fay Vincent, who gave us "The Only Game in Town" and "The Last Commissioner" and who continues to love the great game of baseball.
Baseball fans, especially long-timers, will enjoy reading the first-hand commentary (on their experiences and on the state of baseball today)of such big-name stars as Robin Roberts, Harmon Killebrew, Frank and Brooks Robinson, and Billy Williams, among others. Also included is Bill Rigney, a lesser light as a player but an acknowledged "star" as manager. This volume is an easier read than its predecessor as the interviewer has polished his subjects' actual words just a bit. I'm hoping another volume--especially one that offers the insights/feelings/reactions of some of the less-heralded players of previous generations--is forthcoming.

I think my father really enjoyed the fact that he could just pick up a story from any spot and read. For baseball fans who were kids and saw these guys play, this is a especially good gift.

There are 11 chapters of interviews with former great Major League baseball players here. Each chapter begins with a short synopsis of the player's career, & the rest of the chapter consists of that player's reminiscing about various facets of his baseball career. The most interesting chapter, to me, was the one involving all-time great Brooklyn Dodgers' CenterFielder, Duke Snider. Other interesting chapters include Ralph Branca, Frank Robinson, Carl Erskine, & Robin Roberts. It's great to hear the player's versions of baseball history. All fans of 1950s & 1960s baseball should own a copy of this book. The title of this book is especially ironic, considering the extended national controversy caused by The Duke in his 1954 Collier's Magazine article, which was shockingly (for the time) about playing baseball for "money," an unspoken truth at that time in history.

I am very excited to discover this book of living oral history about a great era in the evolution of baseball, a time when there was exceptional talent on the field, and still a level of craftsmanship and relative purity to the sport. I just wanted to comment on the review that compares this book to The Boys of Summer as a classic benchmark of baseball writing. I would not dispute that comparison, but I think it is a little more to the point to compare this book (and its companion volume on the 30s and 40s) to the one that really pioneered the technique of compiling oral history from the older players--and that is The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. This book, which I believe was published in about 1966, was the first I know of to use this technique and with wondrous results. Ritter hit the road with a tape recorder, and found some two dozen or so players from the turn of the century through the 30s and got them jawing about the game. These were players like Goose Goslin, Sam Crawford, Paul Waner, Lefty O'Doul, Rube Marquard, and Chief Meyers (perhaps the man who originally broke the color line in baseball) among others. There were amazing stories and pictures of these speakers, and all the greats from that era--Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, McGraw, Wagner, Mathewson, Johnson, et. al. I still have my original first edition, and while I read Boys of Summer when it came out, I read through Glory of Their Times over and over and over again. It was that good. As a boy, I wrote to Ritter about how much I loved the book, and he took the time to send me a lengthy and warm handwritten reply about his joyful experience of putting the book together. Now that is class!! Ritter later put out an extended edition with several additional interviews, but it was hard to improve perfection. So, while we are lauding great baseball books, I just wanted to make mention of the one that started it all as far as the baseball oral history thing, and encourage others to discover this marvelous book, Glory of Their Times, to which I would give about 10 stars. I am hoping that the Fay Vincent books will be even half as good, hence the 5 stars here.

An interesting book concerning baseball in the 1940s-50s-60s-70s as told by 11 famous ballplayers (5 of whom were pitchers, 4 NL, 1 AL). They talk about what play was like, ownership was like, what the money was like, teammates were like, and also about the on-going integration of MLB. A worthwhile book for fans of MLB from this era, which starts with the birth of televised games (golden age of baseball?) in the 40s through parts of the 70s. Most of the interviewees made the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The irony of a fawning dedication to Marvin Miller affixed to a book called "We Would Have PLayed for Nothing" is almost too much to overcome. At least it certainly made ME gag, though younger readers will pass over it (and the fact that Miller more than any other single person, was responsible for turning the game we all loved into a grotesque pursuit of unimaginable wealth in the midst of national economic decline).

However, the tried-and-true methodology of Lawrence Ritter is applied with loving care by Vincent`s ghostwriters/editors to create a memorable selection of reminscences by ballplayers from the last generation before big-league baseball became engulfed in money and the players' greed was distinguishable from the owners' only by the fact that one group of millionaires wear numbers on their shirts.

The indelible impression that one receives from most of the players profiled here is one of the gratitude they felt for the gift they had been given: to make a decent living for themselves and their families, playing a kids` game that they loved. Here`s Robin Roberts from the book: "I`ve seen people work hard all their lives, like my dad, and to be able to do what I was able to do and make a good living out of it, I`m so blessed. And I knew it at that time. I didn`t wake up yesterday and find this out. I knew it all the time...I gave it everything I had."

The players, the days, and the attitude toward life that this book describes are gone forever. It`s worth having this reminder that those people and things actually existed when big league baseball and the men who played it were dedicated to the game and gave the country something worthwhile to believe in.

Contained in We would have played for nothing are mini autobiographies of nine baseball players from the 1950`s and 1960's. These were some of the tops stars from that era. Ralph Branca ( the pitcher that gave up the shot heard around the world), Robin Roberts, Whitey Ford, Harmon Killebrew, Duke Snyder, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Carl Erskine, Lew Burdette and Billy Williams. Having become a fan of baseball in the late 60's I know all of the names from an early age really with the exception of Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine whom I know of but didn't have much of a background on them.

The ball players all talk about what the game was like back then when it came to negotiating contracts ( there no player agents back then), the ball player did all of his negotiating but the owners held al of the keys. One of the interesting things that a couple of the players talked about was the fact that they only got one year contracts back then so that player had to be at his best and even if the player had a better year then the one before the owners would still try to cut their pay. They talked about being driven to play every day even it they were injured because if they didn't that would be held against them the next year where as players today get multi million dollar, multi year contracts and so if a player feels like it it's a little easier for them to sit out games today. They also talk about the pressure on players today stay in condition year round. The obligation to the fans. Steroid use is barely mentioned.

Both Frank Robinson and Duke Snyder talk about segregation how black ball players very often had to stay in different hotels and eat at different places as their white team mates got to stay and eat. Snyder (a white player) talks about it because coming from California he didn't really understand it and had not experienced it until he started playing in the east with the Dodgers.

They players talk about particular plays ( some we will remember) and people in baseball that changed their lives. In most cases the reader gets a little bit of of a pre baseball background history of the players but mostly it just about the game of baseball.

What really shines through in We would have played for nothing is the love of the game. What i got from this was more of a history on some of my favorite players.'
If your like me and grew up a baseball fan in the 60's you will love this book. I give this a 4 star rating only because I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the glory of their times but still highly recommended.