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Rating: 
Summary: Opens up baseball history
Review: Spying this book at a flea market I was intriuged at the time frame of baseball history it covered. Having read about baseball since my youth, I have always enjoyed a book that can open up an era to me. This includes not only what happens on the field but off of it. I've always liked to learn how players made it to the majors and what they were like when they got there. William Curran gives us another look behind the scenes in Big Sticks. Chapter Four alone is worth the price of admission. In it Curran walks us through a game at the Polo Grounds in July 1920. It is more evocative of baseball's past than anything I have read since The Glory of Their Times. We get to sense 1920's baseball through the eyes and ears of an average fan. Great Fun. One major purpose of the book is to disprove the "rabbit' ball theory of 1920 and beyond. I must admit, I thought this was a historic fact, but Curran's arguements against it do carry some weight. He makes the case that the massive increase in home runs during the twenties is due to the spitball being outlawed coupled with the emergence of Babe Ruth and his new batting style. Overall the book is good. He throws a ton of statistics your way so I hope you like that. He does it in the body of the text so it may be more tolerable for those non-statisticians out there...I however must now head back to my Baseball Encyclopedia:).
Rating:
Summary: Opens up baseball history
Review: Spying this book at a flea market I was intriuged at the time frame of baseball history it covered. Having read about baseball since my youth, I have always enjoyed a book that can open up an era to me. This includes not only what happens on the field but off of it. I've always liked to learn how players made it to the majors and what they were like when they got there. William Curran gives us another look behind the scenes in Big Sticks. Chapter Four alone is worth the price of admission. In it Curran walks us through a game at the Polo Grounds in July 1920. It is more evocative of baseball's past than anything I have read since The Glory of Their Times. We get to sense 1920's baseball through the eyes and ears of an average fan. Great Fun. One major purpose of the book is to disprove the "rabbit' ball theory of 1920 and beyond. I must admit, I thought this was a historic fact, but Curran's arguements against it do carry some weight. He makes the case that the massive increase in home runs during the twenties is due to the spitball being outlawed coupled with the emergence of Babe Ruth and his new batting style. Overall the book is good. He throws a ton of statistics your way so I hope you like that. He does it in the body of the text so it may be more tolerable for those non-statisticians out there...I however must now head back to my Baseball Encyclopedia:).
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