Rating: 
Summary: WHERE IS THE SEQUEL??!!!
Review: This marvellous collection of the greatest baseball photographs ever taken qualify as one of the very best contributions to both baseball literature and serious photography. The consummate images of rough-hewn blue-collar stock named Wagner or McGraw or Overall silhouetted against rickety hardwood bleachers, rusty wire screens, and smoke-baptised brick houses; unmown grass and pock-marked infields beneath them; the smell of pancake mitts and hickory bats and unwashen wool uniforms in their nostrils; coal-dust and farm soil and blistering summer sun etching character into their faces. These, I say, seem to me the very breath and blood of the grand ol' game of baseball, all gloriously frozen in time in its purest splendor by the sensitive eye of Charles M. Conlon. These indelible images from the tool of a genius ARE NOT JUST BASEBALL PHOTOGRAPHS! Who can shake the documentary immediacy, mental peace, or aesthetic excitement aroused by the breath-taking images of Bob Rhoads warming-up his soupbone, shadowed by the hand-operated scoreboard at the wood-and-spit Hilltop Park? Or a flailing Tommy Leach squinting a pop-up into the merciless Brooklyn sun? Or Ty Cobb, his jaw curled into a fist, ruthlessly showering dirt and hellfire into a helpless third-sacker? Or muscular Tim Jordan gracefully balancing a heavy-weight stroke of his massive war-club? As the authors state, Conlon deserves to be ranked with Ansel Adams and Walker Evans, and compared with Eugene Atget. His undying images provide a unique look at a time and way of life gone by. P.S.: What I want to know is, WHERE IS THE SEQUEL? Conlon left 8000 negatives; and many of his most extraordinary--such as Russ Ford warming up by the Hilltop's trumpet-clutching "p.a. announcer"; or Hank Gowdy burnishing in the sunlight, warming-up on a Polo Grounds sideline in 1917--have been reproduced in a baseball card set, the discontinued "Conlon Collection," issued by the Sporting News. But the reproduction of these wonderful photographs in the set are inferior to Constance McCabe's sensitive care; and are much smaller, besides. Neal, if you're reading this, PLEASE put together another volume of Conlon's brilliant images!
Rating: 
Summary: The Photographer at the Field of Dreams
Review: To some readers the "field of dreams" is a hopelessly saccharine metaphor, but - paradoxically - it was a very real place. We know exactly what it looked like because Charles M. Conlon was there. But he wasn't languidly musing, he was all business: "Shoeless Joe, let me take your picture." "Is this heaven?" "No, it's the Polo Grounds." Conlon snapped the shutter and another dream became real. Dimly-remembered names on dusty pages suddenly appear before us as living human beings. Nervous baby-faced rookies become confident veterans and then grizzled old-timers - transformed before our eyes. That laughing kid, Red Ruffing, once the losingest pitcher in baseball, is now the stern embodiment of a great Yankee dynasty. Charlie Gehringer, the "Mechanical Man," hasn't blinked in a decade. A slim young pitcher, a powerful slugger, and a fat old man take their turns in the batting cage - all named Babe Ruth. But so! me dreams are dying. Wally Pipp sits forlornly with a wad of gum on the crown of his cap. Al Simmons stares dazed and exhausted into lost time. And the doomed Willard Hershberger will soon find his dreams dead... When my sister (and co-author) first showed me the beautiful prints she had made from the original glass negatives in the Conlon Collection of The Sporting News, I knew that we had been given a unique opportunity to explore the baseball equivalent of King Tut's tomb, to breathe the air of ancient gods and kings. But we also tried to make the book fun, and when this book is stupid, it is very, very stupid: I happen to enjoy bizarre non sequiturs, such as Chicago catchers owning a disproportionately large number of bowling alleys, or Zack Wheat repeatedly killing Dodger fans. And how seriously can we take a picture of Jack Graney, a left-handed batter, posing right-handed while grinning maniacally? We tried to surprise and, at times, dazzle the reader with the ! beauty and variety of Conlon's photographs. The final phot! os in the book are quiet and still, almost elegiac, when we suddenly levitate in the last image. Charles M. Conlon is the greatest baseball photographer who ever lived. He is to baseball what Mathew Brady is to the Civil War. His photograph of Ty Cobb sliding into third base at Hilltop Park is unquestionably the most famous baseball action shot ever taken, and his player portraits have become American icons, but, until the publication of "Baseball's Golden Age," he was virtually unknown, and the magnitude of his achievement had never been properly acknowledged. My sister and I hope that you'll enjoy this book as much as we did writing it!
Rating:
Summary: Historically important snapshot of baseball
Review: Were Charles Conlon still alive, I would track him down and kiss his feet for capturing in such vivid detail the historic giants of baseball. The book features remarkable photos of the greatest baseball players of most of the first half of this century. Suitable for framing, the photos typically depict individual players and small groups, often in game action. The well preserved photographs provide an important window on a truly beautiful game and its players in an era when outfield fences were optional, and a "baseball club" was just that. My favorite of Conlon's gems shows Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner gripping his bat. Under his fingernails is Pennsylvania coal dust. His chipped, oversized piece of lumber looks unwieldy by today's standards. And his sinuous forearms are testament to the power that we remember him by. Other photos are paired to show the dramatic impact of age and the outfield sun on players of yesterday. Picture Wes Chandler spunky at 25 and then battle weary at about 50 and you'll understand why so many players strive so hard for a moment in the sun: they want to enjoy it before it's all gone.
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