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Monthly Archives: September 2011
Combination in the Mining Industry by Henry Raymond Mussey: a short review
A great book, written as a Columbia doctoral dissertation. Mussey’s contention is that market forces consistently forced prices down on Great Lakes iron ore over the course of the nineteenth century, which inevitably led to high capital outlays and in turn led to consolidation on the ranges and domination of the mining industry by the steelmakers. It logically ought, he argued, to lead to complete domination by a single firm, though he retreats from that conclusion.
A Freewheelin’ Time by Suze Rotolo: a review
This book’s about the Village in the sixties, and about Suze Rotolo’s youth. Since Bob Dylan was important to both, this memoir talks a lot about his early career, but even that’s usually more about the Dylan/Rotolo relationship than about Dylan’s work. And that’s OK. If this were any other author, looking back at that time and place, we’d expect lots of context and little Dylan. Here we’ve got Rotolo doing something similar.
Posted in Bookworm Alley, Musicks
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Baseball Research Journal (1972) by Bob Davids: a review
The best articles give some clues about SABR’s strengths. Joe Simenic tells about finding biographical details for a player listed in the encyclopedias as Claude Gonzzle–turns out he was really Gouzzie, and the details of the discovery are interesting. Arthur Ahrens offers some solid research on the history of major league game attendance. And John Coates wrote short biographies of a dozen or so then-still-living Negro League stars.
Posted in Baseball CrankSpace, Bookworm Alley
Tagged baseball research journal, sabr
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Ed Barrow by Daniel Levitt: a review
While this is primarily a biography, the book features the author’s enormous research effort about the way baseball’s conditions and working rules changed over the course of Barrow’s career. This is important because Barrow was constantly adjusting his work to accommodate those conditions and rules. It’s valuable because I’ve not seen a similar effort by any author.
The Numbers Game by Alan Schwarz: a review
Schwarz begins at the beginning, with the New York game’s box scores and Henry Chadwick’s long reign as baseball’s preeminent statistician and commentator. He touches at least briefly on most of the 20th century baseball statistical efforts, both official and unofficial. Al Munro Elias gets a chapter, which moves into the modern era and Seymour Siwoff’s long Elias Bureau incumbency. Bill James, of course, gets his due, as do Pete Palmer and John Thorn. Many lesser efforts are mentioned; my biggest surprise was learning that Harland Mills is quite famous for his computer industry career. Late in the book is a lot of discussion about how sabermetrics has moved into baseball’s front offices, not without controversy and not without problems.
Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker: a short review
Sort of a steampunk version of Robert Heinlein’s story Gulf. It’s got pretty much the same story line and raises the same moral issues. Very bloody, by the way.