Book Review: The Death Row All Stars by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss

Wyoming is anything but a hotbed for baseball. There have been only 14 major leaguers from the state and only one minor league team in the state since WWII (Casper Rockies/Ghosts 2001-11). However, that does not mean the state is void of good baseball players, teams, and stories. The Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption, and Murder by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss tells the story of a baseball team in Wyoming in 1911 made up of players in the state's penitentiary, many of them who committed hanious crimes. The book talks about corruption and murder, but baseball's role in the story is surprisingly minimal.

Cover of The Death Row All Stars
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What was most annoying about the lack of baseball was that the Wyoming State Penitentiary team was not the main focus of the book. The Death Row All Stars is a short book at only 156 pages, with the last 30 being the notes, bibliography, and index. So, I was not expecting the book to be filled with detail and intently describe specific moments. But I did expect the book to focus on the team and it's players, not just management and one player. The main focus was on four characters: Warden Felix Alston, former Warden Otto Gramm, team manager George Saban, and right fielder Joseph Seng. The team was only used as a way to connect all four. While the story of Seng was interesting, the story of Alston, Gramm, and Saban runs dry at the end. However, with that being said, I understand why the story did not revolve around the team: their story was not long enough and detailed enough to carry it for the length of a book.

One of the reasons the books disappoints is not only its lack of information on the team, but also the team's players. Other than Seng, very little is given about the other players on the team. The reader is given the bare minimum on the background of these players. While there may be little information on some of the players, I find it hard to believe that all the players either had a boring background or little information in their backgrounds.

I had high hopes for The Death Row All Stars and when I finished the small paperback, I was throughly disappointed. I was reading the story for the story of the baseball team at the State Penitentiary, not about the lives of people around the story. The Death Row All Stars is a misleading title to a book not really about baseball.

Book Review: Kiss 'Em Goodbye by Dennis Purdy

Kiss 'Em Goodbye: An ESPN Treasury of Failed, Forgotten, and Departed Teams by Dennis Purdy is a fascinating read.  As the title suggests, this book is about sports teams that were unsuccessful and either disbanded or moved away.  86 teams are talked about.

Book Cover
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Each chapter, which is only a couple pages, is about a team. The teams range from well-known and successful teams, such as the New York Giants and the New York Rens, to teams that played only one season, like the St. Louis Gunners and the Elizabeth Resolutes. The book not only features teams from the major four sports leagues, it also features teams from defunct leagues like the Union Association and the National Basketball League, and more obscure sports, such as roller derby.

What makes this book great is that the stories are interesting and many of the little-known teams have not gotten their due. Take for example, the Keokuk Westerns. The team from Iowa played in the National Association for one year in 1875. Their story is fascinating, as the reason for the team existing was that it in a ideal location on a railroad line between Chicago and St. Louis, and would not be found also anywhere. The Westerns are one of the many little-known teams that are featured throughout the book.

The Duluth Eskimos, the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Ironman are other notable team histories which had more to the story then expected. There was not one story that bored me or made me want to stop reading. I was engaged the whole time while reading this book.

This book is a must have for every sports history fan. It will not bore you with long, drawn-out histories of every team. It hits the highlights of each team and explains their demise. It also will surprise you, each team has a different story, different set of characters, different details, yet they all ended up disbanding or moving away. This is no doubt one of the best books I have read this year.

Book Review: Errors and Fouls by Peter Handrinos

With the holiday season looming, I've decided to write some book reviews on some interesting books that some people may want to buy for themselves or a family member or friend. The first book I will be writing about is Errors and Fouls: Inside Baseball's Ninety-Nine Most Popular Myths by Peter Handrinos. 

Cover of Errors and Fouls
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Errors and Fouls is a good book. Handrinos is a very smart man, having went to Yale University, University of Cambridge, and University of Virginia School of Law. He treats each myth like he would a case he would be dealing with in his law practice. He backs his opinion with facts and evidence from many different places.

The book is split up by topic into different sections. For example, the section "The Drug Problem" has all the myths that involve steroids. The myths are different from one chapter to the next. Some of my favorite chapters involve baseball's popularity, the toughness of the sport, and competitive balance.

The myths covered are not the ones that are always in books involving baseball myths. Abner Doubleday or Babe Ruth do not have their own myth. Most of the myths involve the business side of baseball. That might be the best part of this book. All other baseball books would mention Babe Ruth's called shot. Errors and Fouls does not, and that what makes it unique.

In conclusion, Errors and Fouls is not a book for every fan. It is a book that does not always "solve" the myth, but the author gives his opinion on the why the myth is wrong. He takes on the myths with a laywer-like-approach, making each one interesting to read. At certain points, the book gets a little stale, but most of the time, I was fully engaged . Handrinos clearly spent a lot of time working on the book, and it shows in the quality of his work.