Review by Choice Review
The Library of Congress has the largest collection of baseball memorabilia in the world, and this lavishly illustrated coffee-table book presents an intelligent, tasteful selection. With more than 350 illustrations, the volume provides a wonderful panorama of the national pastime's evolution from its English roots to the times of Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Bob Feller, and Sandy Koufax. Katz et al. include vintage photos, lithographs, cartoons, illustrations, and every kind of artifact to show how baseball got into the American bloodstream. The warts are visible as well. The text describes, and photos reveal, white America's racial problems with red, black, and yellow athletes. Jackie Robinson gets a chapter of his own, and the book gives due recognition not only to women but also to amateurs, convicts, and players from town and country. From an enormous storehouse of material, Katz and his fellow editors culled material that demonstrates how this children's game represents so much of the American psyche. George Will wrote the foreword; the bibliography is brief. Summing Up: Recommended. Readers at all levels. S. Gittleman Tufts University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Playing ball in a vacant lot in East Harlem, 1954. THE story of baseball is, inevitably, a story of America itself. The game is as old as the Republic, derived from the English bat-and-ball games brought to the Colonies in the 18th century. And baseball, like America, has its mythmakers: Abner Doubleday and the year 1839 will probably always be linked, incorrectly, to the sport's origins. Fortunately, its deep roots also inspire retrospectives like BASEBALL AMERICANA: Treasures From the Library of Congress (Smithsonian/HarperCollins, $29.99), a trove of artifacts and photographs that skillfully conveys the evolution of the game and how it has been chronicled and embraced. The Library of Congress is home to the world's largest baseball collection. This book, written by Harry Katz and others, showcases the game's history - and presses the case for its uniquely American character - with newspaper clippings and cartoons, magazine covers and New Deal photographs, movie posters and music sheets. There are historic firsts (an organized intercollegiate game, in 1859: Amtierst 73, Williams 32) and arresting portraits of those who excelled on baseball's fringe (the AllAmerican Girls Baseball League, the Negro leagues). Images of vintage baseball cards that once came tucked inside cigarette packs pop off these pages. The book spans nearly two centuries: baseball's genesis in the late 1700s; its expansion in the late 19th century; the "glory years" of the early 20th century; the period between World War I and the Great Depression; and from World War II to the "wonder years" of the '50s and '60s. Each section is anchored by an essay outlining the period in broad strokes, and copious sidebars help round out the details. The pages are busy, but never scattershot. The early parts of the book are especially roving and inclusive. Nineteenth-century diagrams contrast the emerging styles of baseball - "the Massachusetts game" and its New York counterpart - and there is this from the 1786 diary of a student at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton): "A fine day play baste ball." Touches like these give "Baseball Americana" the lived-in air of a personal scrapbook. Some sections dovetail better than others. "Opening Days," a sweeping look at the early 20th century, shows baseball's impact on the development of Tin Pan Alley, professional photography and silent film; all found inspiration in the game. Other choices are more peculiar - there is as much space dedicated to the House of David, an early-20thcentury barnstorming team formed by a religious commune, as to the Black Sox scandal of 1919 - but there are moving tributes to the game's two most essential figures: Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson. The most resonant images in " Baseball Americana" capture anonymous figures simply playing the game: on an Arkansas farm during the Depression, at a Japanese-American internment camp in California, on a trashstrewn lot in Harlem at midcentury. These photographs, like baseball's history, have a cumulative power. IHSAN TAYLOR Tracking the game from its genesis in the late 1700s to the 'wonder years' of the 1950s and '60s.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 6, 2009]
Review by Library Journal Review
This story of baseball in America from the 1870s to the 1970s as told through pictures, artifacts, and rare memorabilia from the Library of Congress (LOC). The images-ranging from baseball cards, photographs, and comics to magazine covers and artistic renderings-capture the essence of the game and how baseball and America have grown up together. Katz and Wilson McBee, formerly with the LOC-writing with Frank Ceresi (coauthor, Baseball in Washington, D.C.) and Phil Michel and Susan Reyburn, also affiliated with the LOC-take a historical perspective, connecting major historical events to baseball. Verdict While many images are available on the LOC web site (www.loc.gov), juxtaposing baseball's history and the artifacts creates a rich reading experience.-Theresa Kelly Darr, Loyola Blakefield H.S., Towson, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Library Journal Review
