Review of "A Century of Baseball Lore," by John Thorn

 Review of

A Century of Baseball Lore, by John Thorn ISBN 0883654466

Three out of five stars

Stories often embellished, sometimes wrong

 There are many strange and funny baseball stories, so there is really no need to embellish the facts. Which is what is done here. The author also often engages in flowery dialog perhaps more suited to adolescent sports fiction. For example, on page 143, where the game between the Yankees and Indians was played on July 2, 1943, there is the sentence: “Then the Indians were sated and behaved like so many sleepy children.”

 The most egregious example of embellishment to the level of falsehood occurs on pages 113-114. The title of the segment is “The Babe Calls His Shot.” It has Ruth deliberately pointing out towards center field in a gesture of where the ball was going to go and then hitting it there. This story has been debunked by all people that observed the action. Witness Frank Crosetti later stated emphatically that Ruth was simply raising a finger to point out that he had one more strike. His finger just happened to be pointing towards center field. Pitcher Charlie Root also said that Ruth did no such deliberate thing.

There are no doubt other significant modifications of the truth in these stories about the great game of baseball.

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