We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk about the Game They Loved

THIS IS A MUST READ FOR FANS WHO GREW UP WITH BASEBALL IN THE 50'S AND 60'S. I HAVE READ MANY BOOKS SIMILAR TO THIS ONE AND THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST. YOU CAN READ STORIES BY MANY OF THE GREAT PLAYERS OF THAT ERA LIKE DUKE SNIDER, FRANK ROBINSON, AND ROBIN ROBERTS. THESE GUYS TELL IT LIKE IT WAS THEN AND WHAT THEY THINK OF THE GAME NOW. FORMER COMMISSIONER FAY VINCENT DOES A GREAT JOB WITH THIS COLLECTION OF PRICELESS STORIES AND INTERVIEWS. I ALSO RECOMMEND THIS FOR FANS WHO ARE CURIOUS ABOUT SOME OF THE PLAYERS FROM THE PAST AND HOW THINGS WERE BACK THEN. I WAS VERY EXCITED WHEN I PURCHASED THIS BOOK AND I WAS NOT THE LEAST DISAPPOINTED WHEN I FINISHED IT. HOPEFULLY FAY VINCENT WILL WRITE ANOTHER WITH MORE RECENT PLAYERS, I WILL READ THAT ONE FOR SURE.

I think my father really enjoyed the fact that he could just pick up a story from any spot and read. For baseball fans who were kids and saw these guys play, this is a especially good gift.

There are 11 chapters of interviews with former great Major League baseball players here. Each chapter begins with a short synopsis of the player's career, & the rest of the chapter consists of that player's reminiscing about various facets of his baseball career. The most interesting chapter, to me, was the one involving all-time great Brooklyn Dodgers' CenterFielder, Duke Snider. Other interesting chapters include Ralph Branca, Frank Robinson, Carl Erskine, & Robin Roberts. It's great to hear the player's versions of baseball history. All fans of 1950s & 1960s baseball should own a copy of this book. The title of this book is especially ironic, considering the extended national controversy caused by The Duke in his 1954 Collier's Magazine article, which was shockingly (for the time) about playing baseball for "money," an unspoken truth at that time in history.

Today, with so many players having multi-million dollar contracts, I first looked at this book in the store because of the title. But it turns out to be even more interesting than I thought. It's interviews with a lot of the great players from back in the old days, and it really gives you a sense of what it was like for them personally to be playing the game back in the 50s and 60s. I was especially interested in the three interviews with members of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I grew up hearing a lot about guys like Duke Snider, but to actually read their stories from their point of view gave me a whole new perspective on them. It's not about stats and numbers, but about the personal things that influenced each player's career. Some guys talk about their mothers, others talk about their relationships with their managers, owners or other players. It's the kind of stuff you don't find in history books. I really recommend this book to all baseball fans.

This is a marvelously "put-together" baseball book containing the inner thoughts, dreams and actual accomplishments of eleven former Major League players from the (19)50's and 60's. The reason I say "put-together" rather than written is because this book was created by transcribing videotaped interviews into a manuscript. The author "tried to faithfully record the comments of the interviewees, correcting minor grammatical mistakes and occasional errors caused by the inevitable lapses of memory after several decades." The end result is a "STUNNING" recreation of when "BASEBALL WAS STILL A GAME!" Due to the fact that actual interviews have been transcribed, the reader benefits from this unique protocol and feels as if each player is sharing his personal stories directly with you. The eleven players highlighted in this book include Hall Of Famers Duke Snider, Robin Roberts, Whitey Ford, Harmon Killebrew, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Billy Williams, 1957 World Series MVP Lou Burdette, two time World Champion and thrower of two no-hitters, Carl Erskine, twenty game winner and an eternal historical figure for throwing the pitch that resulted in "The Shot Heard Round The World", Ralph Branca, and "baseball lifer" Bill Rigney. Every one of these elite storytellers takes you back to where their dreams began and how honored they were to achieve their boyhood goals of playing in the Big Leagues. It's hard not to notice the modesty and unpretentious attitudes that these humble stars reveal, which is in sharp contrast to the attitudes and behavior of today's players. There are so many "delicious" intimate details shared with the reader from the clubhouse and the playing field from the glorious years gone by, when baseball truly was "THE NATIONAL PASTIME". It is apparent to the reader that these "yesterday's hero's" are reliving the same joy, sadness, competitiveness, and aching of their days gone by as emotionally as the reader, who is reliving their cherished childhood moments through their hero's. It's refreshing as almost every star points out with dignity teachers, coaches or parents who made a difference in their life even over half a century later. It is also invigorating to see the same fierce blood start to boil as old rivalries or "bad" calls are rehashed. I found one exceptionally telling historical subject that was discussed reverently by ten of the eleven players, and that was Jackie Robinson. The enormous respect that Jackie "EARNED" from all these players on and off the field had not diminished one iota! In fact to me the most powerful emotionally piercing moment in this book, was not about any of the monumental accomplishments of these players, but of the sad regret of one: BILL RIGNEY SAID: "I thought one of the worst things I did or one of the things I didn't do--and I regretted it all my life--is that opening day in the Polo Grounds on the eighteenth of April in '47 when Jackie Robinson hit his first home run. I didn't walk over to