Tom McMahon

Soul of a Yankee: The Iron Horse, the Babe and the Battle for Joe Pepitone

Soul of a Yankee: The Iron Horse, the Babe and the Battle for Joe Pepitone

A quote from the book:

“Don’t you see, Joe Pepitone, Yankee Great? There’s a battle going on right now—a battle for your soul. A strange battle, possibly a pointless battle, but a battle nonetheless. Lou Gehrig versus Babe Ruth, the Iron Horse and the Bambino. Lou’s a good man. Strong, virtuous. Always doing what’s right. Babe — he doesn’t care about repercussions and lives every day like it’s his last. Up to you which way you go. But keep in mind, a man traveling the wrong way down a one-way street — he’s bound to end up like a butterfly in an eighteen wheeler’s path. Flat and colorful.”

And the summary:

Joe Pepitone had it all. God given ability, leading man charisma, and an ego the size of Brooklyn. Yet throughout the course of his lifetime he threw away a potential Hall of Fame career, two marriages, and countless opportunities. Then one night, rock bottom hit him like a one hundred mile an hour fastball....the wrong place, the wrong car, and perhaps the last wrong turn of his life. Alone in a cold prison cell, the roar of Yankee Stadium a distant memory, Joe is visited by an apparition...a vision of a man who claims to know the path to redemption. They will embark on a wild ride through the peaks and valleys of Joe's life, in a last ditch attempt to right the wrongs. Along the way they will encounter the most serious threat to Joe's eternal existence...the greatest icon in the history of the game. A rivalry dating back sixty years has come full circle, and now each man has something to lose...in the battle for Joe Pepitone's soul.

If Joe Pepitone had been a Green Bay Packer, then the Battle would have been between Bart Starr and Paul Hornung, eh?

A New Logo for Edgar Allen Poe

A New Logo for Edgar Allen Poe

Dreyfus: A Family Affair, 1789-1945, Written by Michael Burns, Who As A Child Actor Played Blueboy in the Famous Dragnet Episode

Dreyfus: A Family Affair, 1789-1945, Written by Michael Burns, Who As A Child Actor Played Blueboy in the Famous Dragnet Episode

From imdb:

Michael Burns is a former child actor who went on to a distinguished career as a historian, writer, and college professor. He is now retired and raising thoroughbred horses in Kentucky. He was familiar to television audiences of the early 1960s as the teenage character Barnaby West on the popular "Wagon Train" series. After other TV and films credits in his late teens and early 20s, Burns left acting to pursue his interest in history, graduating from the University of California. He earned a Ph. D. from Yale University in 1977 and wrote an acclaimed history book, "Dreyfus", about the Dreyfus Affair. Between 1980-2002, Burns was a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.

Michael Burns as Blueboy

Four Days: The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy

Four Days: The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy

Right after the assassination I didn't know of any family that didn't have this book.

Two Books Titled What's The Difference?: So What's The Difference?

 

Left: What's The Difference? by Marc Tyler Nobleman
Right: What's The Difference? by Mental Floss

Marc Tyler Nobleman will give you the answer.

The Case and Trial of Curt Flood vs Major League Baseball

The Case and Trial of Curt Flood vs Major League Baseball

The summary:

On October 8, 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded center fielder Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time of the trade, Flood was thirty-one years old, at the top of his game and in the prime of his life. In professional baseball, trades are not uncommon. What was different about this trade was that Curtis Charles Flood refused to recognize the "right" of the Cardinals to trade him to another team without his consent. In doing so, Flood challenged a practice that was designed and enforced by the professional baseball club owners for over eighty years- a practice frequently referred to as the "reserve system". It was the late 1960s – a decade of great racial tension and unrest; the Vietnam War was dividing the country; and now Curt Flood, a black man, was challenging the lily-white major league baseball establishment.

On January 16, 1970, Curt Flood filed suit in the Federal District Court in New York against major league baseball alleging that baseball’s reserve system violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and Flood’s rights under federal law. Flood argued that once he signed a contract (in his case, when he was eighteen years old), he was owned by "his team" for life and that the reserve system was tantamount to slavery.

Flood’s decision to challenge major league baseball cost him his baseball career and much more. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of Flood’s claims and ruling (in 1972) that professional baseball was exempt from federal antitrust regulation, professional baseball players had "free agency" by 1975.

This is the story of Curt Flood’s case and trial against major league baseball and its aftermath.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

From the review over at the American Presidents Blog:

In this alternate history, Lincoln becomes at an early age a vampire hunter and this shapes his entire life including his later political career. The American frontier is full of vampires up to no good and as Lincoln travels he moves further up the ranks of those fighting the vampire menace.

Eventually, Lincoln learns that slavery is an institution that vampires use to keep an easy source of human victims. The entire southern system is based on patronage from vampires. The decision to run for president and the ensuing American Civil War follow from this fact. I don't want to give anything away but I did not see the ending coming and it was very satisfying. (Did you know that John Wilkes Booth was a vampire?)

Seth Grahame-Smith is a good author and he paces the book well. His writing is interesting and it was hard to put the book down until I finished.

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich

The blurb:

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich is a detailed, heavily illustrated reference book containing relevant historical exposition on many of the personal, organizational and commemorative spoons of the 3rd Reich period from 1933 to 1945. These spoons, unlike most other collectibles from this period, were actually owned and used daily by the people and organizations of those times. The book includes many spoon types, for example: Hitler’s personal silverware, Red Cross, SS, the U-47 etc. With over 200 photos / graphics and over 19,000 words of text, the book extensively explores the relevant historical highlights which in turn illuminate this unique period in history as reflected by the spoons. These spoons are history that you can hold in your hand and were once in the hands of the German history makers of the 3rd Reich era. As the years pass, the 3rd Reich era will move from the monster of history to just plain history as did the Napoleonic era and like Napoleon collectibles, there is increasing interest in acquiring 3rd Reich collectibles, although understandably relatively modest in our lifetime. Thus, this book should be of interest to the collector and educational for the casual reader of history.

Another one where adding commentary would be like dousing a fine steak with ketchup.

This Book Is The Property Of The Colored High School Library Of The City Of Lynchburg

This Book Is The Property Of The Colored High School Library Of The City Of Lynchburg

An old bookplate from the days of segregation.

Some General Guidelines For Cleaning Out Your Library

Excerpt from Francine Prose:

• Unless you are an Egyptologist, you only need one, at most two, enormous coffee table books on the Art of the Pharaohs.
• If a country, like Czechoslovakia, no longer exists, it’s unlikely that you’ll want to take the travel guide along with you when you go.
• If the reproductions in an art book are so fuzzy and blurred that you can’t tell the work of the Impressionists from that of the Pointillists, or even from the Surrealists, get rid of it.
• Ask yourself the following hard question and answer honestly: If I live to be 100, will I read this book again?

(via Grow-A-Brain)