Safe by a Mile by Charlie Metro with Tom Altherr

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Safe by a Mile By Charlie Metro with Tom Altherr. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. (529 pp., $29.95 US)

Reviewed by Steven R. Bullock, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Weaving together an intricate array of anecdotes, personal accounts and opinions, Charlie Metro has created a distinctive addition to an al- ready substantial library of baseball history. Associating with characters of such varied backgrounds as Frank Sinatra, Ty Cobb, Robert Redford, Casey Stengel, and Billy Martin, as well as witnessing, in person, every member of the 500 home run club, Metro has obviously experienced a rich and varied life. The central element of this work is undeniably the unique perspec- tive offered by an individual who was employed in professional baseball for nearly fifty years in a variety of capacities by a seemingly infinite num- ber of franchises. Drawing upon his tremendous baseball knowledge, Metro is able to provide the reader with a wealth of information presented in a straightforward fashion. Baseball historians will most likely be struck by the sheer magnitude of the experiences enjoyed by Charlie Metro during his professional career, including his many interactions with legends of the game at either the minor or major league level. The author provides insight into the personal behaviors and characteristics of baseball icons such as Ty Cobb, Mickey Cochrane and Ted Williams. Although the information Metro provides is not extremely controversial or novel to most baseball aficionados, it does lend to a greater understanding of these individuals. The author reinforces, for example, the fact that Ty Cobb did occasionally display generosity de- spite his reputation for anti-social behavior, that Mickey Cochrane was a blatant alcoholic following his retirement from baseball, and that Ted Wil- liams was an intense student and teacher of hitting. Another strength of this book is the author’s keen observations on the state of professional baseball during the past sixty-five years. Those interested in the current debate on the demise of small market franchises, for example, might be interested to read that Metro, who spent the vast majority of his career as a scout and minor league manager, asserts that small market franchises which do not succeed do so because of their own ineptitude in scouting and player development, not because of a lack of financial means. Metro also offers an assessment of professional players today, both individually and as a whole, and provides many interesting

99 100 BOOK REVIEWS analyses. Although not entirely critical of the money players enjoy today, Metro does chastise the modern ball player for being too outspoken and worries whether the desire to win has been replaced by the desire to attain a statistical level necessary for obtaining large contracts. Although strong in most areas, the primary weakness of the book is that the author, at times, tends to overwhelm the reader with cascades of information with no real semblance of order. This lack of fluidity is evident throughout the text in virtually every chapter and can be a bit distracting. Within the span of one page, for example, the author describes a bungled inside-the-park home run, expounds upon the superstitious nature of baseball players, and discusses the difficulty of professional baseball in Mexico (p. 131). Such an array of topics leads inevitably to a jumble of ideas presented to the reader in a seemingly unorganized fashion and makes com- prehension difficult. To be fair, the author does, with several notable ex- ceptions, present the material chronologically and simply seems to have too much to say for the space available. Even though Safe by a Mile is al- ready well over 500 pages, this work could have been substantially ex- panded to allow for more fluid transitions, or judiciously edited for con- tent. Although not a fatal flaw, Metro also occasionally allows his emo- tional attachments towards individuals to distort reality. For example, the author’s treatment of Billy Martin, under whom Metro coached with the Oakland A’s, is very benign; most of Martin’s boorish behavior and alco- hol addiction are overlooked or only touched upon briefly. Overall, how- ever, most readers would enjoy this glimpse of professional baseball through the eyes of one of the most well traveled men in baseball history and, there- fore, should add Safe by a Mile to their personal collections.

The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture. Edited by Christopher H. Evans and William R. Herzog, II. Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. (273 pp., $18.95 US)

Reviewed by Joel S. Franks, San Jose State University.

The title of this fine anthology refers to a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In this scene, Gatsby tells Nick Carraway about Meyer Wolfsheim, “the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919.” Based on the exploits of a real life gambler, Arnold Rothstein, Wolfsheim inspires Carraway to wonder how “one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.” Obviously, America is not the same place it was when Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby. To be sure, if the 2005 World Series turned out to be fixed, American baseball fans would no doubt notice and perhaps even call in