Review of "They Played the Game"

To start this post, I want to give a shout out to one of the publishers who have graciously supplied me with books to review and I have been successful with getting a review out on every one of them - sometimes later than anticipated but nonetheless I read them.  That publisher is University of Nebraska Press and their great marketing team of Anna and Rosemary.  This review is of one of their books, "They Played the Game"

Title/Author:

“They Played the Game: Memories from 47 Major Leaguers” by Norman L. Macht

Tags:

Baseball, professional, essays

Publish date:

April 1, 2019

Length:

320 pages

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars very (good)

Review:

Some of the best storytellers are former major league baseball players. No matter how long his career lasted or how he compiled his statistics, a baseball player is always eager to share his experiences.  Author Norman Macht has collected anecdotes from 47 former players who played from the Deadball Era of the early 20^th century up to the 1970’s in this fast-paced book.

As is the case for any collection of stories, essays, or other writing, this is a mixed bag.  Some of the stories were very entertaining, some were hilarious and some of them might leave a reader scratching his or her head, trying to figure out just what the man was talking about.  Personally, while I enjoyed reading all of them, I didn’t find any one particular anecdote that would stand out above the rest. 

The best aspect to reading this book is that the reader will be taken back to certain events in a way that a neutral author could not capture. Reading about a moment in which the player was there to experience helps the reader picture the scene even better.  This is true even of events that have been written about many times.  Two very good examples of this involved stores I enjoyed about Babe Ruth. One came from former Yankee Mark Koenig, who described the Babe’s legendary nightlife, and the other was from Carmen Hill, who was thrilled more than fifty years later about the fact he pitched to Ruth in the 1927 World Series.

If those two names don’t sound familiar, then that is the norm for this book – there are many more stories from players who did not become household names or superstars.  Instead, these could be considered as simply stories about the work life of a baseball player much like stories shared in the office at the water cooler, albeit these are about a worklife that many people dream about having when they are kids. 

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Format Read:

Hardcover

Buying Links:

https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9781496205506/

https://www.amazon.com/They-Played-Game-Memories-Leaguers/dp/1496205502/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1559913868&sr=8-2