Review of "The Dark Side of the Diamond"

While the weather was better on Mother's Day (belated Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers or those who perform the duties of mothers) there was still enough wet weather to keep me inside and reading or listening to multiple books.  Finished two in two days - here's the first one, an audiobook that would probably be better read in the physical or e-book format. 

Title/Author:

“The Dark Side of the Diamond” by Charlie Bradford, narrated by Virtual Voice

Rating: 

3 of 5 stars (okay)

Review:

Baseball has been rife with scandals and controversies throughout its history. This book by Charlie Bradford sheds light on these events. They are not only told through an objective lens, which is the biggest strength of the book, but the fallout from the controversy is also well documented.  This goes for the players involved, teams involved, the game itself and even the fans.

Just about any issue that made headlines, usually bad ones, is discussed in the book.  Segregation, the unionization of players and the subsequent labor issues that interrupted the 1972, 1981 and 1994-95 seasons, performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) and gambling are just a few of the topics covered.  Also, it should be noted that not just the big headlines are mentioned.  One example: when discussing gambling in the game and its effects, Bradford went beyond just the Black Sox of 1919 and Pete Rose. He talked about when Bowie Kuhn banned Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for taking jobs with casinos as ambassadors. By working for companies that invested in gambling, they were banned but later were reinstated by Peter Ueberroth, the commissioner who succeeded Kuhn. Covering issues like that was a strength of this book.

While overall this book is very good, if a reader is interested in it, I highly recommend avoiding the audio version and picking either the physical or electronic copy.  The biggest reason is that the virtual voice narration reads the player statistics in a manner that is not done by baseball fans and broadcasters, among several other issues.  For example, the steroids discussion always says PED’s as “peds” (rhymes with meds). There are several player mispronunciations. These all distract from the main points of the book. But because I finished the book and overall, it does give some information that I did not know before listening, it gets a passing grade.

Link: The Dark Side of the Diamond: Inside the Shocking Scandals that Changed Baseball Forever: Bradford, Charlie: 9798338785546: Amazon.com: Books