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It is, however, the accounts from the later years and the tales from his famous and infamous Fillmore Auditoriums from insiders such as Jerry Garcia and Eric Clapton that really make this book come alive. They make feel like you were there (or at least wish you were) for many of the most crucial events in the history of Rock and Roll- Altamont, Woodstock, etc... Fantastic for the unabashed music fan!
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This book describes the league's history decade by decade through the late 1980's. It also discusses the PCL's attempt to become the "third major league" in the early 1950's, only to have that dream dashed forever when major league baseball "moved" to California in 1958, and how the league eventually "rebounded" in the 1980's.
The book also talks about some of the PCL's greatest teams, including the 1934 Los Angeles Angels (who some claim was the best minor league team ever), some of the great San Francisco Seals teams, the 1948 Oakland Oaks team, etc.
The book finishes with an extensive section of individual PCL yearly leaders. This book is a fascinating read. Any baseball history and or minor league fans will find it enjoyable.
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This is an excellent book about the history of one of the oldest minor leagues still in existence. But given the date of publication, I wonder if it's time for O'Neal to do an update?
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--Taking Notes
Finally, I got the book home, and, after drawing the shades and closing the blinds, furtively looked inside. A wealth, not of money, but of biographical detail, emerged immediately from the first few pages of text. It became immediately clear that, whatever its political slant, this was a profoundly well-written and researched work. What's more, it painted realistic and, in many cases, quite damning portraits of its 100 plutocratic subjects.
The book orders its collection of mini-biographies according to the wealth of their subjects. Still, the bite-sized pieces are too irresistable to be consumed in a linear manner, and so I found myself jumping from one disciple of mammon to another some chapters away, devouring several at a sitting over a period of many days. I remember the sense of mild surprise that I felt at the time that someone who I have known on a personal level for years had produced something that could truly be appreciated by the greater world (and evidently has been, from the reviews and interviews that have followed).
The reason that this book "only" gets a nine (for me, a 10 would be reserved for a great classic like Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States," and maybe one or two other titles), is my perception that it pulls its punches slightly on some of its more contemporary subjects. The facts are all there, but there is a sense that the kid gloves are on when examining the negative consequences of more recent fortunes, such as Sam Walton's, on the broader community. Walton's Wal-Mart stores, for example, have been criticized as vacuum pumps that suck money out of small communities, destroying local shops that pay decent wages and recycle their earnings to local economies, while offering only low-paying jobs and marginally lower prices in return. The book brushes this aside as "protests from small rivals," and says nothing more on the subject.
Despite these issues, the book remains one of the most informative and interesting ones that I have read. And if the authors' point of view seems to favor, or at least accept, the system that created these Matterhorns of money, that view isn't imposed upon the reader, and there are plenty of facts and figures from which to derive a competing perspective.
--Carl Gunther