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The Commissioners : Baseball's Midlife Crisis |
List Price: $22.95
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Reviews |
Description:
With all the ingredients of a Mel Brooks farce--and a not-so-funny dose of reality--The Commissioners puts a spotlight on an American institution, the Commissioner of Baseball. Jerome Holtzman (something of an institution himself) is the nationally syndicated sports columnist for The Chicago Tribune, and with abundant humor and pathos, he exposes the human folly surrounding the great game's so-called czar and adjudicator. Fact is, explains Holtzman, the commissioners have operated out of the owners' pockets--whether they've known it or not--since the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal, when the legendary Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was granted "absolute power" in a savvy public relations maneuver carried out by--surprise!--the owners. Ever since, us fans have been suckers about the whole deal, while baseball continues to enjoy its unique exemption from federal antitrust laws. And therein lies the author's purpose: to demystify a major-league icon. For readers hoping to get all the scuttlebutt on the greedy owners who move players and teams like so many Monopoly pieces, well, there's some of that, but most will want to head for the next base. Holtzman is more interested in the hubris that attends the position itself; even the sainted Bart Giamatti, who died in office after condemning Pete Rose to purgatory, has his halo doffed a few times. And if Holtzman is a bit surprising with his wrap-up estimates (acting-commissioner and owner Bud Selig rates above Happy Chandler, who presided during Jackie Robinson's landmark entrance), he is still armed with plenty of hardball research and a generous wit. --Langdon Cook
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