THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BASEBALL: THE INSIDE STORY FROM THE STARS WHO PLAYED THE GAME, by Joseph Wallace, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 224 pages, $35.
“When we were children, so many of us lived for baseball.” The opening sentence of Wallace’s engaging book establishes an ingenuous tone that permeates the entire work. Unlike comparable baseball chronicles, The Autobiography of Baseball focuses less on runs batted in, singles, and errors, and more on the fears, the loves, the successes and failures, and the eccentricities of the hundreds of players who made baseball not only the national pastime but a part of American culture and lore.
Fans, devout and casual alike, will enjoy the lively, revealing anecdotes that fuel the book and give it a unique richness. By structuring the book around themes, rather than chronologically, the author intertwines the lives of star players like Roger Maris, Babe Ruth, and Rod Carew. These apparent anachronisms give the book–and the sport–a sense of timelessness.
Wallace has provided something for every baseball fan: ample facts, descriptive photographs (all black and white, sadly), personal stories, and interviews. Most important, his book reminds us all of why we adored this game as children.
Bryan Ethier is a freelance writer from Connecticut.
