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Rating: 
Summary: Best Bio of Brooklyn Dodgers
Review: Duke Snider has filled this autobiography with wonderful stories and anecdotes and made it a thoroughly enjoyable read for baseball fans. No muckraking, no scandals, just the good stuff that we're really interested in as fans. He does state, as I've always asserted, that Roger Kahn made a lot of mistakes in "Boys of Summer" which is a totally disappointing book. Duke gives us insights into those great days of Brooklyn, the move to L.A., and his own struggles and triumphs as a ballplayer. The only thing missing was an appendix with his career statistics - that would have capped it off nicely. Thanks Duke !
Rating:
Summary: Reliving Baseball's "Golden Era"
Review: Duke Snider recalls the days of his baseball career and his associations with the "Boys of Summer". His recollections of Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Reese, Campanella, etc. is a must-read! It not only talks about the ballplayers in their prime, but how they stayed close after they retired. Their friendships and how they cope with life's ups and downs shows us how they are human as well
Rating: 
Summary: A Rosy look at baseball in 1950s New York
Review: I've been a Dodger fan my whole, but I never got to see Duke Snider play. But seeing old interviews and photos he always looked like a pretty sunny guy. In "Duke of Flatbush", sunny is pretty much how Snider comes across. Throughout the book, which is written in a breezy, not always chronological way, Snider talks about what great friends and teammates he had. How they hated the Giants and Yankees, but always in a congenial sportsmanlike manner. How fairly treated he was by Dodger management. How the Depression was tough but made him stronger. At first, I resented this a little. I wanted to know how tough his childhood was, whether his father pushed him too hard. I wanted to know if he and his teammates drank and caroused like Mickey and Whitey over in the Bronx. But Snider never abandons his rosy demeanor. He follows the golden rule of not saying anything unless it's something nice. He only allows himself to say that Roger Kahn in his Dodger book "The Boys of Summer" was mistaken in a lot of the things written about his teammates - but he was nice about it. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for sensationalistic muckracking. I just wanted to know what was going on in the Duke's mind. What made him such a great hitter, how did he overcome his youthful penchant for striking out so often? What did he think of the men he played against? How was life on the road in those days? None of that is in here. By the end of the book, I felt like I'd been listening to the Duke speaking to a school group. I wanted to feel as though I were sitting on a barstool a few feet away overhearing the Duke swapping stories with other oldtimers. But all in all I thought, "Wow what a great guy even after all these years." And then my friend sees the book and says, "Isn't that the guy who was convicted of felony tax evasion a few years ago?" Say it ain't so, Duke.
Rating:
Summary: A Rosy look at baseball in 1950s New York
Review: I've been a Dodger fan my whole, but I never got to see Duke Snider play. But seeing old interviews and photos he always looked like a pretty sunny guy. In "Duke of Flatbush", sunny is pretty much how Snider comes across. Throughout the book, which is written in a breezy, not always chronological way, Snider talks about what great friends and teammates he had. How they hated the Giants and Yankees, but always in a congenial sportsmanlike manner. How fairly treated he was by Dodger management. How the Depression was tough but made him stronger. At first, I resented this a little. I wanted to know how tough his childhood was, whether his father pushed him too hard. I wanted to know if he and his teammates drank and caroused like Mickey and Whitey over in the Bronx. But Snider never abandons his rosy demeanor. He follows the golden rule of not saying anything unless it's something nice. He only allows himself to say that Roger Kahn in his Dodger book "The Boys of Summer" was mistaken in a lot of the things written about his teammates - but he was nice about it. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for sensationalistic muckracking. I just wanted to know what was going on in the Duke's mind. What made him such a great hitter, how did he overcome his youthful penchant for striking out so often? What did he think of the men he played against? How was life on the road in those days? None of that is in here. By the end of the book, I felt like I'd been listening to the Duke speaking to a school group. I wanted to feel as though I were sitting on a barstool a few feet away overhearing the Duke swapping stories with other oldtimers. But all in all I thought, "Wow what a great guy even after all these years." And then my friend sees the book and says, "Isn't that the guy who was convicted of felony tax evasion a few years ago?" Say it ain't so, Duke.
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