My Life in the Negro Leagues: An Autobiography (Baseball and American Society, No 23)

Rating:
Summary: Fields' Book a Solid Double
Review: Fields was a star pitcher in the Negro leagues. He was offered the opportunity to enter the white Major Leagues after integration but opted to play in other leagues North and South of the border where he was a perenial MVP Award winner.

In this book, Fields, now President of the Negro Leagues Players Association (1998) recalls his days in black and integrated baseball, providing an insightful look at life in the Negro leagues and quite a bit of information on his life outside the game, which may or may not interest some readers.

This is one of the better first-hand accounts of 1940s pre-integration baseball from one of its better players and is in this sense interesting and a fine introductory book on this important chapter in baseball history. Serious baseball historians may find it somewhat "light" as many first-person biographies tend to be.