Day 18: 30 baseball books in 30 days of April
The book: "Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynasty"
The author: Daniel R. Levitt
How to find it: University of Nebraska Press, $29.95, 456 pages
Where we'd go looking for it: The publisher's home site, as well as www.edwardbarrow.com. Powell's online store has it as well.
The scoop: Even more Yankees history (tired of it yet?), but if you don't start here, then maybe you're missing the Adam and Eve story of how this whole dynasty was created.
Barrow was the man who managed Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox to their last World Series titles (1918) before "the curse." He then assembled the Yankees' roster after coming to the franchise in 1920 by buying players outright -- such as Ruth -- and developing a farm system. They won their first title in '21 -- and 13 more under his tenure through 1945, as he found Lou Gehrig and brought in Joe DiMaggio.
Barrow, who started in 1903 managing the Detroit Tigers, was elected into the Hall of Fame just eight years after he retired -- even if the average fan may not even know his name. That's the real gem, and the real question mark: Does the average fan even care to plow through almost 500 pages to find out more about him? They should.
This review from Kirkus Reviews also makes us wonder: "The author has an astounding facility with detail: The sheer number of names, dates and salaries he tosses around is mind-blowing, and the 18 informational tables in the appendix are worthy of inclusion in an economics textbook." Again, will that fly?
Maybe the most impressive review of the book comes on the book jacket from the Boston Globe's Katherine A. powers: "Levitt revisits the vexed matter of Sox owner Harry Frazee's motives in selling (Ruth), and in doing so, debunks the previous debunking of Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson in 2000, in 'Red Sox Century' ... Eight years ago, Stout and Johnson convinced me of their views; today I am just as convinced by Levitt."
How it goes down in the scorebook: Back to back HRs by Ruth and Gehrig
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