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Cooperstown Confidential (Hardcover) product details page

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Cooperstown Confidential (Hardcover)

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The first book to draw back the veil on the Hall of Fame, combining an insider8217;s history of the Hall and its players with a consideration of baseball8217;s place in culture.

The National Baseball H all of Fame is the holiest institution in American sports. It8217;s not just a place to honor great athletes. It8217;s where America8217;s pastime announces to the world what it is and what it wants to be. It8217;s not just a sports museum; it8217;s a mirror of American culture. As Zev Chafets points out, it8217;s no coincidence that the first black Hall of Famer, Jackie Robinson, was inducted in 1962, at the height of the civil rights movement. Or that the Hall is now planning a wing to honor Latino players. For a hundred years, the story of the Hall of Fame has been deeply tied up with the story of America.

For the first time, this book shows the inner workings of the Hall: the politics, the players, and the people who own and preserve it. From the history of the founding Clark family to a day on the town with the newly inducted Goose Gossage, from the battle over steroids to the economics of induction and secret campaigns by aspiring players, this is a highly irreverent and highly entertaining tour through the life of an American institution. For anyone who cares about baseball, this is essential reading.

Zev Chafets, best known for his reporting on the Middle East, explores the hidden policies of discrimination which guard the gates of the most beloved sports shrine in America, the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Chafets particularly emphasizes the role which race has historically played in the selection process, which is conducted by a predominantly white collection of baseball writers, and examines the murky "character clause," a loophole which voters have employed to justify excluding players like "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Dick Allen, and Pete Rose, and will likely be again invoked as players from the "steroid era" of baseball become eligible for election.

  • Genre: Sports + Recreation
  • Subgenre: Baseball / General
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
  • Pages: 237
  • Language: English
  • Format: hardcover
  • Release Date: July 1, 2009
  • Date Published: July 1, 2009
  • Author: Zev Chafets
  • This item qualifies for free shipping when you spend $50 on qualifying items., offer details.

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  • Return Method: This item can be returned to any Target store or Target.com.
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  • We regret that this item cannot be shipped to PO Boxes.
  • Estimated Ship Dimensions: 9.5 inches length  x 6.5 inches width  x 1.25 inches height 
  • Estimated Ship Weight: 1.05 pounds

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  • Online Item #: 11546360
  • Store Item Number (DPCI): 247-00-7789
  • ISBN: 9781596915459
  • Item can be gift wrapped.
  • Made in the USA or Imported

Reviewer: Glenn Speer, (Los Angeles Times)

"Chafets renders a very interesting history of the hall going back to the beginnings of baseball....[H]e gives a very fair and critical view of the hall, recalling the tribute not only to the game, but some of the more unsavory characters who were admitted..."

Reviewer: Allen Barra, (Philadelphia Inquirer)

"COOPERSTOWN CONFIDENTIAL is bold, intelligent and gutsy. [A]s veteran journalist and novelist Zev Chafet proves..., the...Hall of Fame is more like a repository of everything baseball would like to forget."

Book Subgenre : Baseball / General
Item Type - Electronics. : Books
Format : hardcover
Pages : 237
Language : english
Publisher : Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
Book Genre : Sports + Recreation

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