Secure The End Of Baseball Prepared By Peter Schilling Jr. Presented As File

loved this book.

An alternative history of the integration of baseball, The End of Baseball brings back an era when baseball was truly America's game, still being played in segregated leagues and seedy ballparks, followed in print newspapers, radio broadcasts and wartime transmissions to troops at war in Europe.


Peter Schilling's baseball knowledge is deep with research and appreciation, He reimagines events and invents new ones, placing real historical figures such as Bill Veeck and Kennesaw Mountain Landis in conflict, as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and less wellknown Negro League on an allblack team race for the American League pennant.
Baseball fans will find themselves consulting references to separate fact and history from fiction and plausible speculation, but the pleasures of this novel don't rely on inside baseball knowledge.


The story flows at a good pace and builds to the very end, as sports novels must, yet like the game, The End of Baseball takes time to stretch and look around.
Despite the The End of Baseball's larger social themes, Schilling never preaches, He writes straightforwardly, like a good historian, tucking in the telling details that bring the times to life,

If you don't care for baseball, buy this book anyway and give it to a friend who does, It's a gift. The idea of an alternative history of integration starring Bill Veeck was intriguing, but ultimately I only liked the book, The writing is nicely evocative of the World War II era, with Veeck as a manic and larger than life type of person, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the villain trying to thwart him.
Schilling bends history left and right but for me that felt fine, I liked not knowing what would happen, The story, however, is slow and the end fizzled, I'm a fan of baseball books fiction or non fiction, I also love books that portray alternate history, So with that in mind this book, which tells the story of what would have happened if the baseball colour barrier was broken inby a full team of historical players from the relevant era, should have been a great read.
But it just didn't work for me, The author takes too many historical liberties with players character and behaviours, . and at times I found those liberties distasteful I'd rather read an accurate historical account of the Negro Leagues or one of the books iconic characters like Bill Veeckj, Roy Campanella or Josh Gibson.
Picked up at a library book sale and read because I'm gearing up for the season to start by reading any and all baseballthemed books I have handy.


It was a little weird to read about real players and other folks in such a fictionalized way, but I enjoyed it.
Hungry for a pennant, young Veeck jettisons the team's white players and secretly recruits the legendary of the Negro Leagues, fielding a club that will go down in baseball annals as one of the greatest ever to play the game.
Another book I really wanted to be great that is merely good, It really needed to be longer, There are a lot of characters in this book and some of them get a short shrift, One character in particular that comes in late, He is nothing more than a uniform that plays well, I'm not even sure he has a speaking part,

I was disappointed by the portrayal of Satchell Paige, From what I have read when he made it to the major leagues he toned down his Satchell Paige act and concentrated on showing the world he belonged in big league baseball.
In this book he behaves like he's barnstorming around the country, I found that to be a false portrayal of the man,

The center of this book and the most rounded character is Bill Veeck, He is the heart of and soul of the book, He's driven, smart, funny and fallible, Veeck and his partner Sam Dailey are the two most realized and living characters in the novel, Scenes that contain the two can sometimes be so good that other scenes, often involving the players, pale in comparison,

Other reviewers have mentioned that some of the baseball scene are unrealistic, and they are, Unrealistic in, I think, a purposeful way, I think the writer was trying to create a mythic season mixed with realistic characters and he doesn't quite get there.


If you enjoy a good baseball novel then you will enjoy this book even if, like me, you find it a little uneven.
According to baseball lore, a flamboyant investor/owner named Bill Veeck tried to purchase the Philadelphia Phillies in, planning to staff the team entirely with from the Negro League this was back in the days when baseball was racially segregated.
Veeck claimed that Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis refused to allow him to buy the team, But what if it had happened

Everyone knows the names of Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Ty Cobb, Lou Gherig, But fewer know Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, "Cool Papa" Bell, Buck Leonard, Martín Dihigo all of them in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
What if you were able to sign those guys every bit as fantastic as the better known white players and sometimes more so and play them on a single team Would they win Could they lose

That's the premise behind this book that Veeck had compiled a team of some of the greatest Negro League baseball players for the Philadelphia Athletics in.
It seemed like a surefire way to success, . . except it's not that simple, Racism is a big part of the story the difficulties Veeck faces with Judge Landis, other teams, fans at home and around the league.
I enjoyed the beginning as the team is coming together, and was reminded of Kadir Nelson's beautifully illustrated We Are the Ship, which I continually referenced to remember names.
The middle, however, had almost no action and the realistic problems faced by the team were no fun reading whatsoever, I quit reading it for a while but eventually came back to it, and the lastpages or so were much more exciting as the season winds down.


There's not a lot of playaction in the book, and what there is is very episodic, The men are portrayed as foulmouthed and gritty, which is presumably realistic, Nonetheless, you can't help but cheer for them and hope for their success, It's just a "what if," but if you can get through the middle, the ending is pretty good, Lots of twists and turns, some expected, some not, Some plausible, some not. Perhaps more fantasy than fiction, but still an enjoyable read overall, This novel is an alternative story of theMajor League Baseball season the one major twist being that Bill Veeck Jr.
was in this case allowed to purchase the Philadelphia Athletics, and then subsequently stock the roster with Negro League,

The premise is a pretty good one not entirely inconceivable, and in a way it was about to happen three years later with Jackie Robinson.
But in this story it's not just one player it's an entire team, Certainly if anybody was going to be that daring, it would have been Veeck,

I found the story of how the African Americans brought into the league fascinating not a small amount of political capital was spent which in some ways actually happened with theDodgers.
I will say what happened with the existing players was pretty much glossed over,

The problem with alternative histories is that while the premise may be intriguing, oftentimes the story itself wears thin, and that's certainly the case here.
Too many superhero accomplishments I'm looking at you, Martin Dihigo, and I wish the author had spent more time making the statistics at least make sense.
And I'll also say the The End of Baseball's ending left me less than satisfied,

But in the end, a very intriguing read, A Great Alternate Sports History

I found this novel: The End of Baseball on a day spent in Cooperstown.
It was a pity that I did not find it in the Hall of Fame it belongs in their library and bookstore.
Baseball respects its past more than any other American sport, but alternate histories are rare, The End of Baseball is one worth reading, if only for the historical and political scenarios brought forth by the writer.


Written by baseball writer Peter Schilling Jr, The End of Baseball is a “whatif” story that takes place in, Noted promoter Bill Veeck has bought the American Leagues Philadelphia Athletics aka the As and the Negro Leagues Philadelphia Stars he releases the white major leaguers and replaces them with talent from the Negro League roster.
So instead of indoctrinating one of the first black players into the majors, as he did in, Veeck introduces the first allblack major league team.
Its a mix of older Negro Leaguers such as Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Paige, Buck Leonard and Josh Gibson and younger like Martin Dihigo, Roy Campanella and Monte Irvin.
In real life, Veeck said in his autobiography, Veeck As In Wreck, that he wanted to buy the Philadelphia Phillies and stock their roster with black players, but he knew the other owners would not go along with the purchase.


At first, the baseball establishment steps in and cries foul, Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis refused to approve the black players contracts, Fearing hell need to break up the As, he calls Branch Rickey, offering a player in trade, Rickey refuses this is, two years before hell sign Jackie Robinson, but he tells Veeck that the player contracts are valid, so its “play ball” for the As.


What follows are “what if” answers to many questions: How would an allblack team be welcome at home and sitelinkon the road How would politicians react Can team harmony and chemistry be managed What would the lords of baseball do next to derail the roster Would the black players be the best players in the game All of these questions are answered and some of the answers may surprise.
Not only do baseball players, managers

and executives appear in this story, so do President Roosevelt, Walter Winchell and J, Edgar Hoover, who sees the entry of black players in Americas Game as another step towards Communism,

The choice ofas the year for the story was interesting, America is at war and many of the best baseball players are in the service, Roosevelt wants baseball to play on for the sake of national unity and a diversion from the war effort, The armed forces have not been fully desegregated, The owners of the Pirates, Reds, Senators and Yankees also hosted Negro League teams in their ballparks and did not want to lose those revenues, so it was not in their financial interests to see black players reach the majors.


I might have thought that a full roster of black players would also look out for each other, but aside from the political angles and Satchel Paiges on and offfield antics, the As highs and lows were not much different from any other major league team.
Theres wins and losses, players who want to win as well as those who only want a paycheck, The As start from last and take time to build up steam, losing the pennant on the final day of the season.
The ending of the story is even sadder, but it might have been a realistic possibility in those days,

If youre a baseball fan whos also into American History, put The End of Baseball on your shopping list.

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