Carl Furillo: The Forgotten Dodger

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing for a Furillo fan!
Review: As a youth, I enjoyed watching Carl Furillo play out the last years of his career in L.A., albiet after his salad days in Brooklyn. He was still fun to watch and "Scoonj" contributed to the Dodgers winning the World Series over the Chicago White Sox in 1959.

But this very short book is not a winner. Furillo's baseball career is completely glossed over. Much of the middle part of the book is a poorly researched diatribe on how Furillo was supposedly wronged by big baseball and Walter O'Malley. He may have been, but there's little here to prove it but a few opinions.

The second part of the book about the star's family life after baseball is a bit more interesting. Furillo's contribution to baseball is a story worth telling in more depth, with greater accuracy and more attention paid to detail.

The editing, punctuation, spelling, style, and story flow are poor -- Mr. Ninfo could have used some heavy editing by a professional. For instance, there's a photo of Furillo with Dodger first baseman Gil Hodges, but the book calls him G.L. Hodges.

It's annoying, too, that the author has little knowledge of baseball. His writing shows it time and time again.

Still, hats off to Mr. Ninfo for trying -- and getting interviews with Buzzie Bavasi, Sandy Koufax, Carl Erskine and Furillo family members. However, he could have done so much more with the material. This book is amateurish and isn't up to Amazon.com's usual quality standards.

Rating:
Summary: Time Well Spent
Review: Carl Furillo was a much maligned individual. Finally this author has told his story with absolute truth and vigor, pulling NO punches!           Sadly, just as the book depicts, in great detail, those individuals that dragged Furillo's name through the mud, even though some of them are no longer with us, those that are, are still at work trying to keep the myth of Furillo being a " bad " boy still alive; as is evidenced by certain reviews!     This book is controversial for sure, but it lets the reader know, just what can happen to an individual when the " powers " in sports seek revenge!           I loved this book, and consider it the best and most truthful expose'/sports book ever written. With its vivid depicting of the players that were in the same situation as Furillo and the analogies that are made, it really boggles one's mind to realize just how far they went to ruin Carl Furillo!           Surely, I hope, a film is on the horizon for this book!!! I recommend it to anyone that seeks truth and justice for Carl Furillo! I'd give it a hundred stars!!!           The best money I ever spent, thanks Amazon!!!

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Story, But Badly Told
Review: This may be the worst sports book ever written. The writing is so bad that it's unreadable--full of misspellings, weird punctuation, grammatical errors and just plain awful prose.

After trying to get through a few pages, I began to wonder how writing this dreadful could have passed muster with even the most lenient copy editor. A few minutes of Internet research disclosed that the book is the product of a vanity press, which explains everything. A vanity press will publish ANYTHING, with no editorial judgment or copy editing, provided the author is willing to pay for the privilege of seeing his work in print.

What a shame that a terrific ballplayer like Carl Furillo, who has been given short shrift by other sportswriters, should have his story so badly told. Furillo, a rifle-armed right-fielder, enjoyed a successful although not brilliant 15-year career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, beginning in 1946. That career ended angrily and abruptly when Furillo was dropped by the Dodgers while suffering from an injury. Furillo hired a lawyer and tried to get himself reinstated, or at least obtain the remainder of the year's salary his contract called for. The conflict escalated and a furious Furillo threatened to sue the baseball establishment. The outcome was that Furillo never held another job in Major League Baseball. He worked at various things, including construction and as a night watchman, until his death at age 66 in 1989.

Furillo's story is a dramatic and interesting one, but it deserves to be told in a more thorough and coherent way than it's told in this book. I must emphasize again: the writing is so terrible that this book would get an F as a high school term paper!

I give the author credit for one thing, however--thanks to his connections with the Furillo family he managed to wrangle an interview with...SANDY KOUFAX! (Eat your heart out, Jane Leavy.)