Baseball Anthology (Hardcover)

~ Joseph Wallace (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like The Ultimate Baseball Book, the oversized anthology covers as much ground as Junior Griffey... and is about as much fun to play with. Filled with photographs, illustrations and cartoons, it chronicles the game from its beginnings, capturing baseball's ethos with punchy snips of fiction, poetry, and journalism extracted from larger, contemporaneous reports woven into a narrative that continually keeps the reader moving. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This is basically an oral history of the national pastime from its inception to the present. Many players and events are described: Johnny Evers reminisces about the famous force-play that became "Merkle's Boner" to the world in 1908. Fred Lieb tells how the Yankees' pitcher Carl Mays killed the Indians' Ray Chapman with a submarine pitch ("I could see the left eye hanging from its socket") in 1920. Hall-of-Famer Leo Durocher recalls how he put down an uprising of Brooklyn Dodgers to keep Jackie Robinson out of the big leagues by saying of their petition: "You can wipe your ass with it." Hank Aaron remembers that when he came close to beating Babe Ruth's home-run record, he received "Dear Nigger" letters. But what makes this book special are the pictures, especially those in black-and-white: Jackie Robinson stretching at first base with Ebbets Field in the background; Willie Mays climbing the outfield wall to rob a player of a base hit; Casey Stengel sliding home with an inside-the-park home-run during the 1923 World Series; and, of course, the Babe hitting one out. A treat for the baseball aficionado, freelancer Wallace's book makes a nice companion volume to Baseball by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (Nonfiction Forecasts, Aug. 15). Photos. BOMC dividend selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810981513
• ISBN-13: 978-0810981515
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,542,156 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rare Source Material with Style and Flair, November 28, 1998

By	Mr. IT (The OC) - See all my reviews

I like to think of this book as a companion to the printed version of the Ken Burns Baseball documentary. While the Burns book may cite a reference, this book will contain the complete text. As a result the level of detail here is greater but less ground is covered. Likewise, there are less photographs here but they are rarier and more striking than most of the Burns photographs. For example I had never seen an "action" photograph of the great Christy Mathewson prior to reading this book (see p. 114). It is one thing to imagine that wicked curve being fired at you via prose, quite another to actually see the fire in his mid stride eyes bearing down on you via photograph.

If I had to choose one, I prefer the Burns book but I think that every baseball fan will want to have both in their collection. What one lacks, the other fills in.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Gift for the Baseball Fan, May 26, 2000

By	"copperphyle" (NYS) - See all my reviews

The husband/father in this household is a baseball-lover of the first water, well-read and well-versed, who received this book as a peace-offering. Large and handsome, the book brought him discoveries: photographs not in general circulation and tales that made legends real.