Cool Papas and Double Duties: The All-Time Greats of the Negro Leagues

By William F. McNeil

Book Overview

Many of the great ballplayers of the Negro League have been forgotten simply because baseball's Hall of Fame would not recognize black players until Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige made their way into the Hall of Fame. For this book, more than 50 former Negro League players and baseball historians were asked to vote for players who they believe should have been included in the Hall of Fame, and to select an All-Time Negro League All-Star Team. In addition to presenting and discussing their choices, the book profiles the lives and careers of the players selected. Appendices include rosters of the players and historians who voted.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786422297
• ISBN13: 9780786422296
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 0.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.0" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Informative Look at Top Negro Leaguers

This 2001 book combines biographies of several top Negro League players with a methodical effort to determine which of those stars deserve inclusion into Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Author William McNeil provides brief biographical looks at several talented but slightly second-tier (or less-remembered) players, like Mules Suttles, Biz Mackey, Turkey Stearns, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe (who lived to 103), Newt Allen, etc. He also gathers opinions from experts, historians, and former players, allowing them to rate which players deserve inclusion into the Hall of Fame. As many know, accurately rating Negro Leaguers is made somewhat more difficult due to a shortage of surviving statistical records. Still, the experts do their best, and five years after this book was published the Hall of Fame posthumously welcomed 15 additional players (including Suttles, Mackey, Cristobel Torriente and Ray Brown) plus two Negro League executives. Later in these pages, the experts offer their lists of top overall players, and here one finds many better-known favorites already in the Hall, including Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Satchel Page, Cool Papa Bell, etc. Somehow I'd have preferred fewer expert lists and more biographical information on the players. Still, this book is nicely informative, reminds of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (in Kansas City), and offers information on several less-remembered players.