The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball

Rating:
Summary: Truly Impressive
Review: The state of California has a rich baseball history and it never has been showcased any better than this book. Keven Nelson, the author looks at this history, from the Gold Rush days and the arrival of Alexander Cartwright (who may or may not have left his "baseball influence here during his brief stay in San Francisco) to a short mention of the current era, with numerous stops in between. While other books about the history of baseball in California touch upon various teams and leagues, Nelson takes a different approach, the stories of individual players like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Jackie Robinson, or of others like Harry Hooper and Left O'Doul, the stories of semipro teams, or Japanese and all-black teams.

While there are some historical points (like the ill fated planned move of the St Louis Browns to LA after the 1941 season), the book is really the story of the individual California players, their hopes, dreams and aspirations. And also of the men who coached and encouraged these players. Another truly amazing fact to me also were the number of past and present major leaguers who either were born in California or spent a great deal of time here.

This is a fascinating book, one which any "California baseball history student" will adore. Kevin Nelson has done an excellent job of chronicling the "Golden State's" involvement with baseball over the past 150 years.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Great Gift
Review: This book is a wonderful blend of history and baseball. Intimate, funny, and often touching stories of how the two intersect: links between the Gold Rush and the first baseball games played, early barnstorming teams and the building of the transcontinental railroad, the simultaneous advent of the Big Leagues coming in when commercial air flight developed. Enjoyable, fascinating read. A perfect gift for a baseball or history or California fan.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Sprawl Which Forces the Narrative
Review: Trying to encapsulate the history of anything in a state as diverse and big as California is difficult, and trying to represent the "Story of Baseball in California" in one book is a daunting task. I found The Golden Game to be sadly disappointing. It tries to cram as much detail as it can about anything vaguely California-related into a chronological narrative, padding the text needlessly with explanations of historical events (such as details of the stock market crash or the start of World War II!) to try to weave a context for topics ranging from the integration of the major leagues to the excavation of Chavez Ravine for Dodger Stadium. While I applaud its ambitious scope, the format of the book would have been best done in the "Bill James" style (essentially a scrapbook or a series of sidebars) instead of trying to fit it into a continuous, somewhat arbitrarily-divided narrative format.

Just to give one an example: much is made of Ted Williams' California origins, but there's utterly nothing about the two attempts to take the Pacific Coast League "major" or its unique, sometimes 200+ game season length. While there's an interesting story about the powerhouse St. Mary's college, little attention is given to the rise of the college and high school games that produced over 1700 major leaguers. Lip service is given to the role of Hispanics, Japanese-Americans, and African Americans in the life of baseball in the state, but there's no insight about how this unique mix affected the overall story of baseball.

The book ends up reading like a selection of googled clippings from the exclusively secondary- and tertiary (usually the latter) sources. There's nothing wrong with a synthetic approach -- that is, if it ends up making for a good read. This book is far too episodic for that. I would instead recommend going to one of the more original books (listed in the bibliography) that is the real meat and potatoes underpinning this tome.

Another annoying feature of this book is the "Golden" tint of the photographs, perhaps to make them all seem "old timey". This only obscures the details of the otherwise interesting selection of photographs.