Baseball Boys: Rediscovering 1950s Little League Baseball in Mount Vernon, NY Review
Those who have a longing for baseball nostalgia and remember playing Little League baseball in the 1950s will have a quite a time with Bruce Fabricant's Baseball Boys. More than six decades have passed since youngsters in Mount Vernon, New York donned baseball uniforms for the first time to play in the city's inaugural Little League season. The years disappear as Fabricant rediscovers the first 10 years of Little League baseball in his hometown beginning in 1950. He gives us all the history, a skillful reconstruction of each year bringing exciting pennant races alive. Every Mount Vernon youngster who played Little League ball then is in the book. We meet the league's founding fathers including Mount Vernon native Andy Karl, who set a National League record by pitching 167 innings in relief, a record that stood until 1974. Conversations with Mount Vernonites Ralph Branca and Ken Singleton reveal their experiences growing up on the city's baseball diamonds. Twenty-five men who played Little League ball in the '50s tell first-hand accounts, sometimes hilarious and sometimes tender, of their remembrances. More than 100 photographs capture Little Leaguers from that era. Baseball Boys also gives us the 10 all-time best of the best from that decade, surely a controversial list for any fan. Read more...
