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The book is a collection of 17 biographical sketches, plus an 18th chapter rounding up various other names, of players who the authors consider would have been Hall-of-Famers had not misfortune intervened. These players may be divided into several basic categories: pitchers felled by arm injuries are the largest, as one would expect (Smoky Joe Wood, Ewell Blackwell, Boo Ferriss, Vean Gregg, Steve Busby, Daffy Dean, Johnny Beazley and Mark Fidrych); three included were injured by baseballs (Herb Score, Kirby Puckett and Tony Conigliaro); three had their careers wrecked by other medical problems (Hal Trosky, Tony Oliva, and J. R. Richard); two had their careers cut short by their premature death (Thurman Munson and Lyman Bostock). The seventeenth player included (and the second player profiled) is Pete Reiser, whose voyage to the Hall of Fame foundered on the concrete of the outfield wall in St. Louis. Pappas has said that the best part of writing They Tasted Glory was the long hours it justified in the library of the Hall of Fame, researching games and events, and those hours of research show. The various chapters are not loose essays based on players’reminiscences but tight sketches studded with precise dates and quotes from contemporary sources. When the authors discuss an important game, they typically provide the boxscore, and for easy reference they provide at the end of each chapter complete career records for each player. What makes these career records remarkable is that they include every season in professional baseball of every level—so that, for instance, one may find the record (as complete as exists) of Smoky Joe Wood’s 1907 season with Hutchinson, KS, of the Western Association. The book’s greatest strength is the inherent drama of its concept. Even the stories one knows draw the reader in, while the stories which are new can be positively fascinating. It is here, especially, that the book shines, introducing readers to characters such as Hal Trosky and Ewell Blackwell, Vean Gregg and Pete Reiser, of whom they may have been only dimly aware but who truly could have been baseball immortals under different circumstances. It enriches one’s sense of the game to know that Paul Dean was more than just that no-hitter, or to realize that Pete Reiser deserves his reputation as a great talent cut short by his own recklessness. Unfortunately, this work’s greatest weakness is its apparent inability to take its greatest strength seriously: it is simply far too short. For 18 chapters, 17 full profiles andone collection, plus three (!) forewords, one introduction, and one eight-page index, it takes only 248 pages. The shortest chapters, on Thurman Munson, Vean Gregg and Lyman Bostock, stand at a mere nine pages, while the longest, Paul Dean, is only twenty. This results in a lack of detail in several of these chapters which robs the stories of much of their force and leaves the reader feeling somewhat distant; too often the book reads like a newspaper summary rather than a biography, and at points the authors do not take sufficient care to explain the events which they are relating. On Vean Gregg, for instance, I was left uncertain as to what had actually happened to him and why it ended his effectiveness as a pitcher. Some readers may well be content with the brief sketches Pappas and Linkugel provide, but I for one was left wanting much more on most of these players. The book’s other weakness is its lack of analytical depth. This comes out in three ways. In the first place, there is little effort made to put the statistics the authors give us into historical context. For instance, when I look at “Two-Win” Johnny Beazley’s numbers I see that in his one fine season, 1942 with the Cardinals, he pitched 215.1 innings and struck out only 91 while walking 73. In today’s game, these are terrible strikeout ratios which would lead one to expect Beazley to decline—which is to say that his K/BB numbers would make one think that his 2.13 ERA was a fluke, that he wasn’t really that good. Linkugel and Pappas give no hint as to whether these numbers were low for his era or in line with other successful pitchers of the time. It is possible, if the reader is aware that strikeout rates were considerably lower in the ’40s than our own time, to make some mental adjustments, but it would be better if the authors took time to support their case for each of these players by addressing concerns of context. It wouldn’t take much, just one sentence to say that “Beazley’s [or Ferriss’, or Fidrych’s, etc.]” strikeout rates were good for his day”—something along those lines. This points to something broader: while I was not looking for a work of careful sabermetric analysis, I did expect some argument as to why each of these players was great enough to be headed to the Hall of Fame. There isn’t much of that, however. There are points, such as the comparison of Vean Gregg’s first three seasons with those of his exact contemporary Grover Cleveland Alexander, but there are not many; mostly, the authors simply assume that these players were great and were going to be greater, and along the way will point out impressive individual numbers or achievements. For some of these players, such as Smoky Joe Wood, I have no doubt that they had Hall of Fame beginnings, and for others—most notably Hal Trosky—they convinced me fairly easily. Pete Reiser’s one full season is enough by itself to make the case that his collisions kept him from earning his way to Cooperstown. For others of these players, though, they haven’t done enough. To pick on Steve Busby this time, they have me convinced that he was a fine young pitcher whose rotator-cuff injury (due no doubt to the hideous workloads Jack McKeon gave him at ages 23-25, but the authors do not address that) robbed the Royals of a talented 1A-2A workhorse, but they have offered me no reason to agree that a full career would have put him in the Hall. Their only argument is the enthusiasm of those around him for what a good pitcher he was. Ultimately, the authors’ lack of analysis shows in this way, that they offer too many players for whom their premise, that injury blocked the way to the Hall, does not convince. The two players whose careers were ended by their premature deaths make good examples of this. Of Thurman Munson, Linkugel and Pappas admit that had he lived his knees would have forced him to quit catching; what they do not seem to realize is that his bat would never have been good enough to get him in the Hall at any other position except shortstop, and that he was in the middle of his second consecutive mediocre season with the bat when he died. These two facts indicate that even had he lived, Munson probably could not have played much longer, certainly not enough to amass Hall-of-Fame numbers. As for Lyman Bostock, he died at his peak having had only one truly good season. He looks to me much like one of his successors in the Angels’ outfield, Garret Anderson, whom even his admirers will concede will never enter Cooperstown without a ticket. Besides Bostock and Munson, the authors’ selections of Beazley, Fidrych and Busby also seem to me to be questionable. So is Puckett, not because he doesn’t belong in the Hall but because his injury is unlikely to keep him out. By contrast, there are other players treated in the last chapter who might well have deserved chapters of their own. I would have liked to see the case made for Dennis Leonard, Mel Parnell and Ernie Broglio (yes,that Ernie Broglio), and perhaps Karl Spooner, on the pitching side; or Joe Hauser, Ray Grimes, Charlie Hollocher and Johnny Hodapp for the hitters. For that matter, I might suggest Charlie Keller and Steve Blass as candidates. The fact that I have these suggestions to offer, and players in the book to challenge, is in part a criticism, but it is also in the end the reason to buy the book. They Tasted Glory is, as far as I am aware, the first serious look at the potential greats whose careers were wrecked by circumstance; if it is currently the only such book, it should not be for long. In the flurry of debates over who should be in the Hall of Fame, we should make room for those who should have been. Linkugel and Pappas have begun that discussion with an interesting book which should be supplemented and expanded, but which above all should be read. They Tasted Glory may be available for purchase on the net at one of these sites. --The Ancient Mariner, March 15, 1999 |
