This is an incredible reference, especially for uniforms. The pictures and detail are amazing, and you can generally tell what people thought was real, and what people did not from looking at the prices. The attention to detail in the descriptions is really helpful in identifying stuff today. I wish there were more photos, and sometimes I wish there was an acknowledgement of some of the controversey surrounding some of the items. I really am in awe of the folks who put together this beautiful book, and the incredible pictures. I think this is a great starting point for anyone collecting seriously.

Only one word describes the catalog set.....INCREDIBLE. As a life-long baseball fan, collector, dealer, etc, this set of catalogs, pictures in beautiful crystal clear color, many of the artifacts of America's National Pasttime. Many people were upset at Halper for breaking this collection up. Contratry to that opinion, I believe breaking the collection up allowed SO many people to share in the history of the game. Five million dollars worth of collectibles were purchased by MLB for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Twenty two million dollars worth were auction in the Sotheby's auction and an unknown amount on amazon.sothebys.com. These catalogs contain relics from every facet of the game......baseball cards dating back to the 1880's.....team and individual photos dating back even farther.....uniforms, bats, balls, gloves from nearly every hall of famer......personal trophies like triple crown, Cy Young, MVP and so much more. Nowhere will you find such a book that illustrates why Baseball is woven through the fabric of America than this catalog. The lot descriptions are carefully crafted to be both a history lesson and a thought (and pocketbook) provoking snapshot of baseball. Never again will there be such a collection amassed. No one has the access to players and probably the funds to acquire such a collection....you get a glimpse at everything important about baseball. Everything good about baseball.....you forget about the strike of 1994, you forget about the high paid cry babies of today and remember the guys that played the game for one reason.....the love of the game. There was team loyalty, work ethics, and so much more that baseball and America as a whole is sometimes seriously lacking today. Spend the bucks.....you won't regret it......

Well, I may never make the trip to Cooperstown but this book may substitute for that trip for the time being. What a wonderful collection of baseball memorabilia! There are things that are here that I never knew existed. A lot of the things such as advertising or toys show the true impact that baseball has had on American culture. Mr Halper is a true lover of baseball and this catalog was also put together carefully with a lot of love and very meticulously. This makes a great reference book (I use it to help verify authenticity of autographs) and fascinating reading. There's even a picture of what may be the first baseball ever made.

Born and raised in Brooklyn USA...Golenbock's "Bums" is the best book I've read on my dear Dodgers...The quotes from former members of the team are outstanding and offer a direct insight how the players felt about management, other players and especially the fans..I've re-read it about ten times..Great to pick up when one is a "how I miss my team" mode....Get it! You'll enjoy it and treasured it.

The strength of this book lies in the first-hand accounts given by the players, executives, and fans that made the Dodgers franchise what it was. It is around these accounts that the book is built, and there is nothing more fascinating than hearing contemporaries reminisce about Campy or the Duke. This moves the book away from journalism and makes it something deeply personal. A must-have for any fan of the game, and especially of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

super oral history of one of baseballs most fabled franchises. great insights into the inner workings of the baseball organization and front office, as well as player interviews which reveal the real people and lives of the players and fans of "dem bums"

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves baseball and wants to learn more. This book gives you a lot of different ways to improve your mental and physical aspects of hitting. It is a great nonfiction book; there is really nothing wrong with this book because everything is pretty important information.

Very thorough and detailed book on the art of hitting. I had never heard of Bernardo Leonard before purchasing this book, but it becomes apparent as you start reading that the guy knows his stuff. By the way, who better to teach hitting than someone who struggled themselves. Enjoy!

your kid will ask you why you didn't hit 70 hr's when you were younger...but seriously ...learn GOOD form here...if you want your kid to hit like a pro...teach him right...or if you've been going 0for...this should help

If you're looking for an entertaining, informative book about New England's favorite team, you've found the right book! Loaded with hundreds of interviews with players, managers, and even a few devoted fans who saw the action from the stands at Fenway, this book tells the story of the triumphs and near-victories...and the bitter, heart wrenching defeats. Yet through it all, a sense of optimism for the future remains, as Red Sox fans cling to the annual mantra "wait till next year."

Excellent job of explaining the most important fundamentals succintly with inspiring mental approach to the game. Great large format pictures accompany the text. Advanced topics include details on the two strike stroke, practical reasons for a hitchless compact swing, and other useful "insider" tips. Text should be easy to read by any player 12+.

Teammates

Teammates is about 2 men named
Pees wee Reese and Jackie Robinson. Both of them were baseball players on the same
Team called the dogers. Pee wee
Reese was white and Jackie rob-
Inson was black. They were both
Friends and helped each other out. The players on their team
Came mostly from the south, men
Had been taught to avoid black
People since childhood. They moved to another table
Whenever Jackie sat down next
To them. Many opposing players
Were cruel to Jackie, calling him mean names from their
Dugouts. A few tried to hurt
Him with their spiked shoes.
It was bad for Jackie. Pitchers
Aimed for his head, and he
Received threats on his life,
Both from individuals and from
Oramizations like the Ku Klux
Klan. Jackie avoided all of it,
And made the team. Jackie and
Pee wee became really great
Friends and baseball legends.

This book teaches you alot about how blacks were treated back in the day. When Jackie Robinsion was signed to the Dodgers the fans and players treated him really badly. People threw stuff at him. Then a young teammate stood up for him and saved him from being ban from the team. So you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

A simple telling of how Jackie Robinson came to play in the major leagues, this book portrays the prejudice he faced in a basic way that children can understand. And it shines a bright light on a quiet moment: PeeWee Reese's brave public declaration of solidarity with his teammate. This book has been my son's favorite for the past two years, since he was five.

Each chapter is a separate story about one of NASCAR's heroes. The book does a great job of staying accurate, down to the improper grammer of the quoted person doing the story telling! A fun and informative look at how NASCAR built itself up to what it is today.

At first, I was hesitant to pick up this book, as Golenbock is not exactly one of the most popular names in NASCAR writing. His last work on NASCAR - American Zoom - was filled with glaring errors and misinformation about the history of the sport. However, after sitting and reading merely a few pages from The Last Lap (...), I could tell this book was much different. Golenbock tells the history of NASCAR from a driver's standpoint instead of merely describing races and race results. Each era of racing is related to a different driver. He also tells the stories of several lesser known drivers who happened to have lost their lives prematurely. If you are a racing fan, I recommend this book. If you don't like racing, you may get curious after reading about the escapades of Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly. It is my personal opinion that you do not have to be a fan of NASCAR to enjoy this book.

Peter Golenbock has captured the true face of NASCAR. He interviewed old time racers and their families to give you a look at what there lives where like. Stories about Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, Tim Flock, Maurice Petty and many others capture your attnetion for hours. This book is an absolute must have for any true NASCAR fan.

I'm a Mets fan who grew up in a household that cheered for the Other Team, and before I was ten years old, I had memorized the starting lineup of the 1961 Yankees. Reading the definitive work on the most successful championship run in baseball history (9 World Series titles and 14 American League pennants in 16 years) did not cause me to break out in hives. Besides which, I read "Dynasty" simply as preparation for the author's forthcoming book on the Amazin's.

Lawyer-turned-baseball-writer Golenbock is celebrated for his oral histories of, among other teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. He's also written some less-than-memorable books, but "Dynasty" was his first, a deeply-researched labor of love which brings us the highlights of the 16 years when the Bronx Bombers humiliated the rest of the baseball world and shattered nearly every record in the book. Golenbock, writing in the mid-1970s, travelled all over the country to meet the players and reconstruct a bygone era. This project, then, did two things: it produced a worthy, important book; and allowed him to avoid watching the less stellar team of the day, then playing in Shea Stadium with the likes of Elliot Maddox, Fritz Peterson, and Fred Stanley.

Each chapter in the book treats a single year in the dynasty. The "story" of that season -- from the inevitable 9-22 record in spring training through the inevitable World Series victory over the Dodgers -- is interrupted for lengthy biographies of 3 or 4 of the pivotal players on that year's club. Golenbock catches up with everyone, from Mantle and Ford to Bob Grim, Tom Sturdivant, and Ryne Duren.

The best interviews in the books are with the spikiest subjects -- a world-weary Roger Maris, sitting on the hood of a truck parked outside Clete Boyer's bar; a matured Sturdivant wondering what might have been had he tried hard; and the bitter, bitter Joe Pepitone. In addition are memorable anecdotes about bruising bench-warmer Johnny Lindell, and general manager George Weiss's penurious contract negotiations. Jim Bouton is also interviewed, so if you haven't read _Ball Four_ there's a good fifteen-page summary of what he wrote earlier (and a spooky interjection by his soon-to-be ex-wife, predicting his late-'70s comeback with the Atlanta Braves).

A word about statistical accuracy: Ths is a book about Heroes, and it was written before the first Baseball Abstract. If you don't like generalizations in your statistics, if you don't want to hear about .260-hitting "team players" and guys who "know how to win when it counts", or read phrases like "He didn't have many hits, but they were all clutch hits", then for you, the definitive book on the Yankee dynasty has not yet been written. From a stats analysis, there may have been less to these world-beating Yankees than meets the eye. But they still won 14 pennants in 16 years.

Overall, lacking the sheer scope of _Bums_ or _Fenway_, but if the Mantle-Maris-Berra-Billy Martin Yankees still mean anything to you, this is the first book to read.

Dynasty is Golenbock's finest baseball book, and he has written many, especially in this format. (See Wrigley, Fenway etc.) What makes this book special is that it profiles in a year-by-year format the greatest era of the New York Yankees, alternating between detailing each season and also profiling many of the greats (and not so greats). This book is still fresh, but was written when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were still alive, so he was able to interview both. Also, many lesser lights are profiled, from Tom Sturdivant to Clete Boyer to Andy Carey. The whole setting revolves around the grandeur of Yankee Stadium, the presence of Casey Stengel, and baseball dominance which might never be seen again. I didn't find the book to be totally perfect, but it is still one of the better baseball books. For some reason I enjoy his section on the 1958 World Series the best; the Yankees were down 3 games to 1 and had to deal with the hostility of the Milwaukee crowd, and they managed to come back in style and win the World Series again. There are many exciting moments in this book, you can just see the shadow across the field on a late afternoon in October.

"Dynasty" is a solid, linear, year by year (one year=one chapter) account of the great post World War 2 New York Yankees baseball teams. It does not, to its credit, lose itself in game by game recapping. It is far stronger, in this reviewer's opinion, than Roger Kahn's "The Boys of Summer", which dealt with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the same era. Kahn frequently intruded into the story, with personal opinions and observations. Golenbock, to his further credit, writes as a good unbiased reporter, rarely encroaching into the text. The author is an excellent interviewer who was quite able to gather the cooperation of his subjects. Unlike Mr. Kahn, he never covered the Yankees daily for a newspaper but this detracts in no way from the story. The players shine through very clearly, thanks in large measure to the solid interviews. Golenbock does not concentrate on the big stars, as did Roger Kahn. He instead draws in men like Ryne Duren, Johnny Blanchard, Joe Pepitone, Ralph Terry, Tom Sturdivant and Bob Grim, So many of these guys, we now remember, had such a brief time in the sun before fate or injuries ended their careers or reduced them to mediocrity. Did Mr. Kahn interview Rube Walker, Erv Palica or Bobby Morgan? Thanks to poignant talks with Terry, Blanchard and Clete Boyer we are treated to an inside look at the front office politics/ backstabbing that led to Ralph Houk "ascending" to the General Managers chair, being rapidly succeeded by Yogi Berra, Johnny Keane and Houk himself again! Very little mud is thrown around, with the exception of Houk. Here is a "nice guy" exposed as a smoke blowing scoundrel, who made guys like Tommy Tresh play hurt.I never did like the Major, war hero or not. Now I know why. The office politics behind the dismissals of veteran broadcasters Mel Allen and Red Barber are also covered.There are few "Ball Four" revelations in "Dynasty" and there is no need for such. This book can stand on its own two feet! There are perpetual, if minor, weaknesses. 1)"Dynasty", as do so many publications, cries out for an editor and fact checker. I attended or watched on several of the games retold here and have a VASTLY differing recollection of events (i.e.: that crucial September '61 doubleheader (!) showdown with the Tigers and Frank Howard's 450 foot ground rule (!) double off Whitey Ford in Game 1 of the '63 series. That one was right under my nose! Was the author there?) 2) Contradictions are found often: In many years can Andy Carey be a rookie? 3) Some non-baseball facts (a Roger Kahn specialty) are "misalligned". Country singer Charley Pride is confused with Charley Rich (!), and two Vietnam War timelines (Kahn again) are flatly incorrect. For the record, the two Tonkin Gulf destroyers were the Maddox and C. Turner Joy. Finally, a wimpy two page epilogue tries to "connect the dots" from the post WW2 "DYNASTY" to the Steinbrenner "dynasty". Such comparisons are unfair and derogatory to both. This should not detract from the larger picture, since "Dynasty" is a large picture effort. These criticisms do not detract from 560 solid pages of research, interviewing and writing. "Dynasty" belongs on the bookshelf of any serious New York baseball fan. Any fan of a "certain age" is absolutely cheating him/herself by not reading it. Christmas is coming fast. In baseball terms, here is a "can't miss prospect" as a stocking stuffer.

A well written book that I could not put down. From Ernies days at Stockton up to the present. Reading the parts about the accident at Michigan and what he and his wife Kim went through to return to racing, brought tears to my eyes. Not just reading for Ernie fans but for NASCAR fans everywhere. 5 Stars +

As an avid race fan, I was immediately hooked from the first page and in fact, read the entire book in one evening. I was particularly pleased that it was written in easy to understand, everyday language, thereby making it a book, many people of all education levels would enjoy. The recovery of the driver was a miracle and his recovery remarkable. I enjoyed reading of the business conflicts because too many of us envision the drivers as living a life of Utopia. I was glad to hear that even Nascar drivers worry about house payments. I was too busy reading to care about misspelled words.

Once I started reading this book it was painful to put it down. It reads as if Ernie was right there talking to you.

Ernie's writing comes straight from the heart. His insights into the racing world are wonderful. But what will really capture your heart are his inspiring views of family, friends, and just life in general!

If you are looking for a book with great insight into one driver's experiences with sponsors, teams, and fellow racers, without all the sugar coating and pre-written victory speeches, then READ THIS BOOK! I plan on reading it again soon!

I heartily recommend all of Mr. Golenbock's works, Wrigleyville as well as Bums and Fenway. The author shares my passion for the greatest game ever invented, and it is especially heartening that he chose to write about the Cubs. This book shares much of its content with many recent epics about baseball, such as Ken Burns' Baseball, and Our Game by Charles C. Alexander. The relatively recent trend in emphasizing baseball's traditions and history render this book to be judged as a nice find; but if it weren't for the above mentioned books, it would be a treasure. Unlike the above mentioned books, however, the author has chosen a topic that forces him to look away from developments that occurred on the East Coast. I understand that baseball was invented pretty much on the East Coast, and a substantial portion of its history evolved there. But one thing I found maddening about Ken Burns' masterwork was the notion that New York City was the Sun which all the other baseball planets revolved around. Mr. Golenbock, as well, chose first to write about New York and Boston teams. It is to his credit that he has shown the same love and passion in his chronicling of Cubs history, which is every bit as long, involved, and passionate as Dodger or Red Sox history. As I noted above, there is very little attention paid to recent times...as any Cub fan knows, there has been very little to cheer about for the last half century. The author does a admirable job in analyzing the transition from William Wrigley, a baseball man, to his son Phillip, a gum man, and the long term harm on the franchise. I just wish he could have went one step further, to similarly dissect the "cost-benefit" approach the Tribune Company has used since it took over in 1981.

Being a baseball fan but not necessarily a Cubs fan, I was a little worried that I might not enjoy this book. But you soon find yourself captured in the history of the Cubs organization. Much of the "corporate" attitude that the Cubs front office holds today was started well before many of us were born. The book is a great historical record of not only the Cubs, but of Major League Baseball itself. Every baseball purist would love this book and it's a must read for any die-hard Cub fan.

As a life-long Cub fan, I always wanted this book. I finally got it for Christmas a couple years ago and had it finished in 3 days. I was lost in this book, from the early days of the White Stockings, right up to the Ryne Sandberg era. I saw the updated version at a bookstore and had to have it. I've read it countless times, but I always anticipate what's up ahead. Peter Golenbock did a tremendous job!