Beyond the Shadow of the Senators
Posted by Rhubarb_Runner on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 5:00 am
[contributed by: Dread Pirate Will Young]
Beyond the Shadow of the Senators
by Brad Snyder
Copyright © 2004 by McGraw-Hill
paperback, 432 pages
About the Author: Brad Snyder is a 1999 graduate of Yale Law School and a 1994 graduate of Duke University. Snyder's next book, A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports, will be published by Viking/Penguin in October 2006. See here for more information on Snyder.
- - - - - - - - - -
About Beyond the Shadow of the Senators:
Brad Snyder’s Beyond the Shadow of the Senators tells an excellent tale of Negro League baseball in the decades preceding Jackie Robinson. Focusing on Washington, D.C.’s Homestead Grays and the community surrounding them, Snyder’s book contrasts the sad-sack Senators with the champion Grays and explores the difficult issues that surrounded the segregation of the sport in the 1930s and ‘40s.
Beyond the Shadow of the Senators brings stories of several Negro league players to life, notably Buck Leonard, the Homestead Grays’ Hall of Fame first baseman. Snyder follows Leonard’s path from his childhood in North Carolina, where he helps his mother raise three younger siblings, to the Negro leagues, where he hoped to raise more money for the family. After failing to catch on with several other teams, Leonard became an anchor for the Homestead Grays. The book chronicles his time with the team, much of which he spent as second fiddle to flashier teammates such as Josh Gibson. In fact, the parallel between Leonard and the Yankees’ Lou Gehrig was noted by many baseball observers, who characterized both as reliable players who consistently produced without calling attention to themselves.
For the rest of Will's review, see here at BaseballThinkFactory.
- - - - - - - - - -
Personal notes:
- [ED] I found this tidbit about Clark Griffith interesting. Calvin didn't fall far from the (adopted) tree.
Please drop an email to SBGLibrary (at) hotmail (dot) com if you have a suggestion or a submission for the SBG Library.
Looking to buy this book? Click here: Beyond the Shadow of the Senators
Loading ...
I still wish the Nats would have picked "Grays" for their DC-relocation name. (Although I did want them to be the DC Expos for one year, like the Tennessee Oilers).
Would be nice to have a Negro-league team (at least in name) now in the Majors.
I don't recall ever hearing any opposition to that idea. Were there any arguments against 'Grays'? or did it just lose out in the name selection process?
I'm with you, it would have been neat to have that nod to history in the league.
The Grays were easily the most popular name amongst DC fans in the winter of '04. However, it was clear from the very, very, very beginning that Bud was a "Nats" guy. I remember a fan poll from the Washington Post in which the Grays got about 50%, the Nationals about 15%, the Senators about 10%, and then the rest of the field (like the Filibusters) about 25%.
It would have been a very classy move as well as a PR bonanza. W. Grays would have been a huge selling jersey. HUGE. Heck, I might have bought one. All of which makes it easy to understand why Buddha didn't go with it.
Thanks, Will, for your review, and I encourage you to go to BTF and read his full review. Good work.
Absolutely -- thanks Will. I didn't want to pull your full review from BTF to here, so hopefully you're happy with how I ended up formatting it for you.
That said, Brad Snyder (like Jim Thielman earlier) has a nice site set up to support the book, and I encourage you to prowl around there for a while as well.
Here's an interview I had with Brad Snyder about the book from a few years ago. He actually came and spoke in a Sociology of Sports course I was taking, and he was so knowledgeable about his subject that I had to run out and buy this book. He apparently also gave a presentation at the most recent SABR convention a few weeks ago.
Nicely done, Will. I look forward to reading this one.