It’s the 612 page 75th anniversary book on the total membership of the Baseball Hall of Fame through 2014.
This new 612-pages hardback book with sleeve jacket work on all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame through 2014, indeed, is a marvel. And the first marvel that awaits each of us as a matter of personal discovery is: Do you have the strength to lift this book for long, if at all? It weighs eight pounds, twice the weight of our recent Houston SABR work, “Houston Baseball: The Early Years, 1861-1961.” And it’s slightly longer and wider too. Question Number Two on the purely physical level is: If you can lift this book, are you able to find a positioning plan for how you set up the book for readings beyond five minutes? “The Hall” possibly may be the first best-selling baseball book about which no enthused reader ever says, “I couldn’t put it down.”
Couldn’t put it down? To read the hard cover version. you first have to find a way to pick it up.
All kidding aside, the book is available at variable prices and more convenient formats through Amazon – and probably at Barnes & Noble too:
There is another way to get the book by giving. Through 12/31/14, while supplies last, you may choose to acquire “The Hall” as one of two gift incentives with your minimum contribution of $250.00 to the Hall of Fame:
https://community.baseballhall.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=603
The other gift that comes with The Hall donation option is that Baseball Hall of Fame Uncirculated Clad Half-Dollar First Curved Coin in U.S. Mint History.
The Hall includes a forward by Tom Brokaw, two full pages (0ne of text, one of picture) on each member of The Hall from the 1939 opening through this year, 2014. It also includes 35 essays on various subjects by the likes Tommy Lasorda, George Brett, and Joe Morgan. My copy only reached me yesterday, but it looms as veritable feast for our never tiring baseball story eyes. Even if we know many of the biographical facts the book presents, most of us cannot possibly know them all, with the exception of those few who behave as though they do. – No names are necessary here. – You “baseball know-it-alls” know who you are. If you didn’t admit to same, you would have to turn in your know-it-all badge at the door.
Grover Cleveland Alexander
Here’s an example of a fact about the great Grover Cleveland Alexander that many of you may already know. Did you know that when Alexander broke into baseball as a hurler for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1911 that his 28 wins that season set a modern rookie record for the most wins ever registered by a first year pitcher in his initial season? That’s “for true.” You can look it up.
As soon as I resolve a book positioning plan, I’m looking forward to reading this whole big book from cover to cover.
The Pecan Park Eagle chooses to close with a suggestion to the Hall of Fame: For the sake of manageability and continuity of the great idea placed in motion here by “The Hall”, why not convert this same book data in 2015 to a series of smaller hard covered books that are easier to handle – and then follow up every five to ten years with the same format on the new members that come in next. For example, a book in 2020 that covered all new inductees from 2014 to 2020 would be smaller, but it would be the HOF’s signature on the continuity plan for making this information useful and completely to collectors who wish to build their own always growing home libraries on The Hall in complete updated form.
In the meanwhile, this big book version of “The Hall” is cool. You will never have to worry about some street punk snatching it out of your hands. In the first place you are not likely to be carrying it around with you and, if you are, and a thief does grab it from you, he won’t get far. He’s bound to drop “The Hall” in the first 25 running-away steps that he desperately takes away from you.
Tags: The Hall - a new book on all the members of the Baseball Hall of Fame through 2014.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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