Product Description

TY COBB. CHRISTY MATHEWSON. SHOELESS JOE JACKSON. BABE RUTH. LOU GEHRIG. JACKIE ROBINSON. JOE DIMAGGIO. MICKEY MANTLE. WILLIE MAYS. DUKE SNIDER. TED WILLIAMS. CURT FLOOD. ROBERTO CLEMENTE. HANK AARON.

Their names echo through the halls of time and the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Their feats are legendary. They never quit, and they never backed down. They inspired generations of Americans to push themselves to do their very best. They were, and remain, the heroes of baseball.

Hitting monster home runs, pitching perfect games, making impossible catches, and stealing home during the World Series -- these are the kinds of feats that turn baseball players into baseball superstars. But it takes more than great feats to become a hero of the game.

Every generation needs its own heroes, and in each generation that need is answered differently. Heroes reflect the times and societies in which they live and work. The impact made by baseball's heroes affects the way our society perceives itself, as well as the goals we set for ourselves and for our nation. Award-winning sportswriter Robert Lipsyte presents his vision for who the heroes of the game are, and what they did to achieve their legendary status.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #492025 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780689867415
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Lipsyte (The Contender) structures this lively history of the National Pastime as a collective biography of, as the subtitle states, "The Men Who Made It America's Favorite Game"—including some of its biggest stars, and a few lesser-known, but equally influential players. He begins with "Big Al" Spalding, a premier pitcher, team owner and sporting goods titan, who spearheaded the early campaign to elevate baseball from just a game into a virtuous and "uniquely American" pursuit. The author contrasts Ty Cobb's style of play ("mean") with Babe Ruth's ("larger-than-life") to chart changes in how the game is played—from "small ball" to an emphasis on Big Bats. Recent congressional hearings may lead some to quibble with his choice to include Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, but Lipsyte makes a persuasive case that their record-busting "Summer of Swat" reinvigorated fan interest in a sport that had been mired in labor turmoil for two decades. (Indeed, the best selection is on Curt Flood, the St. Louis outfielder who kicked off baseball's labor disputes with his legal challenge to the "reserve clause," which had allowed teams to trade veteran players without their consent.) Much of this material will be familiar to young baseball junkies—Mickey Mantle playing through pain, Jackie Robinson breaking the game's color barrier, Ichiro Suzuki's thrilling "rookie" year in Seattle—but Lipsyte crafts these elements into an engaging social history of 20th-century America, with bite-size sidebars about baseball cards, funny nicknames, wackiest mascots, Yogisms and a nifty timeline. Not to mention glorious, often full-page photos. Lots to pore over, and it goes down like lemonade on a hot day at the ball park. All ages. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up-This volume has the look of a coffee-table book with its overview of baseball history and eye-catching design, with red-bordered text and numerous oversize photographs. The images, though mostly black and white, help convey the intensity of the game, such as the one of Willie Mays making a leaping catch at New York's old Polo Grounds. Chapters highlight Lipsyte's heroes: A. G. Big Al Spalding, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Curt Flood, and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. The author's own opinions are perhaps what make this book notable: his arguments are lively, readable, and well documented. He remarks, for example, that in spite of Cobb's abrasive, aggressive personality, no one could imagine him gambling on or intentionally losing a game, unlike Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. Some may question Lipsyte's choices: Ruth over Lou Gehrig, and Mantle over Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays, for example. He reasons that he chose Mantle both for his on-field accomplishments and the fact that he became an advocate against drugs and in favor of organ donors after his career had ended. Fans of the game are likely to find the book a lively discussion starter, with its engaging anecdotes and Lipsyte's articulate perspective.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Gr. 4-7. Using as a focus some of baseball's greats--Big Al Spalding, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Curt Flood (yes, Flood, who challenged the reserve rule and lost his career but won a victory for players' futures)--Lipsyte offers a strong history of the game and its place in American culture. He makes no apologies for baseball as a business; indeed, he makes clear that professional baseball has always been a business. Although much of this material, including the pictures, might be familiar to young readers already absorbed in the game, it is nicely laid out and colorfully formatted. Lipsyte has a clear, vivid style, whether explaining that Babe Ruth was the first sports celebrity to have his own agent or describing the respectful rivalry between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during the "Summer of Swat" home-run contest in 1998. The endpapers display a nifty baseball time line. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Swing batta batta batta, swing, batta, swing!
Right off the bat I'd like to say that if you're looking for a reviewer who knows their baseball through and through, I am not your woman. This review will not contain long lamentations over why Mr. Robert Lipsyte did not include such-n-such a player or harbor lengthy critiques of his encapsulations of certain games. I enjoy baseball, of course, but I've always spent more of my time watching minor league games than anything particularly major (Go, Saint Paul Saints!). As for individual players, the bulk of my knowledge, to be perfectly blunt, begins and ends with that episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns hires everyone from Daryl Strawberry to Don Mattingly to play in his softball league. In a way, I was a perfect test-subject for Lipsyte's intense and interesting look at what exactly constitutes a baseball "hero". I may not know much about the game, but I know my good non-fiction literature and this book definitely fits the description. Smarter than just a listing of baseball greats, Lipsyte takes the time to ask what it is that makes a hero and whether the men featured in this book deserve such an appellation, so that in bringing up such questions, this book stands apart.

From A.G. Spalding to Randy Johnson, from 1869 to today, Robert Lipsyte states his goals for this book right from the start. Mentioning how contemporary baseball stars feel like close friends to us he goes on to say that, "After you read this book, I hope you'll also feel you know some of the older heroes of baseball who brought our game to life and kept it alive for us." And so we see baseball grow from its early beginnings as a male diversion to the powerhouse moneymaker it is today. Lipsyte covers the usual suspects (Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig, etc.) while also sprinkling in a feeling for the times in which they lived. Illustrated by a vibrant design that makes use of copious amounts of colored and sepia-toned photographs, moments both heroic and shameful come to light here with varying results. What you end up with, then, is a complex encompassing of players of every shape and stripe that make up the wonderful game that is baseball.

Part of what I liked about this book so much was the form of the narrative. Right from the start we learn a little about our author's youth, then we move on to some quick thoughts on what makes a baseball hero. Not long thereafter we zoom into the big names in the field and their accomplishments. Credit Lipsyte then with his broad characteristics of what a significant accomplishment might be. For example, in an act of respect for his child readers, Lipsyte explains what the reserve rule was and why Curt Flood was a hero to break it (and at his own expense at that). Plus the range of players Lipsyte is able to pull from is just incredible. He does a top notch job of diversifying the sport, even going so far as to look at where baseball may be going someday. What other book on the topic for kids would spend as much time examining baseball in Japan and stars like Ichiro Suzuki? Or predict something like, "Maybe the next monster talent in the outfield who will make things happen will come from China"? And then to wind down the book with a final look at the attributes that raise a ballplayer's status from star to hero alongside the photos of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, and Babe Ruth... well, I'm no sentimentalist, but Lipsyte's work on this book is a class act through and through.

Obviously an eyebrow or two will be raised in terms of the inclusion of Ty Cobb. Even I in my state of perpetual baseball ignorance know that Cobb was a bad bad man. Why celebrate him here? Lipsyte credits Cobb with not being a great person but rather a "great player". At one point he goes so far as to even say of our heroes that, "Some are the players who, with skill and intensity, show us how the game was made to be played (like Ty Cobb)." Which naturally begs the question of whether or not this means that the game is meant to be played down, dirty, mean, and with spikes aimed squarely at the fellows covering the bases. Lipsyte obviously stands by his choice, and that actually makes the book more interesting. If a baseball player is a nasty piece of work, can they still be a "hero" of the game? I guess that may all depend on which team you're rooting for, eh?

The text is punctuated regularly by sidebars that effectively break apart the narrative with a variety of fun facts. One, for example, might give a list of various baseball nicknames and where they came from. Another is entitled, "Records That Will Never Be Broken". I was particularly amused by a section that covered Lipsyte's favorite baseball movies. Some may be a tad old for the child audiences he's recommending them to ("Bull Durham", for example) and "Damn Yankees" is nowhere in sight. Which, in retrospect, is probably a good thing. By the way, is it true that no baseball cards come with gum anymore? And why was Lawrence Peter Berra nicknamed "Yogi"? As you can see, some panels inspire more questions than they answer.

So do people like Mark McGwire, Ty Cobb, and Pete Rose belong in a book like this? You be the judge. Lipsyte's style is endearing partly because he doesn't tell young baseball fans what to think. They can accept or deny these weak men as they lay. Heck, there's even a sidebar entitled, "Pete Rose: You Decide" that puts the facts of the matter before the child reader. As I mentioned before, I'm not a baseball fanatic myself so there could well be facts and opinions missing from Lipsyte's view of some of the events recorded in this book for all I know. Yet somehow, I think this is a lovely piece of work. It hangs together well as a whole, is filled to brimming with superb photographs from every era, contains a great "Further Reading" Bibliography so important in a children's book, has great websites listed, an Index, a Timeline on the front AND back endpapers, and even a Glossary of Terms. Fill in Lisyte's range and great writing and you've got yourself a non-fiction hit on your hands. Great for rookies like myself.

#1 Sport
Never grow tired of reading about some of the men responsible to laying the foundation for baseball.