With apologies for the long period of no reviews, I am back to reviewing after getting my personal schedule settled. This book is one that those who are not familiar with Tony Lazzeri and what he meant to the Italian-American population in the 1920's and 1930's should read. Like me, readers will learn a lot about not only the man, but also about the social inequities that this population was facing.
Title/Author: "Tony
Lazzeri: Yankees Legend and Baseball Pioneer" by Lawrence Baldassaro
Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review: When one thinks of the 1927
New York Yankees, the first names that come to mind are Babe Ruth and Lou
Gehrig. However, they were far from the
only two fine baseball players on that historic team. One was Tony Lazzeri, whose main claim to
fame prior to 1927 came the previous October when he struck out in the World
Series against Grover Cleveland Alexander with the bases loaded. Unfortunately, history was not kind to Lazzeri
for many years afterward because of that one strikeout but that was eventually
corrected and Lazzeri became a member of the baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, 45
years after his untimely death at age 42.
Lazzeri's life and career is captured in this book by Lawrence
Baldassaro.
The structure is the same basic format as most sports
biographies – accounts of Lazzeri's family and his childhood in the hometown. In his case, that is San Francisco. Then it covers his career and important personal
events, a detailed account of not only the baseball on the field but also
important events and implications off the field and finally his life after
baseball. Some parts of this are short,
such as the latter because he died soon after his baseball career was over but
overall the book is well organized and reads well.
There are two big takeaways from reading this book,
especially if the reader knows little about Lazzeri. One is that no matter how good his statistics
were (and they were VERY good for an extended period in the 1920's and 1930's)
there was always something to overshadow them. If not the strikeout in 1926 mentioned
earlier, it would be the success of his teammates like Babe Ruth and Lou
Gehrig, or it would be the press coverage that would make slurs of his Italian
heritage. At the time, as Baldassaro
reminds the reader, slurs like "dago" and "wop" were common
in putting down Italians.
However, the second big takeaway from the book is that
despite this negative press, Lazzeri's success was an inspiration to Italian-Americans
and gave them a baseball hero they could look up to, follow in the newspaper or
in the stands and point out with pride that he was one of theirs. Lazzeri never shied away from this, despite
being mostly private. While he was considered an excellent teammate by those he
played with, he always preferred to keep his personal life private, something
that wasn't always successful.
Despite all of this, many do agree, then and now, that
Lazzeri deserves his place in baseball history both for his representation of
his ethnicity and his performance on the field.
Even though he did not complete his career as a Yankee, playing briefly
for the Cubs, Giants and the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs before ending his
playing days, he is considered to be one of the all time Yankee greats. After reading this book, the reader will understand
why that is the case.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing
a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
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