The Cooperstown Chronicles

October 6, 2014
Russo, coauthor of Bury My Heart at Cooperstown: Salacious, Sad, and Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball, celebrates the big personalities of baseball’s past, listing some of the game’s Golden Age rascals and their odd deaths. To start, he names two old-school teams, the original Baltimore Orioles and the Cleveland Spiders, whose fans knew they’d see a good brawl along with the base-running. Star players such as Cap Anson, Ty Cobb, and Enos Slaughter were known for their bigotry and hard-charging attitudes as well as their gifts. The rowdy chapter on hell-raisers spotlights personalities like Terry Larkin, King Kelly, Bob Spade, Mickey Welch, Rabbit Maranville, Casey Stengel, and Mickey Mantle, whose followers loved their antics both on and off the field. His section on pitchers, who threw at the batter’s head despite the rules, rates some cringe-worthy alarm along with a chuckle or two over the acts of mound mayhem. Known as a scholar of baseball necrology, Russo tries to top Hollywood Babylon with unattractive sections on mysterious deaths and unusual resting places. This book will be an odd curio for fans of the national pastime.

October 15, 2014

A number of books dig through box scores and newspaper clippings to bring to light the oddities and weird tales of baseball, but Russo (Bury My Heart at Cooperstown) does a great job of digging past the others in The Cooperstown Chronicles, named after the location of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Russo mentions a few Hall of Famers, but his writing shines when he discusses their lesser-known teammates. Baseball is full of legendary players, Babe Ruth for example, but recounting the lives of more obscure players provides a glimpse of a game filled with men who loved the sport in spite of their own imperfections. The author talks about the Mickey Mantles and Casey Stengels, but also about the player with 41 career at-bats who died tragically of tuberculosis. Some of the stories are dark and even end tragically but overall the book is a celebration of America's pastime and is appropriate for young adults and above. VERDICT Fans of baseball, in particular baseball history, will enjoy this work for the multitude of players (various teams, various years) that are documented in its pages.--Matt Schirano, Magnus Wahlstrom Lib., Bridgeport, CT

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2014
Baseball researcher Russo's latest is a compendium of baseball odd lots, from drinkers to headhunting pitchers to suicides and more. The chapter on beer drinkers and hell-raisers includes a piece on Mickey Mantle's sad demise and another on Silver Flint, a catcher for the pre-1900 Chicago White Stockings. Flint was a tough guy who in his career broke every finger and joint in both hands. He may have taken to drink to ease the pain, but it did him in. He died at 36 a week after his ex-wife found him drunk and living on the street. There are not a lot of happy endings in the book. There are 40 pages dealing with players and former players who committed suicide. But Russo also recounts highlights of his subjects' careers, so there are some lighter moments, and there are great anecdotes from baseball history. Libraries with a limited sports budget may pass on this, but if there is a large, ravenous cadre of hyperserious baseball fans roaming the aisles (Walking Deadstyle), this is the book for which they've been waiting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)