cover image Baseball History: An Annual of Original Research, 1988

Baseball History: An Annual of Original Research, 1988

. Mecklermedia Corporation, $22.5 (170pp) ISBN 978-0-88736-288-0

A successor to the quarterly Baseball History , this is the first of what are projected to be annual collections of pop-scholarly pieces about the national pastime. The anthology gets off to a fine start with selections about baseball in a Southern prison camp during the Civil War; the effect of the Great Depression of 1930-39 on the sport; a portrait of Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first black major leaguer, who antedated Jackie Robinson by almost a century, and an especially perceptive analysis of why Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis held such unchallenged power for so long. Other essays portray local heroes and major league players who are often forgotten. The book ends with a whimper rather than a bang, however, with pompous and tortured book reviews. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Dec.)