Helyar has wrought is an exhaustive and somewhat exhausting account of the passage of the major league baseball player from peonage to privilege. But he does have a passion for the game, solid reportorial instincts, a practiced eye and attentive ear, and an ability to give life and humorous edge to a pretty deadly subject. John Helyar lacks the graceful pen and generous vision that informs the very small circle of baseball literary masters. And what humanity has to show for it is a growing heap of pulp.
For as someone remarks in a different context in John Helyar's informative book "Lords of the Realm," whole stands of living timber have been decimated in the process. And when they grow up, writers, being writers, feel compelled to write about baseball. The game casts its spell on many scribblers when their prepubescent vulnerability is greatest.
Books with a baseball theme proliferate with jack-rabbit fecundity. $24.īASEBALL has become America's literary pastime. LORDS OF THE REALMThe Real History of Baseball.By John Helyar.592 pp.
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