Sluggers World of Baseball (World of baseball)

Rating:
Summary: An illustrated celebration of the long ball
Review: "The Sluggers" was the inaugural book in the World of Baseball series, which made it to nine volumes before abruptly ending. The cover of John Holway's book shows Mickey Mantle in full stride (batting right handed) and begins with "A Great Day at the Plate," a blow-by-blow account of the baseball game on May 17, 1979 where the Phillies beat the Cubs 23-22 in ten innings with eleven home runs leaving the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. The only player who has an entire chapter devoted to them is, of course, Babe Ruth. Other famous sluggers rate as many as four pages (e.g., Ted Williams, Jimmy Foxx and Willie Mays), others two (e.g., Josh Gibson, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio), while some get but a single column (e.g., Eddie Mathews & Hank Greenberg). Actually, what comes across in "The Sluggers" are not the players but the other things associated with home runs: "Lumber" takes a nice look at bats as the tools of the trade, "Going for the Fences" covers how ball parks were configured to help (Yankee Stadium's short porch) or hinder (Washington's Griffith Stadium) the home run hitters, and "The Casey Syndrome" looks at the strikeout as the flip side of the homer. As always with these books, there are little gems scattered throughout: a lot at great one-two punches such as Mantle & Maris the M&M Boys of 1961, Bobby Thompson's celebrated homer against the Dodgers when the Giants won the pennant in 1951, and interesting graphics on statistical matters. Some of the most gorgeous color photographs in the series are in this volume with full-page shots of Ted Williams and Mark McGwire standing out.

Rating:
Summary: An illustrated celebration of the long ball
Review: "The Sluggers" was the inaugural book in the World of Baseball series, which made it to nine volumes before abruptly ending. The cover of John Holway's book shows Mickey Mantle in full stride (batting right handed) and begins with "A Great Day at the Plate," a blow-by-blow account of the baseball game on May 17, 1979 where the Phillies beat the Cubs 23-22 in ten innings with eleven home runs leaving the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. The only player who has an entire chapter devoted to them is, of course, Babe Ruth. Other famous sluggers rate as many as four pages (e.g., Ted Williams, Jimmy Foxx and Willie Mays), others two (e.g., Josh Gibson, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio), while some get but a single column (e.g., Eddie Mathews & Hank Greenberg). Actually, what comes across in "The Sluggers" are not the players but the other things associated with home runs: "Lumber" takes a nice look at bats as the tools of the trade, "Going for the Fences" covers how ball parks were configured to help (Yankee Stadium's short porch) or hinder (Washington's Griffith Stadium) the home run hitters, and "The Casey Syndrome" looks at the strikeout as the flip side of the homer. As always with these books, there are little gems scattered throughout: a lot at great one-two punches such as Mantle & Maris the M&M Boys of 1961, Bobby Thompson's celebrated homer against the Dodgers when the Giants won the pennant in 1951, and interesting graphics on statistical matters. Some of the most gorgeous color photographs in the series are in this volume with full-page shots of Ted Williams and Mark McGwire standing out.